[arthurus]

1491

About 1491-

Mann discusses the growing evidence against the perception that Indians were not active in transforming their lands. Most Indians shaped their environment with fire, employing slash-and-burn techniques to create grasslands for cultivation and to encourage the abundance of game animals. Indians domesticated fewer animals and cultivated plant life differently from their European counterparts, but did so quite intensively. The author suggests that limited and often racist views about the indigenous people, in addition to lack of a common language among the indigenous people, often led to a failure to recognize these dynamics, and has historically found expression in conclusions like the "law of environmental limitation of culture" (Betty J. Meggers) — whatever Indians did before slash and burn, the logic goes, had to have worked thanks to the vast expanses of healthy forest seen before Europeans arrived.

[Alas Babylon!]

There are some estimates that put the post-Columbus pathogen die-off of Native Americans at 90-95%!

The reason later Europeans found such a boundless wilderness was because most of the people died off in the early to mid 1500s.

Note I’m not blaming the Europeans, as they really knew nothing about pathogens and microbes, fungi, and viruses. However, the Old World was a hothouse for creating all kinds of tiny toxic critters due to farm animals like pigs and fowl living in close proximity to people (like in the house itself, as is still done in parts of China).

This means things like swine and avian flu develops the ability to cross over to humans—and back to pigs and birds, very easily. And then back again with even more vigor and strength. Imagine such a flu or disease among people with zero antibodies to any of the thousands of derivatives!