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Re: New world populations
JAMES BENTHALL (st26h@jane.uh.edu)
19 Dec 1994 19:00 CST
In article <3d2svk$bq@newsbf01.news.aol.com>, mbawilliam@aol.com (MBAWilliam) writes...
>
>According to Dobyns' "An Appraisal of Techniques with a New Hemisphere
>Estimate" _Current Anthro_ 1966, you, not your colleagues, are correct.
>His estimates put the pre-Columbian New World population at 90 million,
>with a mortality rate of around 95% during the first fifty years of
>European invasion. Although these estimates have been challenged in
>recent years (I have additional citations, but they're packed in
>boxes...let me know if you want them and I'll dig them up), for the most
>part they only decrease Dobyns' estimates by perhaps a third to a half,
>leaving a sizable population of 50 to 70 million, and not the *paltry few*
>your friends proclaim. Do they also subscribe to the theory that the
>Mid-Continental mounds were built by lost Europeans? Just wondering....
>
>Cheers...
>
>MB Williams, WesU GLSP
>
Well, I'm certainly not getting too involved in this thread again but I will
add that virtually *everyone* believes Dobyns to be way too high. Secondly,
a good source for this is _American Holocaust_ but I forgot the author.
Good luck!
james b.
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