American Indian Culture and Research Journal

In recent years an increasing number of scholars have directed attention toward Native American historical demography. Much of this effort has centered on discerning the size of Indian populations prior to European contact. The question no longer appears to be whether or not Indian groups experienced a demographic disaster when exposed to European diseases and domination but how extensive the resulting depopulation was. While these discussions of cataclysmic demographic catastrophes retain their positions in the limelight, other important questions are upstaged. This is not meant to suggest that these avenues of inquiry be abandoned, only that other important questions exist that may be easier to answer and crucial in determining later Indian experiences.