Why did humans decide to settle down in very harsh environments like Siberia or the Saharan Desert, why not live in places more moderate and more accepting to life and civilization?
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Because other people already controlled the nice environments and were using all the rescources, so you learned to live in the shit place,or get killed or outcompeted by those in the good place.
The same reason why you don’t have a penthouse in the middle of NYC. Other, more wealthier people are there already.
If you looked at immigration, it follows largely the same pattern. When Europeans had famines, they left for the continental US, which displaced native Americans.
I just stopped by to point out that you have a much wider view of the world today than they did. They couldn’t so easily tell where the grass was greener. And even if they did by some means, Moving around also wasn’t a breeze like today. So unless they absolutely needed to move like to escape some imminent danger, staying put and sheltering wherever you find yourself was better loitering around the vast planes.
You just had to find the best shelter where you are.
I live in the south of western Siberia, and it is not that harsh. We have a couple of weeks in winter when it’s -30C, but it is not a big issue.
You will find that many were much greener/warmer etc, when people settled down there. The climate changed over 1000s of years and some adapted to the changing climate, some left and some died.
Here are few examples-
In what is now Egypt. The deserts were open grass plans about 6000 years ago. There were a hunter/gatherers and early nomadic herdsmen as the climate dried, most left leaving only the traders crossing the desert and some settled in oasis or chase the rain along the desert edge.
– More recently the Norse settlement in Greenland. There was only two places where farming was just possible and they could fish, but they could trade walrus hide rope and tusks for everything else. The little ice age of the 1500s covered the farming lands with snow and when the traders returned they was no one left. They are some that think a few joined the Inuit but those who didn’t died.
Generally the first real civilizations happened in good climate, and especially near some of the world’s largest rivers. One example being the Indus valley civilization.
But before that people were hunter gatherers, a hunter gatherer society doesnt allow for many individuals in one place while also following the prey animals.
This meant that early humans moved around a lot over several generations. And because there was no written language memories of old places faded into tales. Northerners had no idea that thousands of years ago they came from the south.
Another thing to remember is also that climate is not static, it changes a lot and human interference speed it up considerably. Deforestation for example was a common cause for a society’s collapse.
Another reason was human competition, the best locations were the ones first taken so the less fortunate ones had to move to less hospitable places.
And lastly once civilizations existed things such as trade, wars and wealth became important and settlements and entire civilizations were built on those terms instead of the old ones.
Settlements were built in the deserts to provide help for trade caravans. Settlements were built in inhospitable places because they were rich with minerals. Settlements were built merely to claim territory in your name.
Some of the earliest human fossils were found in the Afar triangle, a very harsh place. It’s our natural habitat.
My question for you is would our ancestors even know that there are “hospitable” places to live?
for siberia specifically, they paid people to move there to build and spread the stength and power of their country. lots of the people in the far east of russia were from the far west, many were even ukrainian, and were given land as incentive to move there. so in some situations, money was the incentive
For large periods of human history, people were living on the edge of starvation. Population rises during the good times and uses up all the resources.
If I move my family out of the crowded area to a less fertile area, I get that for myself with less competition.
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