Coyoteman,
Cook’s work is one of what I would consider the old guard’s work. Even when published, there were younger anthropoligists who challenged that number. The population in the Los Angeles area has always been difficult to estimate because of the long period of occupation, the size and extent of the shell midens and the fact that the area is periodically cleansed through fire or flood. That it supported a large population is undoubted.
The California areas most significantly undercounted are the Sierra and Coastal Range foothills. Long thought to support only scattered hunters and gatherers, it is now known that the acorn-based economies in the foothills was a much stronger basis for a large population than previously believed.
Regardless of the numbers, my point remains the same. The numbers are politically charge. I think the discussion should not turn on whether there were 100 million Indians who vanished, or only 10 million. The basis for the discussion should consist of the principles of right, wrong, morality and politics as freepers know them.
I am always a bit surprised how the discussion of the mistreatment of Indians triggers such rabid denials and accusations on this board, both ways.
IMHO
Oldplayer
(Choctaw)
The California areas most significantly undercounted are the Sierra and Coastal Range foothills. Long thought to support only scattered hunters and gatherers, it is now known that the acorn-based economies in the foothills was a much stronger basis for a large population than previously believed.
Even more significant is the drop in population that is increasingly being seen archaeologically in those coastal areas. This seems to have begun in the 1600s, long before the Spanish colonization.