Includes bibliographical references (p. 263-304) and index.

Introduction / Peter W. Stahl -- 1. Archaeological survey and site discovery in the forested neotropics / James A. Zeidler -- 2. The archaeology of community organization in the tropical lowlands: a case study from Puerto Rico / Peter E. Siegel -- 3. Archaeological methods for the study of ancient landscapes of the Llanos de Mojos in the Bolivian Amazon / Clark L. Erickson -- 4. Searching for environmental stress: climatic and anthropogenic influences on the landscape of Colombia / Warwick Bray -- 5. "Doing" paleoethnobotany in the tropical lowlands: adaptation and innovation in methodology / Deborah M. Pearsall -- 6. Plant microfossils and their application in the New World tropics / Dolores R. Piperno -- 7. Differential preservation histories affecting the mammalian zooarchaeological record from the forested neotropical lowlands / Peter W. Stahl -- 8. Biological research with archaeologically recovered human remains from Ecuador: methodological issues / Douglas H. Ubelaker.

9. Interpreting dietary maize from bone stable isotopes in the American tropics: the state of the art / Lynette Norr -- 10. From potsherds to pots: a first step in constructing cultural context from tropical forest archaeology / J. Scott Raymond -- 11. Returning to Pueblo Viejo: history and archaeology of the Chachi (Ecuador) / Warren R. Deboer.

"Collection of 11 papers about analytical methods and their recent applications. Methods include survey techniques, community organization, landscapes, environmental stress, paleoethnobotany, plant microfossils, zooarchaeology, human osteology, stable isotope analysis, pottery analysis, and historical evidence. Regional coverage includes Puerto Rico, Panama, Ecuador, Colombia, Bolivia, and Peru"--Handbook of Latin American Studies, v. 57. http://www.loc.gov/hlas/