[sphinx]

Apparently this killed 95% of the North American population before Europeans even showed up.

Can you elaborate? I thought the great die-off was the product of the disease wave unleashed after European contact. Disease travelled much faster than exploration and settlement, so Indians across North America were dying en masse long before whites showed up in their vicinity. Absent the germ theory of disease, no one at the time connected the dots but the European origin of the epidemic is clear to us today.

But I've never heard of a 95% die-out prior to first contact.

[ThanhPhero]

No. Not prior to first contact. The first explorers and conquistadores ALL reported large populations and village after village. A generation later the reports were of villages with remains of the dead all about and empty land. In all the Americas it was the same.

1491 - Charles C. Mann

The apparent hantavirus dieoff occurred a bit later than the first years and equally devastating though limited probably to Mexico and is theorized but quite possible.

[TheThirdRuffian]

Here, first google hit:

http://www.examiner.com/article/apocalypic-mysterious-plague-killed-millions-of-native-americans-the-1500s