CGP Grey: "Americapox: The Missing Plague"

by Kquiarsh

I've watched all of CGP Grey's videos but his latest struck a funny note. Is it accurate?

He mentions near the beginning that there was a huge population of native Americans before Columbus but then later on says that they weren't living in large cities, but I distinctly remember seeing here and on /r/badhistory that Native Americans did have rather large cities. Further on he seems to imply that llamas aren't all that good as domesticated animals which strikes me as a little eurocentric.

What validity is there to this video? What is he simplifying or glossing over or just simply mistaken on?

link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEYh5WACqEk

alriclofgar

This video's stirred a lot of interest today!

You may want to see these two threads, which already have some good replies and discussion:

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3txzvl/cgpgrey_had_tackled_the_issue_of_new_world/

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3tyjp2/how_important_were_the_domesticated_animals_to/