There is no reason to take a condescending tone with me, sir-my reply to you was not intended to be anything but a remark in a respectful discussion-however, what you seem to think I “imagine” has been greatly influenced not only by reading those studies I referred to, but by the husband of one of my cousins who was an archaeologist-a Paleo-Indian expert.
He died of MS 30 years ago. Excavating/studying ruins gave him a major interest in the decline and fall of early cities in the Americas and the disappearance of people from those cities in ancient times and he studied them until the last weeks of his life.
He brought my 1st hubby and I on 5 digs that he was conducting on what remains of some of those cities in several parts of Mexico and the Southwestern US. We worked right along with his team, sifting dirt and carefully preserving every little bit of everything-of course, only the archaeologists were allowed to move or otherwise handle any human remains-and always with proper respect-but we could hold a bit of pottery beautifully decorated with painted designs, or a perfectly shaped/knapped arrowhead less than 2 inches long-you just couldn’t keep any of that stuff...
If you think those cities were not “hives”-please visit some of the ruins in Mexico and the Southwestern US that are open to the public-they even look like hives, with their multi-family dwellings that had several stories packed together, the ruins of wall-to-wall shops that look like a modern strip center, etc-you couldn’t cram people in together like that and keep everyone fed and in harmony-you still can’t...
It was an experience I would not have missed for anything. My cousin’s husband believed crowding caused chaos, just like the scientists who did the experiments-he based that belief on what his research had shown, including but not limited to evidence of conflict and violent death in the ruins of those places.
One of the most interesting things archaeologists find when they are able to follow the tracks of those people who got the hell out of Dodge is that those folks went into less inhabited areas and formed smaller settlements among themselves, or with people from other tribes. they didn’t return to a total hunter/gatherer way of life-they did continue to farm, keep animals and have an active trade network, but they did not always expand enough to overwhelm the natural resources, for whatever reason, but the natural climate cycles eventually caused people to move around-no SUVs needed...
...