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I'm also amazed at the contrast in the continents at that time. Europe had a functioning society with schools and books. Laws, written languages, parliament, science, medicine, philosophy to name a few other items.
The Americas had people wearing animal skins and living in stick huts.
As I read Livy's history of Rome, I was impressed with the description of the Bronze Age "Wars" occurring on almost a yearly basis that Rome was having with its neighbors, the Sabines, Etruscans, etc...To me, they really sounded more like the raiding parties American Indians would have, annoying their neighbors, fighting '"turf wars".....We have this warped vision created by Hollywood about the grandeur of Rome, as if the Empire Period was representative of the early republic too...Octavian famously said "Rome was a village of bricks when I came here. I made it a city of marble."
As the saying goes, "Necessity is a mother." The oboringinals of N. Am lived in an environment of plenty. No incentive to change the lifestyle. They existed on the edge of the carrying capacity of the land. There was plenty of game and growing crops was done only to supplement the diet.
In S.Am, populations grew because they came to rely on growing crops. Maize and potatoe were originally developed there...Growing crops with large enough yield allows the population to settle down (no need to chase migrating herds) and to grow. That allows for specialization of labor and for those with artistic talent the leisure to develop it.
BTW- Pere Nicolet lived among/with the Indians of WI for 40 yrs in the 1600s. He estimated the population to be ~25,000....Given that the hunting grounds east of the Miss R were rich in abundance, and that those west of the river are less so, we would be over estimating the population by claiming that 25,000 x 48 would give a population number of only 1.2M--20x less than the "experts" claim.
After thought-- also, compare the civilizations that developed in the peri-Mediterranean areas (dpendent of ag for food) vs the N.Eurpoean Germanic tribes (dependent on hunting). J.Caesar tells us the the Germans rarley cultivated fields but existed on a diet exclusively of meat, milk and cheeze.
I think it came down to European germs like smallpox.
The ONLY reason Europeans were able to migrate to North America, was that European germs killed out the local populations in North America.
I have seen some estimates that at the time of initial European settlement the population of North America was TWO percent of what it was prior to the introduction of European germs.
Worth reading the scientific publications on this subject. Lots of opinions, but no doubt that the European germs killed off a LARGE proportion of North Americans.
I think it came down to European germs like smallpox.
The ONLY reason Europeans were able to migrate to North America, was that European germs killed out the local populations in North America.
I have seen some estimates that at the time of initial European settlement the population of North America was TWO percent of what it was prior to the introduction of European germs.
Worth reading the scientific publications on this subject. Lots of opinions, but no doubt that the European germs killed off a LARGE proportion of North Americans.
It the same with Australia with the Aborigines. Most of the died from introduced European diseases.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States
USA : 3,794,101 sq mi, 640 acres to a sq.mi, or 2,428,224,640 acres.
Population : 320 million, or 84.3 people/sq mi, (Or 7.58 acres per person)
According to the Department of the Interior, a hunter / gatherer, such as a tribal Indian, needed 10 sq. mi. per person to sustain themselves. (This was for sizing reservations) (Think of a circle with a radius of 1.78 miles - for each person)
Based on 3,794,101 sq. mi., that’s only enough for a population of 379,410 indigenous people living a primitive lifestyle. Even if that estimate is off by a factor of ten, the population would be stressed if it exceeded 3.79 million, since the unimproved land could not support any substantial increase.
It also explains the incessant tribal warfare - for defending hunting grounds or expanding them.
From history, we know that there are three mutually exclusive and incompatible forms of lifestyle :
__ Hunter / gatherers (uses the most land)
__ Nomadic herdsmen (uses less land, generally not good for agriculture)
__ Settled farmers (uses the least land to support the most people)
The farmers of central America had the advantage over the hunter-gatherers of the northern tribes.
Present-day Mexico (2 million km2) had in 1492 much more population than all of North America (25 million km²). Maybe 5 to 10 times more population than North America. The same the Andes. What is this about?
My guess is that North America hadn't yet fully recovered from the last Glacial Maximum (~20,000 years ago).
That could be why the regions with the densest populations were the regions that were least affected by glaciation events.
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Lack of intensive agriculture but rather depending on what nature provided. Only 20,000 of more than 340,000 plant species are useful to humans and many are toxic, agriculture takes land with inedible plants and instead grows things good for humans. The pre Columbian peoples who embraced agriculture had robust populations while those that rejected it for religious reasons had tiny and vulnerable populations.
Lack of intensive agriculture but rather depending on what nature provided. Only 20,000 of more than 340,000 plant species are useful to humans and many are toxic, agriculture takes land with inedible plants and instead grows things good for humans. The pre Columbian peoples who embraced agriculture had robust populations while those that rejected it for religious reasons had tiny and vulnerable populations.
During the first Thanksgiving, the pilgrims celebrated with nothing but Indian, indigenous food. Turkey, Potatoes, Yam, Corn, tomatoes are all indigenous foods, not found in Europe.
Poor Europeans had terrible diets specially during the winter. They ate mostly dried up bread, or oversized crackers with beer. They did have plenty of barley.
Interesting topic, but first of all those that are talking about European diseases - GUYS THE OP'S QUESTION IS ON PRE-COLUMBIAN POPULATION, not on the impact of European diseases after 1492.
Excepted is the poster that suggested old world diseases impacted even before 1492, which is very plausible.
So anyways my comments - one is that the indigenous population of North America pre-columbian is not really known. Estimates range from 4 million to 20 million or more. Also many of the tribes were nomadic, which by it's nature keeps tribe sizes low and contributes to conflicts for resources with other tribes. Contrast that with the fixed and relatively advanced empires of the Aztecs and Incans. So you had population density much higher in Mexico then in the rest of North America.
You would think population growth would be higher regardless. Europe's population was about 80 million people during that time after centuries of wars, black plague, etc. I think besides the reasons in first paragraph, American Indians come for a less diverse genetic structure than people from other areas of the world. We are talking about millions from an original group of 100 or so that crossed the land bridge. This lack of genetic diversity may have resulted and less population growth as a result, as well as more susceptibility to disease, even before the the old world arrived.
In North America, they had birth control methods, including herbal. Europe had exhausted its supply of bc herbs by Roman times already. I don't know about Central and South America.
Something to keep in mind is that many American civilizations were already in decline when the Spanish came knocking after 1492. The Mississippian, Mayan and Amazonian civilizations were already past their prime, and were in decline. And particularly with the Mississippians and Amazonians, only a few Spanish explorers were able to catch a glimpse of whatever was leftover but then shortly after they vanished and only recently have we started piecing the puzzle pieces back together. I’m not sure how big the Mississippian population was at its peak, but they were settled people who lived in cities and cultivated corn extensively. Cahokia is thought to be largest of these cities which existed between 1050 CE and 1350 CE which may have had a population anywhere between 6,000 and 40,000, in comparison London around the same time had only 14,000 to 18,000 people.
1130 CE is thought to be the peak of civilizations in the Americas, after which a 300 year drought caused many civilizations to collapse or greatly diminish such as the Puebloans in the SW and the Tiwanaku in Bolivia.
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