Posted by Peter Ceresole on March 30, 2009 at 16:13:34 user PeterC.
In Reply to: Re: Braithwaite and Lewthwaite, was Owdon posted by 3rdamazon on March 30, 2009 at 14:25:23:
Also i'd guess (and I am guessing) that the medieval depredations were at least partly driven by a need for more sheep pasture
I was going by the situation in Africa today, which wouldn't be that different. Except of course that African population densities are higher. But I remember flying over a forested area in Shaba (Zaire) for which I had seen historical forest cover data, and by the time we went there trees had become very sparse. I asked an economist on the trip about this great change and he said that it has been caused, within a couple of decades, by a small number of itinerant villagers, and that a small number of humans can totally change their local environment without machines; just with some pangas. It was a combination of need for pasture, but I was told it was more for firewood.
As to the villagers, there were few enough that from the air their presence was almost invisible. No visible paths or huts... There are tricks to this kind of thing, like telling from the air how busy a railway line is (the colour of the rails changes according to how many trains pass, and their weight, and how recently) and I'm sure there are equivalent skills for earthen paths and forest clearings but I wasn't aware of them at the time.