4e3b141c   
   XPost: soc.culture.usa, alt.fan.adolf-hitler, rec.arts.movies.current-films   
   XPost: rec.aviation.military   
   From: keithnospam@demon.co.uk   
      
   deemsbill@aol.com wrote:   
   > On May 11, 1:44 pm, "Keith Willshaw"  wrote:   
   >> The Starmaker wrote:   
   >>> deemsb...@aol.com wrote:   
   >>   
   >>>> Since 1776? Well under one million.   
   >>   
   >>> I don't understand...   
   >>> there was a hundred million people in China in 1776, why   
   >>> couldn't there be a hundred million people in America in 1776?   
   >>   
   >> Because China was a long established Agrarian society   
   >> that had sophisticated farming techniques, had excellent   
   >> metallurgical skills and a stable well ordered society.   
   >>   
   >> Pre Columbian North America was largely populated by   
   >> nomadic hunter gatherers who were living in the neolithic   
   >> had almost no domesticated animals.   
   >   
   >     Actually, most of them were farmers who supplemented their diet   
   > with hunting/gathering/fishing.   
      
      
   This was true of the mound building culture of the Mississippian period   
   but for reasons that are still not clear that society seems to have   
   collapsed in the mid 15th century. When Hernando de Soto explored   
   the area in the 1540's he encountered some remnants of that society   
   but for the most part the tribes he encountered were mainly hunter   
   gatherers.   
      
   The collapse of the mound builders civilization  and the Anasazi seems   
   to coincide with the climate change event know as the little   
   ice age. Whatever the cause the great city of Cahokia seems to   
   have been abandoned around 1400.   
      
   The diseases carried by De Soto's men seems to have accelerated the   
   trend. By the time the first British/American settlers reached these   
   areas the culture had all but disappeared. Only in the south west   
   among the Hopi and Navajo did agriculture still form the main   
   way of life.   
      
   The ancient center in Ohio that is called Fort Ancient had been   
   abandoned by the time the first Europeans arrived and the area   
   was inhabited by the Shawnee who were much less sedentary.   
      
   Another factor was the vicious wars of the 17th century fought   
   between  the Iriquois and Algonquian Indians in the region   
      
   The notion that the Native Americans lived in some sort of mystic   
   harmony is just new age twaddle. By 1670 the Iriquois had   
   pushed the Algonquin out of much of Ohio and Michigan.   
      
   Keith   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)