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-2 The Distribution of Eastern Woodlands Peoples at the Prehistoric and Historic Interface GEORGE R. MILNER, DAVID G. ANDERSON, AND MARVIN T. SMITH For the Eastern Woodlands as much as for the rest of the Americas, Columbus's landfall heralded the beginning of an era of Old and New World contact that ultimately devastated Native American peoples and their cultures (Cronon 1983; Crosby 1972; Dobyns 1983, 1993; Milanich 1992; Milner 1980; Ramenofsky 1987; M. Smith 1987, 1994; Thornton 1987). Despite a large body of scholarship on the postcontactperiod , there remains considerable uncertainty about the magnitude, timing, and causes of profound transformations in sociopolitical systems and population sizes. By A.D. 1700, the loss of people in eastern North America was so great that it was apparent to contemporary observers.1 A more precise understanding of postcontact changes in indigenous societies requires much work on two scales of analysis. First, fine-grained assessments ofparticular groups of people are essential for comparative studies of Native American responses to new political, economic, demographic , and ecological settings. Examples of such work, the focus of most archaeologists and historians, include the other chapters in this volume. Second, broader geographical perspectives are also necessary, because postcontact transformations in Native American societies-cultural upheaval , societal dissolution and realignment, and population loss and displacement-were played out across vast regions. As an initial step toward the second goal, we present three maps (Figs. 2.1-2.3) that summarize what is known from archaeological remains about the distribution of Eastern Woodlands peoples. Regions where information is plentiful are apparent, as are those where data are limited or absent. While there are many inadequacies in existing data, which are as apparent to us as they will be to others, the maps illustrate how the collective efforts of many researchers can contribute to knowledge about the overall distribution of Native American peoples in the Eastern Woodlands. The dates chosen for the maps-the early years of the 1400s, 1500s, and 1600s-provide distinctly different perspectives on population distribution. The maps show the Eastern Woodlands scarcely a centurybefore Columbus's arrival in the New World; at the time of early Spanish penetrations deep into the interior, when indigenous societies were still populous and powerful; and a century after initial contact , a period of depopulation and cultural disintegration. Despite an uneven and often inadequate spatial coverage, readily available information is sufficient to address several issues pertinent to hotly debated controversies about the late prehistoric to early historic periods. These topics include gross estimates of population size, the evenness of the spread of newly introduced infectious diseases into the continental interior, and the factors behind different postcontact cultural and demographic trajectories. We emphasize southeastern societies, but the general points we raise are equally applicable to ongoing debates over the timing and impact of epidemics in the northern Eastern Wood9 10 GEORGE R. MILNER, DAVID G. ANDERSON, AND MARVIN T. SMITH lands (Snow and Lanphear 1988, 1989; Snow and Starna 1989; cf. Dobyns 1983, 1989). Plotting People Figures 2.1-2.3 include an amalgam of archaeological phase limits, site concentrations, and individual settlements identifiedby many researchers. Shaded areas indicate places where there is a high likelihood of substantial occupation at particular times. It is also known that some areas lack evidence of occupation, despite considerable archaeological fieldwork. The maps, however, are intended to show only where researchers are reasonably sure people were present at a particular time, not to undertake the much more difficult task of indicating where they were absent or where archaeological work is too poor to tell. Published information was supplemented by comments on drafts of these maps and by data generously provided to one of us (DGA) by more than 75 colleagues.2 Earlier versions of two maps exhibited at regional conferences were based primarily on unpublished information from researchers across the region (D. G. Anderson 1989, 1991a, 1991b). They prOvided the impetus for developing the more detailed coverages presented here. Although these maps represent crude approximations of regional population distributions, it does not follow that all shaded areas are equivalent in terms of population size and density.3 Furthermore, we do not intend to imply that there is a one-to-one correspondence between illustrated phase boundaries or site concentrations and discrete societies such as historically known tribes or their immediate predecessors . Such attempts are futile exercises given current understandings of material culture variation, the low archaeological visibility of often ephemeral political relationships, and the highly volatile nature...

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