"This publication evokes the distant past of a remote and almost unknown country. Setting sail from the coast in great rafts, the indigenous inhabitants of Ecuador exchanged exotic shells along their routes and dispersed knowledge and new technologies among the peoples living between the great empires of Peru and Mesoamerica. The dynamic flow of cultures is palpable in the rich and varied iconography of stone, ceramic and gold artifacts found in Ecuador's diverse landscape. An extraordinary corpus of objects created over 5000 years is testimony to the excellence achieved by ancient artists, Within these pages the photographic sensibilities of Pierre-Yves Dhinaut, complemented by eight essays that weave together both scientific data and humanistic interpretations of Amerindian thought, transport the reader into the complex parallel worlds of these masters of Precolumbian art."--book jacket.