In 1492, a substantial fraction of New World societies were foragers who were approximately as civilized as Europe.
I thought the ‘approximately as civilized as Europe’ parts of the New World were basically all agricultural? Like, more than half of the native population lived in Mexico and the Andes, both of which were populated mostly by farmers instead of foragers; the cities in North America that I’m familiar with (like Cahokia) were also the product of farming cultures. The ‘Salmon People’ of the Pacific Northwest are a bit difficult to classify, but seem more like farmers than foragers to me (and also like they were probably at the bottom end of the range, or below, the ‘approximately as civilized as Europe’ group).
If you’re counting ‘societies’ instead of ‘people’ then I think the measure is heavily tilted in favor of smaller societies, as farming societies are more likely to fuse and grow; for example, the formation of the Iroquois League, which seems to be related to the adoption of agriculture, turned five societies into one society (at least the way that I look at things).
The Dawn of Everything calls the “fisher kings” of the pacific northwest foragers, and also the “protestant foragers” who lived in what’s now California. I don’t see much info about their population density.
I’m about halfway through the book, and I’m unsure how much to trust it.
I was also including the foragers who built Poverty Point (a structure about 1⁄3 the size of the Burning Man area), but I see now that they were no longer around in 1500.
The book also indicates that many regions, particularly in Amazonia, are hard to classify, because they did small amounts of “play farming”, without getting much food that way.
I thought the ‘approximately as civilized as Europe’ parts of the New World were basically all agricultural? Like, more than half of the native population lived in Mexico and the Andes, both of which were populated mostly by farmers instead of foragers; the cities in North America that I’m familiar with (like Cahokia) were also the product of farming cultures. The ‘Salmon People’ of the Pacific Northwest are a bit difficult to classify, but seem more like farmers than foragers to me (and also like they were probably at the bottom end of the range, or below, the ‘approximately as civilized as Europe’ group).
If you’re counting ‘societies’ instead of ‘people’ then I think the measure is heavily tilted in favor of smaller societies, as farming societies are more likely to fuse and grow; for example, the formation of the Iroquois League, which seems to be related to the adoption of agriculture, turned five societies into one society (at least the way that I look at things).
The Dawn of Everything calls the “fisher kings” of the pacific northwest foragers, and also the “protestant foragers” who lived in what’s now California. I don’t see much info about their population density.
I’m about halfway through the book, and I’m unsure how much to trust it.
I was also including the foragers who built Poverty Point (a structure about 1⁄3 the size of the Burning Man area), but I see now that they were no longer around in 1500.
The book also indicates that many regions, particularly in Amazonia, are hard to classify, because they did small amounts of “play farming”, without getting much food that way.