[Carry_Okie]

There are aspects of this story that disturb me greatly. The first is the assumption of total isolation of the Americas from Europe. This is false. There are numerous accounts and artifacts documenting pre-Columbian European trade with the Americas by Phoenicians, Hebrews, Druids, and Norsemen. With all those visits, there was (according to this theory)not one major introduction of a contagious virus. With cocaine and tobacco samples in Egypt, fired brick in Central America, Phoenician writing in New Mexico, and Druid relics in Kentucky and Minnesota (if memory serves) how is such "isolation" possible? If there wasn't isolation, this theory loses a central premise.

[farmfriend]

I agree with you somewhat on the contagion issue. My question is, if the population wasn't high, as has been traditionally assumed, who where they trading with?

[blam]

"There are aspects of this story that disturb me greatly. The first is the assumption of total isolation of the Americas from Europe. This is false. There are numerous accounts and artifacts documenting pre-Columbian European trade with the Americas by Phoenicians, Hebrews, Druids, and Norsemen. With all those visits, there was (according to this theory)not one major introduction of a contagious virus. With cocaine and tobacco samples in Egypt, fired brick in Central America, Phoenician writing in New Mexico, and Druid relics in Kentucky and Minnesota (if memory serves) how is such "isolation" possible? If there wasn't isolation, this theory loses a central premise."

I agree with you 100%, however, I also (by and large) agree with the premise of the article. I went to sleep last night looking for an answer, without success. I'm baffled!!(Catastrophies local and worldwide do not even get a mention)

[blam]

Going Into The Water: A Survey Of Impact Events And The Coastal People Of Southeast North America, The Caribbean And Central America.

[arthurus]

Everything I have read on the subject seems to suggest that the trans continental traffic was in abeyance for a thousand years or thereabouts, plenty of time for new diseases to become ingrained in a population, or for new forms of old diseases that might have devastating effects on a population suddenly exposed, maybe measles and smallpox.