Mississippi indian population

Near Cahokia, researchers looked through mud cores to find evidence of human feces in the area. They conclude that although the population around Cahokia Mounds never got back to its AD 1100 levels, there was a rebuilding of the population around 1600-1700. Since there weren't a lot Europeans in the area at the time, that was AmerIndian.

Eyeballing the plot suggests that the population in the area--not necessarily the Mounds proper (in fact probably not)--reached a density a bit over half that during the Mounds era. There might be some biases in my estimates here--the samples were taken from the lake, and it might be that the Mounds' sewage was mostly routed to the river. That would make the relative population estimate less. Or the mix of activities between 1400 and 1800 might have changed to more agricultural and lake-based, which might change the fecal impact on the lake without a population increase.

In any event, "This is significant because researchers have previously suggested that indigenous populations were in decline during this period from Old World diseases that spread across North America in advance of European colonists."