So wait, the guys who built this...

>>3075859

Smallpox killed a huge swath of the population. Up to 80+% in some areas. Then there were repeat outbreaks of pox and bubonic plague to which they had little immunity.

So that totally disrupted the agriculturalists. Then Euros begin pushing tribes off the east coast, leading to migration and more disease. Trade has horses coming to the plains and desert long before many Euros arrive. Horses make nomadic raiders even more dangerous.

So by the time Euros get there, it's been centuries of disruption with an outbreak twice as fatal as the Black Death kicking it off.

>>3075859
>Not Aztec
Boring

>>3075859
>>3075913

Fun fact; Bubonic Plague still exists in the 4 corners regions of New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, and Colorado.

Poor bastards got wiped out by Plague.

>>3075913
I specifically remember hearing the Anasazi migration was pre-columbian

File: Olmec retarded baby.jpg (43KB, 610x495px) Image search: [Google]

43KB, 610x495px

>>3075929
>implying

>>3075953

Could be. I was talking about larger agricultural communities more broadly.

If it's anything like other desert areas, Mesopotamia or Egypt, a change in climate or rivers' paths can lead to cities being abandoned.

>>3075966
>a change in climate or rivers' paths can lead to cities being abandoned.
This is what happened. There was a massive drought in the four corners region and people moved to places with more steady access to water. To answer OP's question, no, they didn't turn into "savages;" most of them ended up settling around the Rio Grande in northern New Mexico. Whey the Spanish encountered them, they were still farming and living in pueblos.

If he was asking about places outside of the southwest, the same applies to most of North America, too. Disease did devastate populations, but most people were living in densely populated villages and practicing agriculture. THe only places where this wasn't as common were the Great Basin and Great Plains (the people in the PNW didn't farm, but they still lived in big villages and were sedentary). It's kind of weird that so many people have that impression when even popular narratives of contact with groups like the Wampanoag, Powhatan, and Mesoamerican groups describe agriculturalists living in settled villages.