  The experimental results on the pion, strangeness and J/psi production in
high energy nuclear collisions are discussed. The anomalous energy dependence
of pion and strangeness production is consistent with the hypothesis that a
transition to a deconfined phase takes place between the top AGS (15 AGeV) and
the SPS (200 AGeV) energies. The J/psi production systematics at the SPS can be
understood assuming that the J/psi mesons are created at hadronization
according to the available hadronic phase space. This new interpretation of the
J/psi data allows one to establish a coherent picture of high energy nuclear
collisions based on the statistical approaches of the collision early stage and
hadronization. Surprisingly, the statistical model of strong interactions is
successful even in the region reserved up to now for pQCD based models.
