Practice question · Fill in the blanks
Complete the causal chain behind the collapse.
The Americas had almost no ______ animals to domesticate, so no reservoir of crowd ______, so no acquired ______ — and on contact, roughly 90% of the population died.
Word bank: herd · diseases · immunity · crops · metals
Hints
- The chain begins with the absence of domesticable herd animals.
- No herds means no crowd diseases and therefore no immunity.
Show the answer
The Americas had almost no herd animals to domesticate, so no reservoir of crowd diseases, so no acquired immunity — and on contact, roughly 90% of the population died.
Why
The whole catastrophe traces to a shortage of domesticable herd animals, no animals, no crowd diseases, no immunity. The conquest was, above all, a biological event.
Practise The Americas: Mesoamerica and the Andes
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