The Influence of Disease and the Fur Trade on Arctic Drainage Lowlands Dene, 1800-1850

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Abstract
Recent research on Arctic Drainage Lowlands Athapaskan demography, cultures, and societies has by and large failed to place these hunting-fishing people in their full historical contexts. In the historic era there were new constraints on adaptations; epidemic diseases, interethnic hostilities, faunal depletions, and reliance on trading posts at inopportune times affected Arctic Drainage Lowlands Athapaskans in different ways, including the extent to which they starved. Disease, rather than female infanticide, was most likely responsible for the size of human populations in the nineteenth century. These historic-era constraints were conducive to the emergence of bilateral-bilocal social organization. Similar pressures existed in other regions where foragers with this type of organization are located today, which might lead one to question the antiquity of this form of social organization.

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