Disease and demography in the Americas

Book

Disease and demography in the Americas / edited by John W. Verano and Douglas H. Ubelaker.

Verano, John W. (Added Author). Ubelaker, Douglas H. (Added Author). National Museum of Natural History (U.S.) (Added Author).

Summary:

"This landmark book brings together diverse viewpoints of leading international anthropologists and demographers on the patterns of populations and disease in the Americas both before and after 1492." "Recent demographic literature has depicted America before European contact as a disease-free paradise, but the literature in physical anthropology and paleopathology regularly documents a variety of disease conditions in ancient America. At the same time, demographic reconstructions from ancient samples seem at odds with, standard interpretations from ethnohistory and demography. Clarifying what is fact and what is theory, these essays attest to the complexity of the issues and show that much can be learned through interdisciplinary research." "The twenty-five essays from leading scholars in this area range in topic from the interpretive possibilities of skeletal paleopathology and the effects of European contact on the Chumash Indians to the impact of disease on the sixteenth-century Andean world and the 1832 inoculation program on the Missouri River."--Jacket.

Record details

ISBN: 1560981636
ISBN: 9781560981633
Physical Description: x, 294 pages : illustrations ; 29 cm.
Publisher: Washington : Smithsonian Institution Press, c1992.

Content descriptions

General Note:: "One of a series of symposia produced as part of Seeds of Change, the National Museum of Natural History's commemoration of the Columbus Quincentenary"--Foreword.
Bibliography, etc. Note:: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Formatted Contents Note:: Skeletal paleopathology : probabilities, possibilities, and impossibilities / Donald J. Ortner -- Prehistoric disease and demography in the Andes / John W. Verano -- Population decline and extinction in La Florida / Clark Spencer Larsen ... [et al.] -- Health and disease in the late prehistoric Southeast / Mary Lucas Powell -- Health and disease in the Southwest before and after Spanish contact / Ann L.W. Stodder and Debra L. Martin -- Demography of prehistoric and early historic Northern Plains populations / Douglas W. Owsley -- Diet and disease in late prehistory / Jane E. Buikstra -- Disease and sociopolitical systems in late prehistoric Illinois / George R. Milner -- Transformation and disease : precontact Ontario Iroquoians / Shelley R. Saunders, Peter G. Ramsden, and D. Ann Herring.

Effects of contact on the Chumash Indians / Phillip L. Walker and John R. Johnson -- Impact of disease on the precontact and early historic populations of New England and the Maritimes / Catherine C. Carlson, George J. Armelagos, and Ann L. Magennis -- Pre-Columbian treponematosis in coastal North Carolina / Georgieann Bogdan and David S. Weaver -- Summary on disease before and after contact / Arthur C. Aufderheide -- North American Indian population size : changing perspectives / Douglas H. Ubelaker -- Disease and population decline in the Northeast / Dean R. Snow -- Depopulation in the Southeast after 1492 / Russell Thornton, Jonathan Warren, and Tim Miller -- Prehistoric population density in the Amazon Basin / Betty J. Meggers.

Impact of disease in the sixteenth-century Andean world / Noble David Cook -- Native American trade centers as contagious disease foci / Henry F. Dobyns -- Population and Spanish contact in the Southwest / Steadman Upham -- Yellow fever and the Africanization of the Caribbean / Kenneth F. Kiple and Brian T. Higgins -- Population decline from two epidemics on the Northwest coast / Robert Boyd -- The 1832 inoculation program on the Missouri River / Michael K. Trimble -- Contact shock in Northwestern New Spain, 1518-1764 / Daniel T. Reff -- Summary on population size before and after contact / Alfred W. Crosby.