NothingNow
Banned
What's interesitng is that the Cahokian states collapsed well before European contact. So something else held them back.
Not really. There's a couple periods. The Classical period's end across the americas, and the crash of the 16th century. Cabeza de Vaca, de Soto, and de Leon all talked about full blown cities in the Mississippi basin, and the gulf coast. A lot of times the expeditions just had to haul ass, while being pursued by one city or another after a raid for provisions.
The decline in the 1200s is probably because of other sites eclipsing it, and migration, or a sacking, not a die-off. It's at the beginning of the end of the Medieval Warm period though, so climate shifts were likely a factor as well.
Not really. Remember, Europe's population crashed just as hard during the crisis of the late middle ages (from the great famine to the end of the first black plague pandemic or 1400, depending on how you count things.)A bit horrifying given that its populatoin declined in the 1200s, no?
That said, between the two major die-offs, I wouldn't be surprised in the least if the world's population dropped by about 1/2 to a 1/3 between 1300 and 1600.