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Evidence for European presence in the Americas in AD 1021

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Re: Evidence for European presence in the Americas in AD 1021

#151

Post by chestertn »

avgcorrection wrote: post #141
avgcorrection wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But it is meaningless since they did not write about it nor they stablished commerce. The first African to climb Mt. Everest, you say? Well he didn’t help build a network of base camps so I’m just going to say that it’s meaningless.

Come to think of it: none of Buddha’s followers even wrote about him or Buddhism itself until several centuries after his death. Meaningless.

Yes, but they continued the Buddhism tradition (orally). The Vikings did not continue commercing and tell other people... hey! there are humans in this place! its a new continent!

Re: Evidence for European presence in the Americas in AD 1021

#152

Post by ProjectArcturis »

Robotbeat wrote: post #122
thehappypm wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would also mean smallpox would spread the other way. It’s interesting that the transfer of disease was so heavily one-sided.

It’s not surprising at all. If you assume naively that development rate of a novel disease is proportional to population, then the World, which had a 6:1 greater population would have 6 times as many communicable diseases. Similar argument if you base it off of land mass, number of wild animals, number of domesticated animals, etc. (Actually, I do think the New World peoples were particularly prolific when it came to…

You also had millions of years for diseases to evolve to infect people in the Old World. Then there were fairly small populations that traveled to the New World. If they didn't bring the diseases with them, there was only about 10,000 years for disease evolution, and a much smaller population for much of that time.

Re: Evidence for European presence in the Americas in AD 1021

#153

Post by mytailorisrich »

lifeisstillgood wrote: post #28

An interesting counter-factual that comes to mind - if the Norse Greenlanders had brought smallpox or other diseases with them, then Native Americans would have had 500 years to recover (and keep immunity?) - The conquistadors would have faced millions of not-dying-natives. A much different world would have resulted.

Newfoundland is an island and it was, at best, extremely sparsely populated when the Vikings arrived. According to Wikipedia [1] the estimated local population when Europeans arrived in 1497 was 700 (that's on an area only slightly smaller than England). So I'm thinking that contacts were very limited and the potential for any disease to spread minimal.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newfoundland_(island)#First_in...

Re: Evidence for European presence in the Americas in AD 1021

#154

Post by ProjectArcturis »

sillyquiet wrote: post #111
29athrowaway wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of the time, Europeans fought one tribe at a time, rather than a large alliance of Native Americans. Then, in many cases, they made natives fight each other, and they recruited "auxiliary indians". The siege of Tenochtitlan involved 200,000 Tlaxcalans fighting on the European side. In other cases, such as the Battle of Cajamarca, they used their horse + armor advantage to kidnap the leader and ask everyone else…

"They made" natives fight each other is a weird way of putting it. Warring tribes were more than happy to use the Europeans against their enemies. And many of those enmities long predated the arrival of Europeans.

Yes, many of the Central American tribes had been oppressed by the Aztecs for a long time, and were happy to have an advanced ally to fight against them.

Re: Evidence for European presence in the Americas in AD 1021

#155

Post by irrational »

AlotOfReading wrote: post #125
irrational wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't that because Europe was able to bounce back while in the Americas, the diseases were immediately followed up by the European colonizers who didn't give them time or space to repopulate?

That's exactly the point. Epidemic disease alone is an insufficient explanation for the demographic collapse of indigenous Americans.

Yes, but guns are an insufficient explanation for the complete overthrown of indigenous Americans. Or even the primary cause.

Re: Evidence for European presence in the Americas in AD 1021

#156

Post by VHRanger »

seph-reed wrote: post #101
kristopolous wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've always wondered why this wasn't a two-way street. Wouldn't native people also have diseases to share? I know the imperialists weaponized their diseases and intentionally tried to spread it and that may be the difference. Usually the smallpox theory is presented in a way that removes agency and culpability from the conquerers. It's always struck me as remarkably convenient and quite unbelievable; they were an idy…

CPG Grey has a great video on this exact subject: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEYh5WACqEk In short, you need cities to develop these types of viruses. Cities where the virus can just keep killing, without ever hitting a dead end.

Fwiw that's based on "Guns, Germs and Steel" which is not very respected as an academic work

Re: Evidence for European presence in the Americas in AD 1021

#159

Post by tick_tock_tick »

Robotbeat wrote: post #114
LudwigNagasena wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, there were around 3000 Spanish conquistadors. Could they really conquer the whole Aztec empire (5 mln people) without alliances with local tribes?

Without local tribes? Probably not, but that’s almost always how conquering actually happens (by exploiting existing fault lines). The situation with Alexander the Great is kind of representative. Alexander the Great had an army of about 30,000 people and conquered the Persian Empire which had a population of about 50 million. The Conquistadors had 3000 and conquered the Aztec Empire which had a population of 5 milli…

The biggest advantage the Conquistadors has was everyone else in the area fucking hated the Aztec. They were horrible to have as neighbors and when any chance to fuck them over, the Spanish, came everyone jumped on board.

Re: Evidence for European presence in the Americas in AD 1021

#160

Post by finiteseries »

zeckalpha wrote: post #139
lifeisstillgood wrote: post #28

An interesting counter-factual that comes to mind - if the Norse Greenlanders had brought smallpox or other diseases with them, then Native Americans would have had 500 years to recover (and keep immunity?) - The conquistadors would have faced millions of not-dying-natives. A much different world would have resulted.

Indigenous populations started dropping centuries before Columbus and we don’t know why. (Of course they dropped further after Columbian contact) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cahokia#Decline%20(13th%20an... > The population of Cahokia began to decline during the 13th century, and the site was eventually abandoned by around 1350.

No, there’s no indication of population dropping in that article, only the dissolution of a city.

I’m not read up on Cahokia, but it’s probably more similar to the dissolution/dispersal of the (lowland) Maya vs something like a mass die off.

Pre contact population centers were additionally in Mesoamérica & northern South America, where most of the total post contact population drop occurred.

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