# Why didn't contact with the Norse devastate native populations like the Spanish? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 25, 2016, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-contact-with-the-norse-devastate-native-populations-like-the-spanish/760848 "2016-07-25T13:42:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 44
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2016, 7:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-contact-with-the-norse-devastate-native-populations-like-the-spanish/760848/44 "2016-07-28T07:17:25Z")
[Previous recent thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=793669)that touched on this. My answer to the OP’s question from there: > [@How do we know it was European diseases that killed the native Americans](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-we-know-it-was-european-diseases-that-killed-the-native-americans/755366/35): > > Smallpox and measles (two candidates for highest body count in the New World) weren’t established in the Viking part of Europe at the time they voyaged West. Also, Viking culture wasn’t highly urbanized, and a certain level of urbanization is needed to sustain a pool of infectious diseases inbetween epidemics. The rise of plagues like the various poxes goes hand-in-hand with the rise in urbanization, and the people coming to America after 1492 were from those highly urban cultures (so often were asymptomatic carriers or recovered victims), unlike the Vikings. > [@velomont](#): > > Another thing that I learned was that Vikings tended not to conquer and occupy but, instead, did “hit and runs (while doing maximum damage)” and that, when they stayed, tended to become assimilated. Tell that to the Britons… --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-contact-with-the-norse-devastate-native-populations-like-the-spanish/760848)._