Globalization and disease Eurasian diseases to the Americas was that many more native peoples were killed by disease and germs than by the colonists' use of guns or other weapons. Scholars estimate that over a period of four centuries, epidemic diseases wiped out as much as 90 percent of the American indigenous populations. In Europe during the age of exploration, diseases such as smallpox, measles and tuberculosis (TB) had already been introduced centuries before through trade with Asia and Africa. People had developed some antibodies to these and other diseases from the Eurasian continent. When the Europeans traveled to new lands, they carried
Indigenous people of Oaxaca warmer by the coast and in the Papaloapan region, which is part of the Gulf of Mexico coastal plain. Oaxaca is the historic home of the Zapotec and Mixtec peoples among others, and contains more speakers of indigenous languages than any other Mexican state. Excavations have shown that the region has had a settled population for at least 4,000 years. In the pre-Columbian period, the Zapotec developed an advanced civilization centered in Monte Alban in the central valley, which lasted between 300 BC and 700 AD. The state was expansionist, and extended its authority to the north, west, and southwest.