The early Late Prehistoric period (A.D. 700 to A.D. 1300) is the time when evidence for subsistence and settlement traits of native societies described by early European explorers first appear in the archaeological record throughout much of the Northeast. Except in the far north, these traits include maize-based agriculture and large, nucleated villages. Our knowledge of these traits grew considerably during the last few decades of the twentieth century, the result of the increased use of flotation recovery for macrobotanical remains,the development of paleoethnobotany, accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) dating on crop remains, stable carbon isotope analysis (SCIA) of human bone, large-scale cultural resource management excavations, a renewed interest in museum collections, and developments in method and theory. All of these are reflected in the chapters of the present volume.