Maybe It Wasn't Smallpox Afterall

[kbs2244]

I always liked this guy when he showed up on the News Page.
But when did the story about Maya sites in GA I had to subscribe to his newsletter.
(It is free)

In going through the archives I came across this.

Maybe it wasn’t all the white mans small pox after all.
In fact, depending on the area, smallpox may have been too little too late.
The damage was already done.

http://www.examiner.com/architecture-de ... -the-1500s

I think it is too bad he threw in the modern day conspiracy part.
I think, even if it any status, the idea draws away from the historical importance.

[circumspice]

WTF?!

Richard Thornton is not a physician. Nor is he a epidemiologist. What qualifies him to write an article on epidemics?

Richard Thornton is not an archaeologist. Nor is he a historian. What qualifies him to write an article about the post conquest history of the Americas?

The only credentials I could find for him were architectural credentials. And he also seems to be quite a conspiracy buff... Whoopee...

So who cares about his opinion of this particular subject? I don't...

[Minimalist]

Well said, Circ.

[kbs2244]

Well there is a whole lot of architecture in archeology.
And he is an architecture historian.
So there is some crossover.

As I said, I did care for the conspiracy connection.
But I would imagine it is something that would surface in any deep investigation of the disease and it’s history.

But, I would agree.
It doesn’t belong in a story aimed at this audience.

When he says:

Epidemiologists currently believe that this killer disease was a strain of hantavirus, carried by certain wild rodents that somehow mutated into a hemorrhagic fever with symptoms similar to the Ebola Fever of Africa. To this day no one knows why this indigenous microbe suddenly became so deadly, or even how it was transmitted from village to village. No one knows either what caused the disease to seemingly disappear in the early 1800s.

It sounds like it is accepted reason for the occurrence in the world of Epidemiologists.
(Not a world I know much about.)

So I would guess he is pretty sure of his sources.
But note that he does often sidestep the US establishment.
He has good contacts in Mexico established academia.

[Digit]

Being an amateur doesn't make him wrong of course.

Roy.

[Gary Svindal]

Establishment Archeologists prefer to claim the monumental ruins found throughout the Southeastern US are the works of “an unknown indigenous Indian People”. The Hitchiti People lived in Georgia and Alabama long before the Muscogee People came and forced them into the Creek Confederation. The old ruins were considered Taboo, because so many people had died there, causing the survivors to scatter and begin new towns. The Hitchiti Creeks called themselves the “Itsate People” while the Mayans called themselves the “Itza People”. There were many similarities, including language, between the Hitchiti and Mayan People.

Many White People of the Southeast, who acknowledge having Indian ancestors, have been surprised to discover their DNA tests indicate Purepeche and Mayan markers. It would seem appropriate to consider DNA tests among the Hitchiti Creeks, who are alive and well today as members of the Creek Tribal Confederation. This would seem a simple solution to the question, but not the argument.

EL Halcon

[E.P. Grondine]

Hi Gary, KB -

For an introduction to the peoples of the SE, read "Man and Impact in the Americas"
It also cover the Kushita migration from the Three Rivers Gorges Area, with dating, and their earlier migration from the north.

The Kushita were not Mayan. For that matter, the "Itza" were late arrivals in the Yucatan.
Also covered in my book.

The Formative and Huastecan migrations to the SE are covered in the book as well.

The next edition will have far more on the Oconachee and Yuchi, and other related peoples, and their origins.

You can borrow a copy through interlibrary loan.

It does not have any conspiracy theories, nor ancient aliens.

[Gary Svindal]

Well E.P., I've decided to read your book. But, speaking from my NA and Euro bloodlines, I don't hold much stock with oral histories. Only the survivors get to record oral history - as the victim's blood drains into the soil, and the tribal history of the vanquished is forgotten forever.

El Halcon

[E.P. Grondine]

Use bright light and take your time; read the sections that interest you the most first, then start from the very beginning.

Your points on oral history are well taken. I'm going to have to include some comments on Native American oral traditions and methods for working with them in the next edition.

I've made some observations here and elsewhere on this. I suppose I'll have to gather them together then, along with my notes on mt DNA and the migrations to the Americas.

[kbs2244]

I have a copy of your book E.P.
And you make some persuasive arguments about how the inhabitants got were they were in prehistorically times.

But, as interesting as I find that question, my OP wasn’t about that.
It was about what happened to them in historical times.

It has long been assumed that Europeans brought disease, that the locals had no resistance to, that was the cause of the huge plague population die off.

The idea that Richard Thornton is floating here is, in one of those strange timings of events, that an entirely local strain of an Ebola type disease spread through Mexico and the southern parts of the current US right before the Spanish arrived.

[Gary Svindal]

Dby: Check out Doctor Acuna-Soto of the National Autonomous University in Mexico City. Dr. Acuna-Soto studied epidemiology and molecular biology at Harvard University, and his 12 year study of the Aztec demise concludes that the Aztecs died off from a hemorrhagic virus rather than smallpox, about a decade before Hernando Cortes stormed Mexico with less than a thousand soldiers in 1519. Millions of Aztec had already died off, including the royal family, and the country was divided between warring warlords.

The codices called the disease Cocolitzli, and the victim’s symptoms were the same as those of a hemorrhagic fever virus, such as Ebola, Marburg or Lassa, that had lain dormant in its animal hosts, most likely rodents. Severe drought would have contained the population of rodents, forcing them to hole up wherever they could find water. Initially, only a small percentage may have been infected, but when forced into close quarters the virus was transmitted during bloody fights. Infected mother rodents then passed the virus to their young during pregnancy. When the rains returned, the rodents bred quickly and spread the virus through their urine and feces - as they came into contact with humans in fields and homes. Once infected, humans transmitted the virus to one another through contact with blood, sweat, and saliva.

The Spaniard’s military policy of alliance and conquest worked well to defeat, enslave, and murder the Aztecs, but now it seems that a native hemorrhagic virus called cocolitzli, is what really finished them off - and the epidemic had nothing to do with smallpox.

El Halcon

[kbs2244]

Dare I say:
"Amen"

[circumspice]

Dby: Check out Doctor Acuna-Soto of the National Autonomous University in Mexico City. Dr. Acuna-Soto studied epidemiology and molecular biology at Harvard University, and his 12 year study of the Aztec demise concludes that the Aztecs died off from a hemorrhagic virus rather than smallpox, about a decade before Hernando Cortes stormed Mexico with less than a thousand soldiers in 1519. Millions of Aztec had already died off, including the royal family, and the country was divided between warring warlords.

The codices called the disease Cocolitzli, and the victim’s symptoms were the same as those of a hemorrhagic fever virus, such as Ebola, Marburg or Lassa, that had lain dormant in its animal hosts, most likely rodents. Severe drought would have contained the population of rodents, forcing them to hole up wherever they could find water. Initially, only a small percentage may have been infected, but when forced into close quarters the virus was transmitted during bloody fights. Infected mother rodents then passed the virus to their young during pregnancy. When the rains returned, the rodents bred quickly and spread the virus through their urine and feces - as they came into contact with humans in fields and homes. Once infected, humans transmitted the virus to one another through contact with blood, sweat, and saliva.

The Spaniard’s military policy of alliance and conquest worked well to defeat, enslave, and murder the Aztecs, but now it seems that a native hemorrhagic virus called cocolitzli, is what really finished them off - and the epidemic had nothing to do with smallpox.

El Halcon

Has Dr. Acuna-Soto published his findings, to allow for the standard peer review process? Can you provide links?

[Minimalist]

Ebola does not - or at least has not - spread that far and wide in the modern age, though. It kills its victims so quickly that it seems to limit its own deadliness.

[Cognito]

First, the article: http://www.chron.com/news/health/articl ... 570996.php

Initially, Acuña-Soto said that the first epidemic was indeed smallpox with all of its typical symptoms.

"Most scholars agree that the first bout, from 1519 to 1521, was caused by smallpox brought over by the Spaniards and to which the natives had no resistance. The disease, characterized by high fevers and pustules on the skin, may have killed as many as 8 million Indians in Mexico.

But Acuña-Soto claims another two epidemics in 1545 and 1576 were caused by an even more gruesome and lethal disease. The first killed between 7 million and 17 million people, and the second wiped out another 2 million, or half the remaining population, he said."

The second two epidemics were apparently not smallpox since they didn't have the same symptoms, but until epidemiologic studies are done on affected skeletons, nobody will know what the cause was for sure. Whether they were brought about by the plague (Y. pestis), Ebola, or a Hantavirus. Viruses attenuate over time since killing your own host is a life-limiting event. In addition, there are different strains of viruses to consider and each plague could have had a different etiological agent.