This is something I have been curious about for a while, and haven’t been able to find anything as an answer, but how do we know the population statistics for the native populations? How do we know that so many people died, and how do we know that they were killed by disease? did explorers find cities filled with festering corpses, or skeletons? are there native accounts of a “great sickness” over taking their people? Where does the information come from?
I know it makes sense as an explanation, but I’m asking where the evidence that it happened came from.
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The usual term used in scholarly accounts is [The Columbian exchange](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbian_exchange), It has been well researched.
The book [The Columbian Exchange: Biological and Cultural Consequences of 1492, 30th Anniversary Edition](https://b-ok.cc/book/3497770/2f65f4) has lots of detail.
The problem with this as an ELI5 is that “proof requires details”, and the details can be complicated.
Another good book is [The Ongoing Columbian Exchange: Stories of Biological and Economic Transfer in World History](https://b-ok.cc/book/3704901/ad1dc4)
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