Three Stages Of Population

Three stages of a population in historical demography. The pioneer zone is a population at its arising, in an area which has not been settled by man. In the second stage, the population runs between 15 and 20 people to a square kilometer. Lastly comes a stage of high density, over 20, which parallels demographic pressure. Jean Fourastie estimated that in France under the ancient regime, 1.5 hectares of cultivatable land were needed to support one person, allowing for crop rotation. This is close to Daniel Defoe’s estimate in 1709: 1.2 hectares of good land or 1.6 hectares of average land. Any demographic pressure meant being forced to choose between types of food, radically altering agriculture, or resorting to emigration.

Near St. Petersburg, at the end of the eighteenth century, the wretched farms of the Finnish peasants were strewn over the countryside distant from each other. The houses of the German colonists were clustered together. By contrast, the Russian villages were large concentrations. Central Europe north of the Alps had small villages, as in Bavaria. The small size of villages in eastern and central European countries made them vulnerable, as they lacked the solidity of larger communities.

The entire world had already been explored and exploited for centuries or millennia before the conquest of Europe. Humans were impeded by major obstacles: stretches of water, impassable mountains, dense forests, or great deserts. Even so, there was no expanse of sea able to defy the human spirit for long. No mountain mass that did not reveal its access and passes. No forests humans did not penetrate. No desert they did not cross. As for the livable and passable parts of the world, the tiniest patch already had an owner by 1300.