{'fraction_non_alphanumeric': 0.011185682326621925, 'fraction_numerical': 0.002982848620432513, 'mean_word_length': 5.777777777777778, 'pattern_counts': {'":': 0, '<': 0, '<?xml version=': 0, '>': 0, 'https://': 0, 'lorem ipsum': 0, 'www.': 0, 'xml': 0}, 'pii_count': 0, 'substrings_counts': 0, 'word_list_counts': {'cursed_substrings.json': 0, 'profanity_word_list.json': 0, 'sexual_word_list.json': 0, 'zh_pornsignals.json': 0}}
Epidemic disease in the postcontact southeast: a reappraisal.

European-introduced disease has previously been cited as contributing to the major postcontact demographic and cultural transition experienced by many native populations of the New World. The study of postcontact depopulation can make substantial contributions to the refinement of pre-Columbian population estimates, studies of regional cultural history, and analyses focusing on the processes involved in population and culture change. While information concerning the impact of European disease on the native populations in many regions of the Western Hemisphere is available, little is known about the effects of disease on groups in the southeastern portion of the United States. This paper evaluates the scanty ethnohistorical accounts of disease among southeastern Indian groups prior to 1700 by using a disease model developed from the epidemiological literature. A satisfactory correspondence between the disease model and historical accounts suggests strongly that European-introduced crowd infections contributed to population reduction and culture change in the Southeast early in the historic period. This possibility has yet to be evaluated with archaeological material; the manner in which this might be accomplished with data from mortuary contexts is discussed.