Population history of indigenous peoples of the Americas about one million people. The Maya population is today estimated at six million, which is about the same as at the end of the 15th century, according to some estimates. In what is now Brazil, the indigenous population declined from a pre-Columbian high of an estimated four million to some 300,000. While it is difficult to determine exactly how many Natives lived in North America before Columbus, estimates range from a low of 2.1 million to 7 million people to a high of 18 million. The aboriginal population of Canada during the late 15th century is estimated to have been
Population history of indigenous peoples of the Americas Population history of indigenous peoples of the Americas The population figure of indigenous peoples of the Americas before the 1492 voyage of Christopher Columbus have proven difficult to establish. Scholars rely on archaeological data and written records from settlers from Europe. Most scholars writing at the end of the 19th century estimated that the pre-Columbian population was as low as 10 million; by the end of the 20th century most scholars gravitated to a middle estimate of around 50 million, with some historians arguing for an estimate of 100 million or more. Contact with the Europeans led to the European