Newsgroup: it.cultura.storia
Titolo: Dati sui nativi americani.

Salve,
cerco dei dati sulla storia dei nativi americani, i pellerossa,
limitatamente agli aspetti demografici, statistici, da quando ci fu
l'invasione di gente europea.  Vorrei sapere i dati sulla popolazione.
Grazie a tutti

 wrote:

Non si sa con precisione. Due citazioni:
Little agreement exists among anthropologists on the number of people
inhabiting the New World on the eve of its discovery by Europeans.
Estimates have ranged from a low of 8.4 million to a high of perhaps
112 million. An error of only 50% in estimate would be remarkable,
considering the scarcity and frequent distortions to be found in early
records and the unknown impact of new diseases. Scholars supporting
the higher estimate have contended that new diseases (smallpox,
measles, diphtheria, whooping cough, influenza, and possibly yellow
fever and malaria) introduced into America through contact with
newcomers may have been responsible for upward of 80 million deaths.
It is, however, certain that for centuries after European contact,
native-American populations suffered rapid decline. Only in the 20th
century has the number of Indians in most countries of the Americas
begun to increase, partly as the result of a declining rate of infant
mortality. (Berkhofer, Robert F., The White Man's Indian: Images of
the American Indian from Columbus to the Present)
Estimates of the aboriginal population are based on information
supplied by explorers, traders, missionaries, and other early
reporters and are only as good as the reporters' observations were
trustworthy. A more serious impediment to an accurate count is that
some tribes, by the time they were visited, had already been
depopulated by European diseases and weapons.
The American anthropologist Alfred Louis Kroeber submitted a
population total for the area north of Mexico almost identical to that
given in the Table, since he used the same figures except for
California. He subgrouped the material, however, to accord with
subsistence areas rather than geographical boundaries. In addition, he
ranked the areas according to population densities, expressed in
numbers of persons per square kilometre: California area, 43.40;
northwest Pacific Coast, 28.30; southwestern  United States, 10.70;
Columbia-Fraser rivers area, 7.15; eastern area, 6.95; Arctic coast,
4.02; Great Basin, 2.47; and northern area, 1.35. Although
agricultural areas of the east and southwest contained the greater
population (about 405,000 in all), Kroeber believed that the
predominantly fishing economy of the Pacific Coast (Bering Strait to
southern California) had greater relative density of population. His
estimates were Pacific Coast, 25.2 persons per square kilometre;
agricultural areas, 10.1; remaining area north of Mexico, 2.2.
The population of a little over 1,000,000 for North America north of
Mexico contrasts with the estimated 5,000,000 for Mexico and Central
America and with the estimated 25,000,000 for the Western Hemisphere
as a whole. (These uncertifiable estimates must, however, be
approached with caution.) (Frederick Johnson, ed., Man in Northeastern
North America; Il saggio di Kroeber era intitolato Handbook of the
Indians of California).
Ferdinando Chiodo

 Little agreement exists among anthropologists on the number of people
Ti spiacerebbe fare una traduzione o almeno un sunto?
Grazie
Alex
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in italiano
Non esiste accordo fra gli antropologi sul numero di coloro che
abitavano il Nuovo Mondo all'epoca della colonizzazione americana. Le
stime vanno da 8.4 a 112 milioni di abitanti. L'incertezza dipende
dalla scarsita` dei documenti non esenti da vizi. L'impatto delle
malattie infettive sulle popolazioni americane e` stato inoltre
disastroso, avendo determinato un declino arrestatosi solo in questo
secolo, col declino della mortalita` infantile (Berkhofer, Robert F.,
The White Man's Indian: Images of the American Indian from Columbus to
the Present)
Le stime sulle popolazioni aborigene sono basate su rapporti di
esploratori, mercanti, missionari, ecc. Raramente queste osservazioni
erano affidabili, essendo peraltro difficili dal fatto che malattie e
violenze comportavano una costante diminuzione della popolazione.
L'antropologo Alfred Louis Kroeber ha eseguito delle stime delle
densita` di popolazione basate sulla natura del suolo, piu` che sui
confini geografici. Ha poi ordinato le aree in base alla densita` di
popolazione (numero di abitanti per km quadrato). Si va cosi` dai 43.4
abitanti per km quadrato della California, ai 28.3 della costa nord
orientale del Pacifico, ai 10.7 del sudovest, ai 4.2 della costa
artica e al 1.35 delle regioni piu` a nord. Simava pertanto in 1
milione gli abitanti dei territori a nord del Messico, 5 milioni
quelli di Messico e centroamerica e 25 milioni per l'emisfero
occidentali. Ma queste statistiche richiedono molta cautela (Frederick
Johnson, ed., Man in Northeastern North America; Il saggio di Kroeber
era intitolato Handbook of the Indians of California).
Ciao
Ferdinando Chiodo

Ferdinando Chiodo
Ti ringrazio MOLTO per le notevoli informazioni che mi hai dato.
Ciao
Massimo D'Angeli