"Pre-Columbian Jamaica" represents the first substantial attempt to summarize the prehistoric evidence from the island in a single published account since J. E. Duerden's invaluable 1897 article on the subject, which is also reprinted within this volume.

Philip Allsworth-Jones was until recently a senior lecturer in archaeology at the University of the West Indies in Mona, Kingston, Jamaica, where he did the bulk of the research for and writing of Pre-Columbian Jamaica. He is currently a research fellow in the Department of Archaeology at the University of Sheffield in England.