Born in Siberia during a turbulent period in Russian history, Tatiana Proskouriakoff came to America with her family when her father was commissioned during World War I by Czar Nicholas II to oversee the production of munitions in the United States. With the Czar's abdication and the onset of the Russian Revolution, the Proskouriakoffs' brief visit became a relocation.

Proskouriakoff excelled in art and completed a degree in architecture. She entered the field of Mesoamerican archaeology in the mid-1930s as a draftsperson and artist for a University of Pennsylvania archaeological project in...