How did European conquest effect the native peoples?

Researchers from Germany and the United States suggest that the European conquest triggered the loss of more than half the Native American population.

The results of their study provide new insight into the demise of the indigenous population.

Experts recognise that Native Americans died while at war or due to diseases when Europeans first arrived in the Americas; the question this latest study addresses is how the overall population was impacted by the conquest.

The study was presented in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

Using the deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) of Native American women in North and South America, a two-man research team from the Göttingen University in Germany and the University of Washington in the United States drew up a family tree of contemporary and ancient Native peoples.

The duo also spatially reconstructed the historical population trends on North and South America by mapping the quick spread along the coastlines and across the continents of the first humans to settle in America.