Mohawk Demography and the Effects of Exogenous Epidemics on American Indian Populations

The combination of archaeological and documentary research in the Mohawk Valley Project has allowed an unusually detailed assessment of demographic change through the contact and colonial periods. The results support the view that exogenous epidemics did not enter the northeastern part of North America until the Seventeenth Century. They indirectly support the lower of current estimates of the size of the pre-Columbian population of North America. The case study also illuminates certain aspects of cultural ecology and cultural evolution, supporting the principles that selection operates simultaneously at many levels and that human intentionality is a relevant consideration only at a relatively small scale.