Demographic Collapse In Latin America

Demographic Collapse means a situation in which, the native communities are badly affected and are gradually reduced in numbers or are forced to relocate to some other place due to prolonged prevalence of adverse conditions like a long holocaust, complete alteration in leading a life, spread of epidemic diseases, warfare or more.

There are multiple causes of demographic collapse in Latin America after the advent of Europeans or colonizers. Before the advent of colonizers, there was a thriving population in America with the highest level of organizational culture. The population was heavily concentrated in Mesoamerica and parts of the central Andes(Bethell, 1984, p. 3). However, the population starts decreasing soon and one of the prominent

This is called the Dark Age or the early Middle Age and during this period, there were a series of geographical explorations in Western Europe as well outside its borders. Vikings emerged out as the most adventurous mariners in the late 8th century. They set out for a geographical expansion because of an increased competition to grab resources and probably due to an existence of a social system in which an individual's status was marked by his possession of portable wealth.They were initially raiders and use to inhabit the modern Scandinavian regions. They were excellent ship builders and navigators. They penetrate countless river systems of Western Europe and attack settlements. They keep on discovering new islands in the North Atlantic and reached Iceland in 770 AD (Love, 2006, p. 4). It was then largely an inhabitant land with a small population of Irish monks. However, they Vikings moved further and reached Greenland and North America in the 10th century. They, later on, make efforts to establish settlements in the modern day L'Anse aux Meadows, which is now a historic site of archaeological importance in Canada. It was known to them as Vinelands. Wolf (2011) asserted that "The ferocious raid in 793 on the Church and Monastery on the tiny island of Lindisfarne just off the Northumbrian coast is commonly regarded

He was a merchant of Venice which was a popular seaport during the 13th century in Europe. Archer (2011) explained, "The three travellers started from the coast of Syria, and made their way through Armenia and Persia to the famous city of Baghdad"(p.18). They crossed multiple cities of great repute including Kashgar, Khotan, and Yarkand which were also popular trading centers of that period. They even crossed the Gobi desert and reached China to meet Kublai Khan, a Mongol Emperor. He later wrote a book that includes vivid descriptions of the distant lands. His book becomes a source of inspiration for many explorers. Mention must be made also of Ibn Battuta, a Moroccan traveler who traveled an approximately 75,000 miles before reaching his hometown again after a gap of long twenty-eight years. Although his journey was purely for traveling, he is regarded as a person who gained all knowledge about the geography of the world from his own personal experiences. According to Royal Geographical Society (2010), " From Moorish Spain and Timbuktu in the west to Samarkand in Central Asia, and India, Vietnam, and the Philippines in the east, the learned scholar even reached the Yuan-dynasty China"(p.68). Many travelers continue to explore the world armed with more information at hand about the distant lands, but the geographical explorations by the Vikings, Marco Polo, and Ibn Battuta