Bob Kelly, professor emeritus of archaeology at UW, excavates a site in Wyoming.
Kelly led a new study showing that, if Europeans had arrived in North America a few
hundred years earlier, they would have faced much larger, well-organized Indigenous
societies capable of stronger resistance. (Madelein Mackie Photo)
For a long time, researchers have sought to estimate the size of North America’s Indigenous
population before European colonization to fully understand its impact.
A new study led by Robert Kelly, professor emeritus of archaeology at the University
of Wyoming, reveals significant fluctuations in the Indigenous population of North
America before European contact, using radiocarbon data from the past 2,000 years.
The full study, “Spatiotemporal distribution of the North American Indigenous population prior to European
contact,” was published today (Monday) in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
By analyzing radiocarbon records from 18 major watersheds across the continent, the
study found that human population peaks varied regionally, occurring as early as 800-770
A.D. in some areas and persisting until after European contact in others. The interior
regions of the continent saw declines between 1080 and 1300 A.D., while populations
in the Great Lakes, New England, the Mid-Atlantic, the Central Plains, the Northwest
and California remained stable until after European arrival.
“Europeans unknowingly arrived at a time when Indigenous populations had already declined,”
Kelly says. “Had they come a few hundred years earlier, they would have faced much
larger, well-organized societies capable of stronger resistance — potentially altering
the course of North American history.”
The study shows that the continent’s Indigenous population peaked around 1150 A.D.
before experiencing a decline, with a brief recovery before 1500 A.D., followed by
a sharp decrease after European arrival. Precontact declines were most likely due
to climate, especially drought, disease in large settlements, emigration and warfare.
In many cases, population declines were linked to migration. Cahokia, directly across
the Mississippi River and from present-day St. Louis, and its surrounding areas were
abandoned as people moved up the Ohio River and into Tennessee. In northwest Wyoming,
the population dropped sharply after 1150 A.D., with some people migrating north and
west. In the Mesa Verde region, maize-dependent communities moved south to the upper
Rio Grande Valley, while the Ute, a smaller foraging population, resettled the area.
However, migration alone does not fully explain the overall population loss, the researchers
say. While European contact had a devastating impact, Indigenous populations did not
simply peak in 1500 A.D. and then decline.
Previous studies by other researchers have used radiocarbon data from the Canadian
Archaeological Radiocarbon Database (CARD) to identify a pre-contact population decline
in North America around 1150 A.D. They linked this decline to disease in large settlements
and a lack of radiocarbon dating for post-1500 A.D. sites. However, their study relied
on a smaller, less accurate database that was biased toward northern states.
In this study, Kelly and his team used a larger, updated CARD to analyze Indigenous
population trends in the continental U.S. over the past 2,000 years. Their findings
confirm a widespread population decline, but with regional differences.
Additionally, the study rules out radiocarbon sampling bias as the cause of these
trends, providing strong evidence for major demographic shifts before and after European
contact.
Warfare can cause major population declines, but a pre-Columbian decline in Indigenous
numbers does not mean they were a “dying race,” as colonialist ideology once assumed,
the researchers say. Instead, like all human societies, Indigenous populations experienced
periods of growth, decline, migration and resettlement.
Also involved in the study were Madeline Mackie, of Michigan State University; Wyoming
State Archaeologist Spencer Pelton; and Erick Robinson, of Desert Research Institute
in Reno, Nev.
Kelly has worked on the archaeology, ethnology and ethnography of foraging peoples
since 1973, working on archaeological research projects in Nevada, California, New
Mexico, Kentucky, Georgia, Chile and Wyoming.
To learn more about his research, email him at [email protected].
Source link : https://www.uwyo.edu/news/2025/02/uw-led-study-traces-indigenous-population-shifts-in-north-america-before-europeans.html
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Publish date : 2025-02-03 08:35:00
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