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Old World diseases in the Americas

Smallpox, measles, influenza and other diseases that crossed to the Americas after 1492, and later malaria and yellow fever.

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According to David S. Jones

According to Alexander Koch

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  • The Great Dying of the Americas According to David S. JonesAccording to Alexander Koch Scholarship & press 1234567

    Measles virus split from the cattle virus rinderpest: Furuse and colleagues date it around the 11th to 12th centuries, Dux and colleagues in 2020 as early as the sixth century BCE. When smallpox emerged in humans is disputed (Duggan and colleagues). Koch and colleagues say most of these diseases came from domesticated farm animals in Europe; that does not fit every disease on their list, and the studies on measles do not mention Europe. Yellow fever and malaria came from Africa, later (Bryant; Yalcindag).

  • Smallpox at Fort Clark, 1837 Scholarship & press 8
Proof 8 sources
  1. Earth system impacts of the European arrival and Great Dying in the Americas after 1492, Quaternary Science Reviews, 2019. Scholarship & press
    Such diseases included smallpox, measles, influenza, the bubonic plague, and later malaria, diphtheria, typhus and cholera.
    Most of these diseases originated from domesticated farm animals from Europe to which Native Americans had no prior exposure
    However, despite this there is no evidence for a causal relationship between genetic differences and the increased severity of the impacts of diseases
    these epidemics were introduced by European settlers and African slaves and were passed on to an indigenous population that had not been previously exposed to these pathogens
  2. Virgin Soils Revisited, The William and Mary Quarterly, 2003. Scholarship & press
    All have concluded that infectious diseases, introduced by Europeans and Africans, played a decisive role.
  3. Origin of measles virus: divergence from rinderpest virus between the 11th and 12th centuries, Virology Journal, 2010. Scholarship & press
    Our results indicate that divergence of MeV from RPV occurred around the 11th to 12th centuries.
  4. Measles virus and rinderpest virus divergence dated to the sixth century BCE, Science, 2020. Scholarship & press
    Our analyses show that the measles virus potentially arose as early as the sixth century BCE, possibly coinciding with the rise of large cities.
  5. 17th Century Variola Virus Reveals the Recent History of Smallpox, Current Biology, 2016. Scholarship & press
    the timescale of emergence of the causative agent, variola virus (VARV), and how it evolved in the context of increasingly widespread immunization, have proven controversial
  6. Out of Africa: A Molecular Perspective on the Introduction of Yellow Fever Virus into the Americas, PLoS Pathogens, 2007. Scholarship & press
    We estimate that the currently circulating strains of YFV arose in Africa within the last 1,500 years and emerged in the Americas following the slave trade approximately 300–400 years ago.
  7. Multiple independent introductions of Plasmodium falciparum in South America, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2012. Scholarship & press
    Our estimates of divergence time between the South American populations and their likely sources favor a likely introduction from Africa during the transatlantic slave trade.
  8. Fort Clark State Historic Site: history, State Historical Society of North Dakota. Scholarship & press
    Although steamboat traffic was important in transporting goods and visitors to the site, it also brought disease.
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