A genetic map of the Scottish population, superimposed upon a set of maps of Dark Age kingdoms, shows that the population has changed little in a millennium and a half.
Hmmm. I surmise that you could make a similar map for many of the rural counties in the US. (Shorter time-frame, but same idea: most of the population is descended from people who've lived there for generations).
The theory is that - without an economic reason for new people to settle a place - after a couple generations the population is going to be largely made up of the descendants of those people who didn't leave. IOW: without a reason for people to come to a place, the only people who will ever be there are the people who were already there.
If people were coming here, and now they are not, it's because something changed and there's no longer a reason (or means) for most people to want to be there. This could have happened 50 or 1500 years ago.
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Hmmm. I surmise that you could make a similar map for many of the rural counties in the US. (Shorter time-frame, but same idea: most of the population is descended from people who've lived there for generations).
The theory is that - without an economic reason for new people to settle a place - after a couple generations the population is going to be largely made up of the descendants of those people who didn't leave. IOW: without a reason for people to come to a place, the only people who will ever be there are the people who were already there.
If people were coming here, and now they are not, it's because something changed and there's no longer a reason (or means) for most people to want to be there. This could have happened 50 or 1500 years ago.
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