I saw a big study of Mississippian culture shell middens and was surprised to see that the most common shell was turtle. There must have been a lot more turtles back then in the midwest...
yep - it is hard to miss something you have never seen. North America was teeming with life.. how would anyone know it now, living in car trips to stores and watching TV only ?
It's still teeming with life for those who bother to go out in search of it. Yellowstone is overcrowded but it astonishes me how few visitors come to, say, Bridger-Teton National Forest (other than for that Great American Eclipse, during which the traffic began to evoke Times Square) and Couer d'Alene National Forest.
