Climatic and geographic familiarity is a big thing. My ancestors left the Russian Steppes and ended up in Kansas, by all accounts a much nicer place. They left anyway, and homesteaded in an area of Canada that is quite similar to the terrain they'd left behind in the old country.
They skipped over a lot of good farm land, and ended up in Northern Alberta for no discernible reason other than they knew how to deal with it. The problems made sense to their skill sets, and they did very well.
As the other person said, familial support is darned important, which is why my family went to Kansas in the first place. They had relatives there. It was recent enough that my grandmother has gone there to visit her cousins over the years.
I imagine that successful hunter-gatherer groups colonised over the next hill, or a days walk or two down the river. Probably someone could model that to narrow down prospective digs. I know that the land between the confluence of two rivers was a common place for groups to meet up.
I guess my family also provides a modern example of far colonising. The way they bridged the Atlantic was by sending a few young men ahead to scout out new potential homelands. I suspect that they used this as a sort of social control, and to add a useful function to the young men who were disruptive agents in their society.
In a hunter-gather society, this tactic would be better than straight banishment or death. "Climb that mountain pass and see if there is good land on the other side. Prove the land by staying over summer, and come back in the fall with skins and dried berries".
It´s also possible that then as now, the idea of spending summer away from parental control was an excellent motivator for the younger members of the tribe to find new digs.
To be fair, "parental control" back then was so much looser than anything we could conceive today. Any family would have had a minimum of 3 or 4 children, and they would have been put to work at ages as early as 8, possibly becoming a tribe peer shortly after. There was probably control at tribe level, but parents were likely busy surviving.
We also keep talking about this in terms of rejection (being banned, escaping parents etc), but it might well be that they were simply pushed by a reckless sense of exploration, curiosity, and personal ambition. Their world was endlessly new: what is beyond that hill? What is beyond that river? I'll find out, and if it's good, I'll make it mine. After all I'm a teenager, I obviously cannot die.
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We also keep talking about this in terms of rejection (being banned, escaping parents etc), but it might well be that they were simply pushed by a reckless sense of exploration, curiosity, and personal ambition. Their world was endlessly new: what is beyond that hill? What is beyond that river? I'll find out, and if it's good, I'll make it mine. After all I'm a teenager, I obviously cannot die.
Right on. There are a lot of instincts humans show in developed society that work great in a hunter-gatherer society, including this one. See also:
Environmental familiarity can be a huge thing. It's something we don't really notice with our mix of technology and associated wide-ranging logistics.
I've got a little taste of it myself. I casually hiked and camped in the Northern Rockies for years. I didn't realize how many small bits of specific knowledge I'd picked up until recently moving to the midwest and doing some camping here. Different woods, that burn differerently. Damper conditions in general that make for all kinds of different prep. My knowledge of what is safe to eat (and what is not) went from fairly extensive to almost nothing. Different geography and climate that changes what you want in a campsite and what sort of site you are likely to find. A thousand little things that each make a difference.
With only stone age kit and knowledge base, moving out of your "home range" would have doubtless been quite challenging.
> They skipped over a lot of good farm land, and ended up in Northern Alberta for no discernible reason other than they knew how to deal with it.
I'd had that phenomena explained to me in University as a result of the feudal states (serfdom was only officially abolished in 1861) that the Russian people left to come to North America - back home those trees would have been the lord's property, but here it could be theirs - so even though there was better arable land even in southern Alberta (assuming you could deal with the fact that the land in basically a desert), they traveled where there were "valuable" resources they wouldn't have had access to in the old country.
Agreed, though they were not serfs in the case of my family/ethnic group. Rather, they were Germans(and some others) who colonized southern Russia, and were called the Volga Germans. In other ways you are correct: their lives and property were tightly constrained.
They skipped over a lot of good farm land, and ended up in Northern Alberta for no discernible reason other than they knew how to deal with it. The problems made sense to their skill sets, and they did very well.
As the other person said, familial support is darned important, which is why my family went to Kansas in the first place. They had relatives there. It was recent enough that my grandmother has gone there to visit her cousins over the years.
I imagine that successful hunter-gatherer groups colonised over the next hill, or a days walk or two down the river. Probably someone could model that to narrow down prospective digs. I know that the land between the confluence of two rivers was a common place for groups to meet up.
I guess my family also provides a modern example of far colonising. The way they bridged the Atlantic was by sending a few young men ahead to scout out new potential homelands. I suspect that they used this as a sort of social control, and to add a useful function to the young men who were disruptive agents in their society.
In a hunter-gather society, this tactic would be better than straight banishment or death. "Climb that mountain pass and see if there is good land on the other side. Prove the land by staying over summer, and come back in the fall with skins and dried berries".