HIST 103 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Iberian Peninsula, Encomienda, Multiracial
Document Summary
Humans made it across land bridge 20-30,000 years ago. Sparse written records for anyone before columbus. Spanish inadvertently brought disease to the americas that was particularly devastating to natives because they had not yet been exposed to those strains of disease. People of the americas were a virgin soil population: immunologically unprepared for diseases. People of the americas had been separated from people of the old world. Nomadic peoples followed the animals as they crossed over the bering strait land bridge (which was present because of the last ice age) Before the end of the last ice age (12-14 thousand years ago) people were coming to the. Ice age ended and ice melted, which made sea levels rise and the bering strait. 12,000 years ago columbus: old & new world were seperated. Cons: americas do not exchange diseases with old world. Columbian exchange: begin 1492, refers to biological exchange. Disease: inadvertent exposure to smallpox, measles, the plague.
