article_snippet.sent: Historians have long taught that Native American populations were almost wiped out by diseases such as tuberculosis, brought to the New World by European explorers.
article_snippet.sent: But a new theory suggests the arrival of seals and sea lions could in fact be to blame.
article_snippet.sent: Scientists believe the marine animals brought the disease to South America where the disease spread - long before Christopher Columbus arrived in 1492.
article_snippet.sent: While estimates vary, it is thought that 95 per cent of the 20 million people living in the Americas before the Europeans arrived were killed by ‘new’ diseases carried by explorers.