Like the histories – both biological and cultural – of the native peoples to whom this book is dedicated, the making of this book is a story of expansion and confrontation, admixture and adaptation, though, fortunately, on a gentler plain: the plain of science. My interests in the human biology of New World populations were originally stimulated by my association with the late Marshall T. Newman at the University of Washington. Bud, as he was known to his friends, joined the anthropology faculty there in 1966, as I was completing my final year of graduate studies. Although I never received any formal instruction from him, I did sit in on a number of his seminars, and, over the course of that year, we discussed many aspects of Amerindian biology.

The idea for this particular volume came into existence more than twenty years ago, at a dinner at Bud's house in Seattle. Although we had shared many interests and ideas, Bud and I had never published anything together, and, that night, we decided that we should begin work on a volume concerning the biology of the native populations of the New World. Unfortunately, this project never came to fruition, pushed to the back burner by the protracted illness and eventual death of Bud's wife, Judy, and last year by Bud's death.

The next stage in the evolution of this volume occured six years ago, when I was approached by the MAPFRE Foundation to write a volume on the physical anthropology of American Indians.