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 William integrated a wide variety of evidence from original research with previously published archaelogical, 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. 

Contents

Message from the Government of Guyana

Denis Williams – A Biographical Note

Foreword by Dr Betty Meggers, Smithsonian Institution 

Editor’s Preface by Mark G. Plew

Preface

INTRODUCTION 

The setting

Sources for the study of prehistory

History of Research

THE PALEO-INDIGENOUS PEOPLES

Introduction

The Andean Heritage

PEOPLES OF THE TROPICAL FOREST ARCHAIC

Demography

Settlement pattern

Economy

THE FIRST FARMERS

Introduction

The Formative

The transition to horticulture on the Western Guiana Littoral

Mabaruma; origin, characterization, chronology

Domestication of the land on the Aruka River

Recharacterization of the Mabaruma phase

Periodification of the Mararuma phase

Iconogrpahy

The Formative interaction sphere

The Protohistoric Mabaruima interaction sphere

The Proto-Eastern Maipuran Arawak migrations

Mound dwellers on the Eastern Guiana Littoral

The Proto-Northern /Proto-Eastern Arawo convergence

The demise of the Orinoco-Amazon interaction corridor

The Carib migration

The Akawai disposal

Belief, magic, death and the forms of art

The woman potter in sacred and secular art

Inter-ethnic frontiers 

ORIGIN AND DISSEMINATION OF TROPICAL FOREST CULTURE IN THE GUIANAS

Introduction

The principal migrations

LITERATURE CITED

About The Author

Denis Williams (1923–1998) worked as an artist, art historian, novelist, anthropolgist, and archaeologist in South America, Africa and Europe. His other publications include Giglioli in Guyana 1922-1972; Images and Idea in the Arts of the Caribbean; Habitat and Culture in Ancient Guyana; Petroglyphs in the Northern Amazonia and the Antilles; Ancient Guyana; Amazonia Petroglyphs and Prehistoric Culture of the Iwokrama Rain Forest Reserve.