Native American Die Off and Population

Just came across another little gem in Mann, apparently smallpox mutated from cowpox, horsepox or most probably camelpox, but since there are no camel in South America these diseases never transferred to humans.

But that`s not entirely correct is it, since the Llamaa family are camelids. So WI Llamaapox existed and vectored onto humans way back in the mists of time and Americans were immune to smallpox if not all the others?
 
Just came across another little gem in Mann, apparently smallpox mutated from cowpox, horsepox or most probably camelpox, but since there are no camel in South America these diseases never transferred to humans.

But that`s not entirely correct is it, since the Llamaa family are camelids. So WI Llamaapox existed and vectored onto humans way back in the mists of time and Americans were immune to smallpox if not all the others?

Then it would change things completely. Or if smallpox never infected humans in the first place, it would change things completely. Of course the native people would still be vulnerable to other Eurasian diseases, but by far, far, the biggest killer seems to have been smallpox epidemics. I wonder if the Native American die off wasn't inevitable so much as terrible, terrible luck with the timing of one virus. What do you guys think?
 

NothingNow

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Then it would change things completely. Or if smallpox never infected humans in the first place, it would change things completely. Of course the native people would still be vulnerable to other Eurasian diseases, but by far, far, the biggest killer seems to have been smallpox epidemics. I wonder if the Native American die off wasn't inevitable so much as terrible, terrible luck with the timing of one virus. What do you guys think?

Not really, there's also still Malaria (Hilariously deadly up till the discorvery of Quinine and just plain deadly after that,) Measles and all of the ecological changes wrought by the other hangers on (earthworms, Brown rats, bees) that Europeans brought over. You're knocking off the top killer, but you can still expect very high lethality.
 
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