An astrolabe is a primitive angle-measuring tool. It can be used to - very in-exactly! - measure the altitude above the horizon of a celestial body like the Sun, Moon or Polaris in order to calculate your position.
Medieval gunners used the astrolabe to calculate the height of towers and buildings, in order to more accurately aim their cannons.
He became famous by his book The Wealth of Nations which was written in 1776.
Answer:
War and violence. While epidemic disease was by far the leading cause of the population decline of the American indigenous peoples after 1492, there were other contributing factors, all of them related to European contact and colonization. One of these factors was warfare.
