Isabel Ramírez Castañeda


Isabel Ramírez Castaneda was the first Mexican woman archaeologist and ethnologist from Milpa Alta.

Biography

Originally a kindergarten teacher, she won a scholarship in 1906 to study archaeology, history and ethnology at the National Museum of Mexico, which she was connected to for much of her career.
Through this work she met archaeologists Eduard Seler and Caecilie Seler-Sachs when they traveled in Mexico, they in turn met Franz Boas when he visited Mexico and she became a sort of protegé of his.
With the Selers, Ramírez was introduced to the study of archaeology and she accompanied them in several expeditions to archaeological sites and took up the study of ancient architecture and pottery, as the first female archaeologist in Mexico. She participated in excavations at the Maya site of Palenque in 1911.
She was a native speaker of Nahuatl and contributed a series of folktales from Milpa Alta to Franz Boas who published them in 1924.
She died in 1943.