Jammer Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> True, speculation is more fun then skepticism...
> but
>
> If the Viking population was exposed to small pox
> no later than 950AD, and they visited extensively
> the northern mid west in the late 14th century...
> WHY were these native American populations
> unexposed to, and completely vulnerable to, small
> pox 250+ years later?
>
The 'Vinland Settlement' was around 1000 AD by Greenlanders who probably had not been exposed to smallpox by that time. The purported Norse exploration to the upper midwest in the late 14th century presumably involved Europeans that had probably been exposed to smallpox. However transmission requires an infected individual. A smallpox survivor does not transmit the disease after recovery. [en.wikipedia.org]

> I suppose one could claim the locals were wiped
> out, and new clans took their place, only to be
> wiped out again when exposed...
>
> That's mu hang up with the "white" native
> Americans who were supposedly wiped out by
> smallpox; IF they were descendants of Caucasians,
> as urban legend claims, they shouldn't have been
> vulnerable!
>
Just being a "descendent of Caucasians" does not confer immunity. Immunity is genetically passed on to descendants of survivors. If the Caucasian ancestors had never been exposed to smallpox then their descendants would have no greater immunity than Native Americans.

> Jammer
>
>




"The Stone Age did not end for lack of stone, and the Oil Age will end long before the world runs out of oil"

-- Sheikh Zaki Yamani