Pedro Armillas

Pedro Armillas Garcia (9 September 1914 – 11 April 1984) was Spanish academic anthropologist, archaeologist, and an influential pre-Columbian Mesoamerica scholar of the mid-20th century. As an archaeologist he was known both for his fieldwork and excavations at numerous sites in central and northern Mexico, and his contributions in archaeological theory. His study of how Mesoamerican agriculture and subsistence modes of production influenced the development of Mesoamerican cultures was a pioneering one, and he was one of the earliest to investigate pre-Columbian irrigation and hydraulic systems.

Armillas was born on 9 September 1914 in San Sebastián, Spain. In 1932 he received a bachelor's degree from the Instituto Balmes in Barcelona. With the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War he joined the Loyalist forces but upon their defeat left Spain for Mexico.

In Mexico he was a land surveyor and associated with the Tzeltal people. Armillas later taught at Mexico City's anthropological institute.

In the 1940s Armillas conducted several seasons of excavations at the major site of Teotihuacan in the Valley of Mexico, following on from earlier investigations by George Vaillant, Eduardo Noguera, and Sigvald Linné.

From the 1960s on he taught at various universities in the United States including the [University of Illinois at Chicago]. He died in Chicago on 11 April 1984. At the time of his death, he was an anthropology professor at the University Illinois Chicago.

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