1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus

This continent populated much earlier than 12,000 years ago. Earliest European contacts record post-epidemic population levels; North and South America had millions of people before earliest visitors from Europe brought pigs and diseases. North American populations had less diverse genetic ability to fight disease, so more died in epidemics than Europeans would have done.

Berengia land bridge - theory that Siberians crossed while chasing mastodons is questionable given gatherer nature of other people from similar era.

“Mother cultures” (Olmecs) of middle American weren't - “sister” cultures may have developed in parallel.

p. 311 (conclusion) “Faced with an ecological problem, the Indians fixed it. Rather than adapt to nature, they created it. They were in the midst of terra-forming the Amazon when Columbus showed up and ruined everything.”

Early occupants adopted agricultural methods that would work in the environment. Fruit cultivators and breeding not recognized as “farming” by Europeans but it was. Yanomami can survive “in the wild” because their ancestors created the landscape around them.

Huge numbers of e.g. bison and passenger pigeons resulted from predators (Indians) dying from European diseases - they did not exist in such disproportionate numbers before 1491.

“Virgin forest” created in 18th century when Indians who controlled the growth died and growth was no longer planned and controlled.