What emerged from this research was a new vision of a brief but far-flung and intricate sociopolitical web. Around A.D. 1000, Thule hunters moving east encountered seafaring Norse moving west. That site vividly attests the Viking presence in America. This early North Atlantic contact loomed large in the lives and deaths of the players, but the vast majority of Native Americans were quite unaware that worlds were colliding. All that would change with the next round of contact, beginning in 1492.
Archaeology attests a world come apart.
There was extensive demographic collapse in native North American populations, partly from competition and warfare but mostly from infectious diseases like smallpox, measles, and influenza introduced by Europeans. No one site captures the full picture, but Tathum Mound, in Florida, visited by the Spanish conquistador Hernando de Soto, gives a glimpse. A century later, when the French returned to the region, it was virtually empty. Throughout the history of American archaeology there has been an uneasy relationship between archaeologists and the people they study. Native American sites were excavated by the thousands and human skeletons and accompanying artifacts put on public display across the nation.