abstract
| - According to current scientific knowledge, human beings did not evolve in North or South America but instead arrived by sea or by a land bridge that formerly connected North America with Asia. Most (if not all) of those indigenous peoples descended from peoples living in Siberia. They entered North America by at least 12,000 years ago and diversified into hundreds of culturally distinct nations and tribes. Some indigenous peoples of the Americas supported agriculturally advanced societies for thousands of years. In some regions they created large sedentary chiefdom polities, and had advanced state level societies with monumental architecture and large-scale, organized cities. Scholars' estimates of the total population of the Americas before European contact vary enormously, from a low of 10 million to a high of 112 million. Whatever the figure, scholars generally agree that most of the indigenous population resided in Mesoamerica and South America, while about 10% resided in North America. Smallpox, typhus, influenza, diphtheria, measles and other epidemics swept in after European contact, killing a large portion of the indigenous peoples of the Americas, causing one of the greater calamities in human history. At least 93 waves of epidemic disease swept through native populations between first contact and the early 20th century. Another reason for the dramatic decline of the Native American population was the treatment of the native population by European settlers, as well as continuing wars, either with Europeans or between tribes.
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