Re:The Amazon rain forest may be largely a human artifact
by ubernostrum on Wednesday November 11, 2009 @02:06AM
(#934798)
Not everyone particularly likes him, but Jared Diamond's "Guns, Germs and Steel" explores pretty much this exact question (as part of a suite of "why did Europeans conquer the Americas instead of the other way around" issues). Glossing over a lot of the details and specifics, the argument he makes is that various factors -- geography, indigenous flora/fauna, etc. -- allowed densely-packed settled human populations to develop in Europe/Africa/Asia before the Americas. And such densely-packed populations are far more conducive to the development of epidemic diseases, which would be why diseases brought by Europeans wrought such havoc on the Americas but not vice-versa (except possibly for syphilis, but that one's still being debated).
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Re:The Amazon rain forest may be largely a human artifact
by Tichy on Wednesday November 11, 2009 @07:07AM
(#935116)
Among other things he says that there were no (or almost no) animals suitable for domestication and mass herding in the Americas. Therefore the native Americans had no contact with herds of animals that would have bred diseases of that kind. Most of those epidemic diseases that killed off lots of people apparently stem from chicken and pigs. (note: guess why it is called "swine flu").
Re:The Amazon rain forest may be largely a human artifact
by yummyfajitas on Wednesday November 11, 2009 @10:35AM
(#935404)
Also, the spread of disease did go both ways. Syphilis came from America to Europe.
It's also worth noting that Europeans are not at the top of the food chain in terms of disease resistance. Various European powers raised a flag on New Guinea, but they never successfully colonized it. It's a cesspool of disease, and Europeans never managed to do more than establish a few trading posts on the beach.