"....based on analysis of 2200 wild and cultivated plant specimens with clearly defined archaeological contexts... Part I is a systematic ethnobotany with pertinent citations of the botanical and archaeological literature, and includes a list of plants according to their uses. Part II is a chronological and regional treatment of plants integrated with useful summaries of the archaeological contexts from which the plants came. This section enables the reader to view the course of plant domestication form the states of premaize, incipient agriculture to the stage of intensive agriculture when some 50 cultivated plants were utilized...." (publisher)