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The last major landmass to be settled I believe is Madagascar, only settled ~1500 years ago, with only scattered, remote islands remaining unsettled past that p

The last major landmass to be settled I believe is Madagascar, only settled ~1500 years ago, with only scattered, remote islands remaining unsettled past that point. Madagascar itself is an island, albeit one of the largest in the world, so enough to constitute 'major landmass' in my book; discount all island groups entirely, and the unsettled lands haven't existed for over 10,000 years. What that means is that all of the "run[ning] away" you are talking about is still violently displacing native peoples. So for example, when the Boers flee the Cape Colony to the Transvaal, they aren't moving to virgin, empty land, but rather land inhabited by native Africans (Zulu, I think), who needed to be dispossessed of their land. And such dispossession tends to require violence.

jakelazaroff 1y ago
Tangential to your main point (with which I agree) but New Zealand was only settled ~700 years ago.
mc32 1y ago
Pop density before the 1870s was generally low in most places with a few exceptions. After all there was no "industry" it was 95% + agrarian, pescatarian, pastoral. Many populations had a preference for coastal, riparian settlements and mountainous areas were less favored... but were where displaced peoples could move to. People clumped, they were not evenly distributed so any region would have unsettled areas --just like today you have vast areas in Alaska that are not populated -even Wyoming. There are towns here and there but most areas of those states are not "populated" though they are under local, state and federal control. Government did not work that way back a few hundred years ago. The Zulu only relatively recently moved into ZA (around the same time as Europeans maybe a bit before --the Khoisan are the native peoples of ZA).
Marsymars 1y ago
There are people who, for various reasons, didn't need to displace the original inhabitants, e.g. the Hutterites.
- mc32 1y ago
  People also moved (were displaced) for other reasons beside war: drought, depletion of game, disease, pests, tribal splits, insufficient carrying capacity, ecological pressures, etc.

jakelazaroff 1y ago

Tangential to your main point (with which I agree) but New Zealand was only settled ~700 years ago.

mc32 1y ago

Pop density before the 1870s was generally low in most places with a few exceptions. After all there was no "industry" it was 95% + agrarian, pescatarian, pastoral. Many populations had a preference for coastal, riparian settlements and mountainous areas were less favored... but were where displaced peoples could move to. People clumped, they were not evenly distributed so any region would have unsettled areas --just like today you have vast areas in Alaska that are not populated -even Wyoming. There are towns here and there but most areas of those states are not "populated" though they are under local, state and federal control. Government did not work that way back a few hundred years ago. The Zulu only relatively recently moved into ZA (around the same time as Europeans maybe a bit before --the Khoisan are the native peoples of ZA).

Marsymars 1y ago

There are people who, for various reasons, didn't need to displace the original inhabitants, e.g. the Hutterites.

mc32 1y ago
People also moved (were displaced) for other reasons beside war: drought, depletion of game, disease, pests, tribal splits, insufficient carrying capacity, ecological pressures, etc.