10,000 BCE: half of all humans alive are in the Americas. The world's total population is 4.5 million. No cities. 1600 CE: North America has 3.8 million people. It had 30.5 million a hundred years earlier. Smallpox moved faster than ships. In many areas it spread through indigenous trade routes and killed entire communities before a European ever arrived in person. South America lost 78% of its people over the same century. https://vividmaps.com/world-population-history-cartograms/
















