El Nino is an extreme climate perturbation that periodically changes weather throughout the globe, often with dire consequences. First recognized in Peru, El Nino events are best known and documented there. This book summarizes research on the nature of El Nino events in the Americas and details specific historic and prehistoric patterns in Peru and elsewhere. By also looking at other catastrophic natural events in the ancient New World, the book illustrates how scientific archaeology can serve pure research as well as provide information for contemporary issues.

The Marmes Rockshelter is one of the most significant archaeological sites in the Pacific Northwest, not only due to its 11,000-year record of human use, but also because of the attention it generated towards American archaeology throughout the Northwest, the nation, and the world. The political story behind the discovery and excavation of early Holocene human skeletal remains at the Marmes site encapsulates, and helped incite, changes in archaeological studies following passage of the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966. This contributed to current cultural resources management processes, driven by federal government mandates to preserve archaeological materials and information and to seek greater public involvement in management programs. These mandates, in fact, have led full circle to this study, a complete analysis and interpretation of all of the available information from the site's rockshelter and floodplain areas, and completion of a final report some thirty years after the Marmes site was excavated.