Observing quark-gluon plasma with strange hadrons

We review the methods and results obtained in an analysis of the experiment al heavy ion collision research program at nuclear beam energy of 160-200 A GeV. We study strange, and more generally, hadronic particle production ex perimental data. We discuss present expectations concerning how these obser vables will perform at other collision energies. We also present the dynami cal theory of strangeness production and apply it to show that it agrees wi th available experimental results. We describe strange hadron production fr om the baryon-poor quark-gluon phase formed at much higher reaction energie s, where the abundance of strange baryons and antibaryons exceeds that of n onstrange baryons and antibaryons.