Do you know what happened to easter Island when it reached its peak of population? Well, the environment colapsed and canibbalism started. Too much people for such a small island.
But don’t forget that island was settled by polynesians, that were expert farmers that carried lot of vegetables with them, and that managed to crowd several polynesian islands, but never to the degree of Easter Island.
The Caribbean islands were settled by Arawaks, comming from South America, which weren’t such experts in farming, so theirs food production must have been less intensive.
Bollocks. In terms of both absolute numbers and relative population decreases, the largest effects seem to have been felt in Mexico, Central America and the Amazon. The population of the United Sates declined from millions down to hundreds or tens of thousands. The population of Mexico declined from tens or hundreds of millions down to hundreds of thousands. The population of the Amazon declined from at least half a million down to thousands.
Your assertion that the US suffered the largest disease depopulations has no basis in history or science. As with all diseases, the largest mortality rates were in those regions with highest population densities and where the population was most dependent on infrastructure.
:eek:
They recovered only after several centuries. As you yourself noted, the population of Mexico only recovered its pre-Columbian size in the late 19th or early 20th centuries, Panama in the mid 19th century and the population of the Amazon has never recovered.
And the reason why the population of the US never recovered over the same time period should be obvious to a blind monkey: the indigenous population was replaced by European colonists. The Indian population could never recover because all the land has been claimed by Europeans.
Instead of endlessly repeating this mantra, would it be possible for your to instead present some evidence?
You are joking, aren’t you? Because that claim is really ridiculous. So, if Mexico had hundred of millions, then I must assume the whole Western Hemisphere must had something like a Billion people…
:D:D
Congrats. You broke all the records, but I am certain some “schollars” will catch up.
You stated that the large construction projects and massive extent of farmland in the Americas required population densities equivalent to Easter Island. We all know that there *were *large construction projects and massive extent of farmland in the Americas. Therefore based on your own figures and your own argument the Americas must have had a population in the tens of millions at the very least.
Why that population density led to problems on tiny Easter Island that were also seen in many areas of the Americas is irrelevant. Nobody disputes that the Americas did have large construction projects and massive extent of farmland and nobody disputes that this required population densities equivalent to Easter Island. Those are facts that we all agree on.
And based on those facts, facts that you yourself introduced, the inevitable conclusion is that the population of the Americas numbered in the tens of millions.
Even if this is true, so what?
You agree that the extent of farmland in Hispaniola was massive.
You agree that in order to “demolish the environment” to that extent requires a population equivalent to that of Easter Island.
The inescapable conclusion of your own argument is that Hispaniola had a population that numbered in the million. Exactly who they supported that population is irrelevant because your own argument *proves *that they must have supported it.
The only way you can escape this conclusion is to start arguing that such massive projects do *not *require a population density equivalent to Easter Island.
Hereis a CDC article investigating the “Megadeath” in Mexico. Mexico had a smallpox epidemic in 1519-1520 which killed about half the indigenous population. Then they had “cocoliztli” (hemorrhagic fever) epidemics in 1545-1548, 1559, 1566, 1576-1578, 1587, 1592, 1601, 1604, 1606, 1613, 1624, and 1642. The 1545 epidemic alone evidently killed around 80% of the indigenous population. And all of these were well documented in Spanish sources. Mexico went from a population of around 22 million in 1520 to less than 2 million by 1620. And in 1820 the population was still less than 4 million.
I think you have a very odd definition “population recovered.” It took over 400 years after the conquista for the population to return to pre-Spanish levels. And that required constant immigration from Europe.
Noooo!!! I didn’t say those projects required the **DENSITY **of Easter Island. That was your own deduction.
I just say, or I meant to say, that you need **ONLY **a few thousand people to make the moais, platforms and towns that Easter Island had. For instance, you don’t need a million people to build the Mayan society, but just a few tens thousand!
Come on. At the same time of contact a place like Portugal only had 1 million people, Spain perhaps 3 or 4 millions. Britain about the same figure. And France, I don’t know the number, but I could bet was around 5 million. The whole world had at that time 1/10th of today density! And the Americas didn’t have the agricultural output of Europe at all.
How does that logically follow? Mexico has a population of over a hundred million today. The population of the western hemisphere is not a billion.
I do not think that you quite understand that nobody but you argues that population densities throughout the Americas must have been uniformly equal to that density in the most densely populated areas.
Just as today, the pre-Columbian Americas had areas of high population density and areas of low population density. The Aztec Empire is usually considered to have had by far the highest population densities, higher than anything seen outside of Japan/China/Korea and possibly higher even than those regions.
And I notice that you are not addressing the actual criticisms of your argument, Instead introducing side issues and nitpicking details.
pinguin, I do not understand what your point is. Let us say that the population of the Americas was tiny prior to European conquest. SO WHAT? If I understand, your claim is that the population decline is overstated. Fine; let’s assume you are correct. What point are you trying to make?
If you believe on those numbers, I bet you could believe in Santa, as well. :rolleyes:
According to Rosenblat, the population of Mexico was 4,5 millions. Which is a huge number for 1492, but that makes a lot more sense that those fantasious figures of 20 or 30 millions, fruit of the fertile American imagination.
[QUOTE= pinguin]
What depopulation by disease? For a strange reason, it was the U.S. the region of continental Americas which suffered the largest depopulation. If so, why only in the U.S. virus and bacteria were so efficient?
Yes, there was large mortality in Mexico, Central and South America, as well. But the populations recovered. So, something weird is going on here-
[/QUOTE]
To me it sounds like the lower the population when the Spanish landed in the New World would fit his world view: that the United States treatment of Native Americans constituted a deliberate genocide, and were much much worse than anything the Spanish did.
All right. If we concede the point and state that the population numbers are, in fact, completely made up, what are the implications from there? What academic theories or social policies depend on these scientifically dubious numbers?
Further, what are you suggesting we do? We know we can never have the exact number. We know the number is somewhere between zero and a billion. Should scientists just leave it there and say “there are some things man was not meant to know,” or should they try to combine data from history, archaeology, statistics, and other fields of endeavor and come up with a plausible estimate? In other words, if the science is dubious, what do you recommend we do instead?
Edited upon seeing JerseyMarine2092’s post: Oh, that makes sense, in a bizarre sort of way.
What theory? Well, the idiotic theory that the white man snizeed and the Indian died!
Come on! Native Americans had contagious diseases before the Europeans arrived.
Yes, Natives had a higher mortality when exposed to those diseases, but Europeans and Africans weren’t immune either. Millions of these others died of those diseases as well, particularly children. Africans and Europeans were continuosly replaced with new shipments of immigrants and slaves; Natives weren’t as lucky. But people keep living simply because at those times reproduction rate was really high.
Without a clear understanding of the numbers of natives at contact, theories of extinction will be based on sand.
There is an alternative, that I suspect is downplayed: intermarriage was more spread that what American historians want to believe. You know, for some historians of that country is quite disgusting to talk about intermarriage with Indians.
No, it is the inescapable conclusion, not the deduction.
Wrong. You needed a few thousand people in an area of less than 200 square kilometres.
England only needed 10 million people to cover the entire island in a network of paved roads spaced every mile. That does not mean that a population of 15 million people will allow Australia to do the same thing.
Despite your claims you don’t *only *need a population of critical size to undertake massive infrastructure projects, You need that population concentrated in a critical area.
Your claims to the contrary are utterly incorrect. You quite clearly do not understand either population density or the demands of civil engineering.
:eek:
A single Mayan *city *covered an area of 150 square kilometres. Even if we assume the city was maintained and populated at a density of just 60 people/ kilometre, that is over ten thousand people living in one city. And to put that in perspective, 60 people/ kilometre is about the same density as the entire *state *of Arizona. At that density the city would not even be considered an urban area, even in medieval terms. And that is ten thousand people without taking into account the rural people who fed them. And that is just one city in an ampire spanning 100, 000 square kilometres containing numerous cities of comparable size.
The idea that “just a few tens thousand” of people could build, let alone maintain, such an empire is ludicrous.
Which is a density of 10 people/km^2
At that density The Americas will have a population of 277 million
Which is a density of 8 people/km^2.
At that density The Americas will have a population of 222 million
England alone had 5 million people, a density of 40 people/km^2
At that density The Americas will have a population of 1 billion.
No, it was much, much *higher *because the Americas were substantially humid tropical and humid subtropical The agriculture of the Americas was comparable to that of other humid tropical and subtropical regions, such as Japan (~15 million people or 40/km^2) or India (100 million or 30/km^2).
But the important point is that even if the Americas had a mean agricultural output just 10% that of the lowest producing European nation the population would still exceed 20 million in 1491.
You are very readily destroying your own argument here, and all because you simply can not comprehend the difference between “population” and "population density. The Americas are much, much larger than Europe. Even at much lower population densities they will still have much larger populations.
If you do not quit simply dismissing others’ statement with ridicule while carefully avoiding the presentation of your own cited references, we are going to consider whether we actually need to put up with your presence.
You have initiated a few interesting discussions, but your behavior in those discussions has been execrable. I too often give the benefit of the doubt to posters who seem to be either clueless or trolls, but your behavior is beginning the remove the doubt from which you might benefit.
You will:
stop lacing your posts with snide remarks that assert facts that you fail to substantiate;
begin providing serious, cited references to any odd claims you post.*
(This would include citing actual people whom you claim have made absurdly high estimates of population rather than simply claiming that “someone” made an estimate too high.)
[QUOTE=pinguin]
Come on! Native Americans had contagious diseases before the Europeans arrived.
Yes, Natives had a higher mortality when exposed to those diseases, but Europeans and Africans weren’t immune either. Millions of these others died of those diseases as well, particularly children. Africans and Europeans were continuosly replaced with new shipments of immigrants and slaves; Natives weren’t as lucky. But people keep living simply because at those times reproduction rate was really high.
Without a clear understanding of the numbers of natives at contact, theories of extinction will be based on sand.
[/QUOTE]
It’s clear you are making unsupported assumptions about the vectors of epidemics and pandemics. For one thing, commercial and social contact in Eurasia and North America has traditionally moved east-west, for geographic and enciromental reasons. It only makes sense that disease follows hose same vectors.
What weird thing is going on that has somehow escaped everyone’s attention? As you have been told, it’s common knowledge that those populations didn’t “recover” because they were displaced by Europeans. Or did you have some other weirdness in mind?
Have you ever been to North America? Because this claim is flatly ludicrous. The most hardened rednecks proudly claim Indian heritage.