Some Thoughts On “The Columbian Exchange and the Real Story of Globalization”
I am surprised that an important biological factor, the import of of Old World disease vectors (microbial) to less-resistant New World populations. This more than any other factor influenced the partial-to-large-scale human population replacement (‘Europeanization’) at expense of Native groups. This is related to larger-scale, more pervasive urbanization in Old World, and the fact that Old World is a larger total population system in which there is also greater inter-systemic change vis a vis New, increasing exposure and biological resistance in the case of the Old. The up-shot is that Europeans and Africans were far less likely to die from New World microbes than vis verse, part of the reason also why the African human traffic began in the first place. The American Natives would have been enslaved in a similar way had enough survived this disease onslought (small-pox, etc.). Places in mesopotamia are at stage of urban formations already 8000 years ago in mud-brick, and evidence also of urbanization in Europe is now dating advice for men to almost 7 KYBP based on the data from the Trypolje mega-sites in Middle Ukraine Dniepr bend area. Unfortunately for the Mesoamericans, settlement agglomerations along these lines started much later, so in effect, their won dosease vectors were far-less developed of course at the Columbian Contact period. This is a key factor and the main biological fact not mentioned in the WSJ bit, but nice article still!
