Re: New world populations

MBAWilliam (mbawilliam@aol.com)
20 Dec 1994 08:11:48 -0500

>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
>

st26h@jane.uh.edu (JAMES BENTHALL) replies:

>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.

Hmmm...I guess you skipped the rest of the post after reading Dobyns...

Happy Holidays all,

MB
MB Williams