Infectious disease introduction in the Americas has been approached in historical, not biological, terms. We believe that this historical focus has limited scholarly understanding of Native American disease experience, past and present. Our goal is to link disease contact and contemporary Native American biology. We review the historical debates, and argue that advances in evolutionary theory and molecular genetics should be incorporated into models and descriptions of Native American disease history. Our discussion highlights the model of infectious disease evolution and host-pathogen interactions in terms of the classic division between host, parasite and environment. We reference specific infectious diseases throughout and examine the question of New World tuberculosis in detail. We are hopeful that our discussion will result in new directions for investigation of disease history in the Americas.

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To understand the effects of European contact on the organization, size, and mobility of Pueblo populations in the Southwest requires detailed knowledge of the occupational histories of the aggregated settlements that typify the late prehistoric and early historic record. Unfortunately, such understanding is generally lacking because the methods used to document occupational histories of settlements tend to either obscure fine-grained temporal distinctions or necessitate costly, and politically objectionable, large-scale excavations. To overcome these difficulties, we use surface expressions to analyze the occupational and population history of San Marcos Pueblo (LA98), an aggregated, late prehistoric site in the Galisteo Basin of New Mexico that persisted to the Pueblo Revolt of 1680. Field methods include detailed mapping of the settlement and systematic surface collections of middens. Frequency seriation, correspondence analysis, and mean ceramic dates of decorated ceramic rims comprise our principal analytic methods and demonstrate that the pueblo was abandoned four times before 1680. Causes of abandonment are discussed. Relative scale measures of population show demographic fluctuations with maximum aggregation during the fifteenth century. Despite demographic pulses, the pueblo remained vital until the terminal abandonment.

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