For more than 25 years Denis Williams, one of Guyana's most accomplished scholars, travelled from one end of the country to the other conducting surveys and excavations. The result is the first comprehensive reconstruction of the history and characteristics of human settlement of the Guianas. In this work of painstaking scholarship Denis Williams integrates a wide variety of evidence from original research with previously published archaeological, geological, ecological, ethnographic climatic and even nutritional data to develop the first major synthesis of the prehistory of Guyana. Prehistoric Guiana includes over 250 sketches, photographs, maps and tables as well as an extensive bibliography. Dr. Betty Meggers of the Smithsonian Institute in Washington writes: "No part of the New World has fascinated Europeans more than Amazonia and within Amazonia, the Guianas. It (Prehistoric Guiana) deserves careful consideration by all those concerned with understanding the past, assessing the present and directing the future exploitation of the Guianas"