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Indian Tribes of the Northwest Coast: An Affluent Anomaly
The Northwestern Indian tribes differed from the tribes in the rest of North America. Rather than live in tepees, wigwams, or pits, these peoples took advantage of the abundance of natural resources they had and built large, comfortable houses of wooden planks. They also built, canoes, totem poles, and elaborate crafts. But perhaps the greatest anomaly of the Northwest Coast Indians is that they achieved such a level of wealth and technological and artistic advancement as hunter-gatherer societies.
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Native American Population Estimates When Columbus Arrived In 1492
Pre-Columbian population estimates range from eight million to Henry Dobyns’s high count of 142 million, with the average estimate of Native American demographers over the past century remaining steady at about 40 million.[2] The high estimates can easily be discounted as exaggerations, considering that the Aztec Empire—one of the most densely populated regions in the Americas—had only about six million on the eve of European contact.
