The most significant historical information in this volume is the short (3 pages) piece by Gordon R. Wllley entitled "The Viru Valley Project and Settlement Archaeology: Some Reminiscences and Con­temporary Comments." These remarks add to Willey's original background notes in his seminal 1953 publication, as well as his own retrospective look at the program in a chapter in his 1974 volume.

Wllley notes that when he started out in 1946, at age 33, on the Viru venture, he was not at all sure what he was going to do. The original project was not one primarily devoted to settlement pattern study, rather it developed as the outcome of a suggestion by Wendell C. Bennett that post-war research on Peruvian archaeology could be moved forward by having several archaeologists from several institutions focus their efforts upon a single Peruvian coastal valley. The Viru valley was ultimately settled upon, because not only had Bennett had worked there earlier and knew something of its cultural sequence, but the valley was of a modest size and thus, with the resources available, a viable project.