The development of Belizean archaeology

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Abstract
The history of Maya archaeology generally can be divided into five successive periods (Hammond, 1982, 33–66): during the first two of these, the periods of the Spanish travellers (1524–1759) and the Spanish explorers (1759–1840), Belize remained unnoted, even during the visit of Stephens and Catherwood in October 1839 on their first expedition to Central America, and even though that visit stimulated an expedition from Belize City, led by Patrick Walker, ‘secretary of the government and holding besides such a list of offices as would make the greatest pluralist among us feel insignificant’ (Stephens, 1841, I, 14), in an attempt to beat Stephens to the ruins of Palenque on the far side of the Yucatan Peninsula (Pendergast, 1967).