![]() They used fire to create the Midwestern prairie, perfect for herds of buffalo. ![]() According to this school of thought, the Western Hemisphere before Columbus's arrival was well-populated and dotted with impressive cities and towns-one scholar estimated that it held ninety to 112 million people, more than lived in Europe at the time-and Indians had transformed vast swaths of landscape to meet their agricultural needs. But a growing number of anthropologists and archaeologists now believe that this picture is almost completely false. South America, too, or at least the Amazon rain forest, was thought of as almost an untouched Eden, now suffering from modern depredations. Those who did live here were nomads who left few marks on the land. For years the standard view of North America before Columbus's arrival was as a vast, grassy expanse teeming with game and all but empty of people. ![]()
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