[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?

[Carry_Okie]

I think the truth is simply more complex than to say that a few diseased Europeans ignorantly wiped them out. The pig theory is interesting but certainly doesn't apply to South America. That there was contagion is historically true as the celebrated example of the Aztecs remids us. Although the theory that South America had an enormous population, shows some evidence, the indications are that most of these people were gone long before Columbus. My guess is that the Americas have had several waves from various directions including the negroid peoples who were wiped out by the Mongolian invasion over the Bering ice bridge only 10,000 years ago or so. Then there's Kenneweck. But that certainly blows the "isolation from dirty Europeans" theory, although that's surely one way to raise research money.

It's going to take a long time (and many grants) to piece this together.

[ASA Vet]

who where they trading with?

Maybe the Preposition tribe, in old England.