Posted on 02/12/2021 2:39:52 AM PST by nickcarraway
At least six pirate skeletons were recently discovered in a shipwreck off the coast of Cape Cod.
The remains were unearthed from the wreck site of the Whydah, which sank near the town of Wellfleet in 1717, according to The Boston Globe.
Investigators at the Whydah Pirate Museum said the skeletons were identified in several large concretions, or hard masses of minerals, from the wreck site. They are now being examined by a team of archeologists led by underwater explorer Barry Clifford, who discovered the Whydah in 1984, the museum said.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
No, I don’t think that’s been “proven” at all.
Smallpox, measles, influenza, malaria, cholera, typhoid and even corona and rhinovirus all took their toll.
Now I have read that SOME are proposing the plagues in early New Spain (Central Mexico today) were hemorrhagic fevers but that was a localized event only and did not spread north or south, and certainly NOT to the lands that would become the USA and Canada, or South America and the Caribbean.
Megadrought and Megadeath in 16th Century Mexico
"Recent epidemiologic research suggests that the events in 1545 and 1576, associated with a high death rate and referred to as cocoliztli (Nahuatl for "pest"), may have been due to indigenous hemorrhagic fevers"https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/8/4/01-0175_article
Recent in this context was about 20 years ago when they isolated the pathogen.
These were the most densely inhabited parts of the New World outside Peru. Once you get to the future US, Canada and other areas populations weren't large.
Are you kidding me?
Have you ever heard of Cahokia? The Mississippian Culture? These places were heavily populated. As many as 10 Million people in the Southeastern USA at that time. Read about Hernando De Soto and the many kingdoms, cities and towns he went through on his fatal discovery.
Moreover, the Mexico in your reply only included the areas around the Valley of Mexico proper, and the distinct Mayans of the Yucatan, not the much larger country today. The huge indigenous population centers in Campache, Chiapas, and Central America were not as effected by the particular fever outbreaks.
The Incas were not confined to Peru but were as much in Bolivia and Ecuador as well.
Finally, there were huge areas of Brazil, where now there is just jungle, that was once under cultivation and heavily populated. Estimates say Brazil had at least 12 million souls in this vast area in 1491.
Anyway, I'll leave you with this, so we can agree to disagree:
Note that I consider Columbus's discovery one of the greatest events of Mankind, but no one KNEW about disease vectors, so the modern attempt to "Blame" the Europeans for the deaths of American Indians is rubbish.
The show “The Lost Pirate Kingdom” on Netflix is pretty interesting. It is mostly a movie (series) with historians injecting some commentary every so often. Maybe 10 minutes of action, 1 minute of commentary, etc.
I knew from reading about pirates years ago that they were one of the first truly democratic societies where decisions were based on voting. Who the captain of the ship would be, what ships to take, etc. The show talks about that quite a bit.
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