Not a new article and long by our standards. But some will appreciate it. Seems we really don't know whether there were 1.5 million or 150 million inhabitants. But there are a large number of megastructures. 1491 - The Atlantic
i have seen that myth in local politics. city and town board members are constantly denying permits for anything that would change the current ecology, because they believe what they see, is what has always been.
i read a book similar to this a few years ago. can't remember the name or author. bill o'reilly maybe? interesting, and boring at the same time.
Has always been pretty much misses most recent ice age. Many before that as well. More recently New England had all those textile mills and rivers running in whatever color the most recent dyeing was. I consider 'current ecology' quite shallow discourse on whether or not some new disruption is appropriate. But there are shallower.
not that i know of. i remember reading about south and central america, studies of the ecology and how it may have come to be the way it was. what was 'natural' and what was man made. also, the whole native american thing, disease, dan and etc. i wish i could put my finger on it, but my brain cells aren't up to the task. again, interesting, but a tough slog. maybe they should be more concise for the non scientist.
I read a recent article that reports that a strain of e coli new to the New World killed 80% of the residents of Mexico after the Spanish arrived. (as I understood the article) One issue with counting the population of pre-Colombian Americas is the almost immediate spread of disease. This may mask the level of pre-Colombian civilizations. Gut bacteria linked to cataclysmic epidemic that wiped out 16th-century Mexico | Ars Technica
I thought it was measles and small pox. I remember reports of finding whole native villages wiped out. Bob Wilson
Didn't we read a few weeks ago that most of the plastic waste clogging in the world's oceans comes from just 6 Asian rivers, including the Ganges?
Measles and small pox and several other diseases 'found' Asian immigrants to Americas to be immunologically unprepared. Has always been perplexing because many of diseases involved were prevalent throughout Asia. Current interpretation (story/myth ) is that that (those) wandering troops spend a long time in their Siberia/Alaska travel phase. During which populations were severely reproductively isolated and went through some population bottlenecks. So they may have lost population level immunity along the way. I think this has very interesting implications to consider for a human aspirational goal of interstellar colonization. Aside from being the largest human epidemiological oopsie that ever happened. That we have any evidence about. ++ In addition, plastic waste delivery to oceans is highly unevenly distributed. But if viewed in terms of human population living in each river's watershed (catchment basin), it isn't.
That makes sense as being migratory in exceptionally hostile climate, those suffering maladies would have little to no chance of transporting the bugs. Bob Wilson
Such interpretations/stories/myths would have little traction without at least a paint coat of plausibility. Does not mean I disagree; simply that I claim to recognize where there is a concordance of evidence and where not. On some topics... For all that, a small, long-isolated and stressed population will have lots of kinds of drift. Not just immunological. Whether the America's pre-Euro-contact population was on low or high end of estimated, they took it in the chin. Plenty of evidence for that. List of diseases probably introduced to Americas is long. One interesting candidate is syphilis; it remains unclear which population was donor and which receiver.
after reading the preview on amazon, i realize that this is the book i (almost) read. can't remember how many chapters i slogged through before giving it up as a bad job. a priest friend of mine said that everyone in the seminary was reading it and enjoying it thoroughly, so i rushed to the library. ah well, my loss. i had the same problem with 'killing Jesus' and 'no ordinary time'. i got through all 7 harry potter books no problemo though.
For Abos, a similar (shorter) list of diseases is invoked as consequence of Euro arrival. We lack a 'story' of how prior immunity (if they had it) was lost. Lacking such I can spin a yarn. When Abos were making the trip, -75000 years, Toba eruption bottlenecked that population. Seems unlikely this can be examined in detail. do not know how Pc Islanders fit in. Their 'infilling' was about 5000 years ago, maybe, boat technology being inadequate prior. There is a link with ENSO wind reversals that goes outside present topic.
UK reduction in plastic waste@11. There are many ways in which such hydrocarbon polymers 'gum up the works' Other than becoming floating marine garbage patches.
True, but but still UK represents the tiniest fraction, (remember them?) of the global total. One of my college professors used to describe it mischievously as three fifths of five eighths of FA!
From an item quite some time back, I thought it was unclear even which species was the donor. Ancient bone evidence pointed to even an infected ursine.
