Re: [tied] The "lost" Slavic homeland

--- ehlsmith <ehlsmith@...> wrote:

> I believe you [Alex] are disregarding a very strong
> tendency of any
> agricultural group existing at a subsistence level
> to expand whenever
> given the opportunity, because they usually have a
> reproduction rate
> higher than the carrying capacity of the land (i.e.
> the danger many
> individuals face is starvation, even if the whole
> community as a
> group is not in danger of starvation.) Normally this
> is kept in
> equilibrium by the presence of competing groups also
> needing land. So
> perhaps the question is not why did the Slavs expand
> then, but rather
> what permitted the Slavs to expand at that time?
> Population loss in
> the Byzantine Empire because of the Plague of
> Justinian and following
> epidemics comes to mind as a contributing factor.
>
> George, do you think this might be a plausible
> hypothesis?
>
> Ned Smith

*****GK: (Just got back from out of town, so, in true
Christian fashion (:=)), the last post will get the
first response) ===== This is certainly very arguable.
The earlier phase of the Slavic expansion
[ca.450-550] was made possible largely because of the
abandonment of much of Poland and Ukraine by settled
agricultural Germanic populations (Vandals, Goths,
etc.)in the generations subsequent to the Hunnic
onslaught of the 370's. The Slavs at first simply
moved into a near vacuum.******

>
>

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