America before the Europeans

There were people and culture in the land before europeans. What was not in the land was a congruent enforceable proprietary model.

 

This off the general flow of this thread, but I find it interesting. And it does have relevance I think.

http://www.theguardian.com/science/2011/mar/24/humans-north-america-stone-tools

 

im confused by the sentence... the word was means it was in the past and not present but its immediately followed by the word now which is present and current.

 

This, I think, is the key to any such historical discussion as this.

No person alive today is responsible for, or implicated in, the actions of any person living 400 years ago; and the idea that history can somehow provide solutions to contemporary issues, or tell you who is "in the right" and who is "in the wrong" is frankly absurd.

We are where we are; and the only three questions which matter are:

1. Is this where we want to be?
2. If not, where DO we want to be?
3. How do we get from where we are now to where we want to be.

The study of history may provide some illuminating insights; telling us how different people in different ages with different ideas and norms sought to identify and address those same three questions. And this is intrinsically interesting, and therefore worth doing. But it will not provide us with the answers to those three questions as they arise in the context of the modern world with its modern issues and norms. We must find those answers for ourselves.

 

The vector for the development of these diseases in humansJua is not Eurasia nor is it Eurasians. It is domestication of animals and agriculture. Living in close quarters. Why do we live in close quarters, proprietary boundaries. Why did europeans have relative immunity as a population to these diseases in comparison to american indians, because the diseases arose over time from within our co-habitations.

As good as it is for comparisons sake the question of america before the europeans, will not give us as much information about that time as the question what is the world now. Physical processes are the same everywhere all the time. It is not particularly our travel or emigration that leads to epidemic or pandemic but our close quartered life styles.
Just to lend what ever perspective.

I

 

We can question this claim on the face of it. If pathogen host survives then pathogen survives. Sparse and dispersed population holds contagion in check. Did human migration over being strait occur after agriculture, animal domestication or civilization arose? If it occurred before those events then there was no life style contributing to the development of those diseases.

 

I do not disagree with that statement in any way.

 

When Jacques Carterier explored the St Laurence estuary for France, in the 1500's he found large towns of Amerinds at places that would become Quebec & Montreal; Statadocanda and Honchegalia.

When Samuel Champlain showed up about 1608 these towns had been abandoned. Why.