Re: Pre-contact diseases anyone???

Brian D. Renaud (renaud@news.itd.umich.edu)
23 Jun 1995 17:45:46 GMT

Benjamin Jay Britton (brittobj@ucunix.san.uc.edu) wrote:

: > I spotted it in Discover magazine a while back, it was just a few
: >paragraphs, but it pictured a new bone find exhibiting the effects of
: >smallpox dated several hundred years before Columbus. If you can find
: >that there's more references in the back of the magazine.
: >
: >John
: >john.d.brennan@dartmouth.edu

: this must not be true and cannot be true and if it was it is because
: smallpox must have been carried over the bering straits 12,000 years
: previously. if you resist my diatribe, you are a lunatic fringeoid.
: do you undestand i am sarcastic!?

: -benb

I believe there is evidence of Nordic settlement in North America before
Columbus. Other contacts from Europe and Asia have been suggested.
Perhaps you should relax a little before responding.

(I am not suggesting that smallpox was transmitted in any pre-Columbian
contacts, just that the opportunity existed.)

-Brian