River people of the world's wettest forests, dispersed along the Atrato and San Juan in stilt houses, who answered the slave-mining frontier by moving ever deeper into the jungle and north toward Darién.
Never gathered into towns, they slipped the colonial grip of the Chocó goldfields and drifted into Panama; today the Emberá and Wounaan hold resguardos across the Pacific lowlands of Colombia and the Emberá-Wounaan comarca (created 1983) in Panama.
The standard synthesis of lower Central American archaeology, placing Gran Cocle, Diquis, Barriles, and the Chibchan horizon in isthmian context.
Pre-contact synthesis on the rainforest peoples of the Americas (broad context).