VILLAGE GROWTH, EMERGING INFECTIOUS DISEASE, AND THE END OF THE NEOLITHIC DEMOGRAPHIC TRANSITION IN THE SOUTHWEST UNITED STATES AND NORTHWEST MEXICO

Abstract

In the final centuries prior to the arrival of the Spanish, the southwest United States and northwest Mexico underwent two major sociodemographic changes: (1) many people coalesced into large villages, and (2) most of the villages were depopulated within two centuries. Basic epidemiological models indicate that village coalescence could have triggered epidemic diseases that caused the observed demographic decline. The models also link this decline to a global phenomenon, the Neolithic Demographic Transition.