Further Reading

West Mexican Archaeology

Crossley-Holland's collection of archaeological musical artefacts represents a vast geographical range across West Mexico, as well as the huge period of time from around 2000 BCE – 1500 CE (i.e. before the Spanish conquest). It is important to consider the multiplicity and heterogeneity of the cultures from which these objects originate. Of the 329 objects in Crossley-Holland's collection, this selection was chosen to show the variety of styles from this region. Crossley-Holland devised a system of classifying his collection firstly by "zone", which refers to style and geographical provenance, and then by type of musical instrument, to which he designated Hornbostel-Sachs numbers.

In archaeology, West Mexico has historically been underrepresented compared with other parts of Mesoamerica. More recently it has started to garner more attention as archaeologists have come to realise that West Mexican regions were more culturally diverse than was formerly thought. As more information comes to light, it becomes clear that West Mexico developed separately from the rest of Mexico and Central Mesoamerica. For example, there is comparatively little in common between West Mexico and the more well-known Aztec, Mayan and Olmec cultures, but there is some evidence of links with north-western South America.

The scarcity of the archaeological evidence from pre-conquest West Mexico is matched by a shortage of information about the music of the region. There is no written record of any music, and so other approaches must be taken in order to investigate the sound world of these ancient cultures. Analysing the acoustics of the instruments is one way; the study of iconography is another.

Crossley-Holland himself championed a multidisciplinary approach to studying ancient musical artefacts, and this is apparent in his copious research. He was fortunate to have had a colleague with expertise in West Mexican archaeology at UCLA: Professor Clement W. Meighan. There is also evidence of his correspondence with another archaeologist who specialised in West Mexico, Professor Hasso von Winning.