Why do people stay in these places (deserts, polar regions, thick jungles, etc.)? Take the Inuit people-they have evolved a masterful culture, based upon seal and polar bear hunting (with other animals as well). Because of their expertise, they can live in a very inhospitable environment-they seem to do OK. But why stay there? Why not move south, where life is easier? I once heard (anecdotal) that the first Christian missionaries had a bit of a problem in explaining Hell to these people-the Inuit were very interested in getting to a warm place…Hell sounded good to them.
In contrast, the tropical coastal regions were probably the best places to live-in some areas (coastal Brazil), you didn’t have to farm-fruit grew wild, and there was plenty of it.
So why did peop[le stay in these bad areas?
WAG: Other people already in the nice areas object, and are able to make the objection stick. Alternatively - while moving to a more hospitable clime may sound nice in theory, it’s expensive, time-consuming and risky in reality. If you’ve built a reasonably comfortable life, you’re not going to pack up your friends and family on an extended journey to an uncertain future unless you’ve no good alternatives.
I asked a version of this question here once. IIRC, a big part of the answer was that the people that settled there didn’t necessarily know about any other more hospitable places. Humans tended to migrate only a few miles a generation at most throughout most of human history. If you are in the Arctic or the desert, a few miles still isn’t going to make much difference and it isn’t like there were vacationers from other lands dropping by to tell you the great things about where they live. Short moves wouldn’t be enough to change their environment substantially and they didn’t have the knowledge or the means to plan longer moves within a single generation.
Jared Diamond says that in most cases, these people were forced onto marginal land by war or by more populous peoples migrating.
Note that it’s usually hunter-gatherers who live in these extreme terrains, and they are always massively outnumbered by farming peoples.
Diamond cites linguistic evidence in several cases – notably the San (“bushmen”) peoples in Africa – which shows isolated islands of San languages in a sea of Bantu speakers. This indicates the San were once widespread throughout the area now occupied by the Bantu peoples – the result of the Bantu expansion.
In many cases it’s not a matter of guesswork and not subject to dispute – see the Native Americans; almost all reservations in the US are on less-desirable or undesirable land, and the populations were resettled there against their will (i.e., the Trail of Tears).
Given these known cases of marginalization, and Diamond’s persuasive evidence in some other cases, and the obvious facts that:
- people don’t like to starve (and thus would not choose to live on terrible land unless forced)
- more numerous and powerful people are never, ever giving their land up to weaker peoples
Therefore I think it’s a slam-dunk that in the vast majority of cases, if not all, populations on marginal land were forced there by stronger neighbors (or displaced themselves to avoid annihilation, essentially the same thing).
The Inuit are a special case-they live in a band which doesn’t extend too far south. In Canada, the land south of them is the tundra/ “barren lands”-where you cannot live in the winter (there is no food). The barren lands are only used by indians from the south-they hunt and fish there, in the summer…they migrate south again, before winter hits. But Arctic Canada is pretty empty-its hard to see fighting over land as barren as this.
I think it’s as simple as the known dangers trumping the unknown dangers.
Sure, way back when, you either couldn’t get to better lands or you didn’t know it existed.
Today, a lot of indigenous tribes know, from missionaries, etc., that other places exist. But they know their land, they have a home, they have social status, etc. Not a lot of people would be willing to give all of that up for a total mystery. It would mean divorcing themselves from their entire lives. It’s not like the tribal elder has a facebook page to keep in touch.
I also have to chime in that tropical areas and the accompanying insect populations cause a lot more deaths from disease. It’s not a picnic to live there, either.
IIRC, weren’t these same Inuits recently facing certain death, when the rivers froze over & heavy snows inundated them…a Russian ship with an ice cutter escort finally saved them.
anyone care to save my credibility with a cite? wasn’t more than a yr ago, 2 tops.
maybe this:
Why do they live there? Because it’s theirs. Better to rule in hell than serve in heaven.