Note 1258 — Chapter XVI · —Influences Of A Mountain Environment

The relativity of geographical advantages in different historical periods warns us against assuming in all times a sparsity of population in mountains, even when the adjoining lowlands offer many attractions of climate and soil. In ages of incessant warfare, when the motive of safety has strongly influenced distribution of population, protected mountain sites have attracted settlement from the exposed plains, and thus increased the relative density of population on the steep slopes. The corrugated plateau of Armenia and Kurdistan, located on the uneasy political frontier of Russia, Persia and Asiatic Turkey, exposed for centuries to nomadic invasion from the east, shows a sparser population on its broad intermontane plains than on the surrounding ranges. Security makes the latter the choicer places of residence. Hence they are held by the overbearing and marauding Kurds, late-comers into the land, while the older and numerically weaker Armenians cower down on the lower levels.1258 Here is an inversion of the usual order. The militantly stronger intruders, with no taste for agriculture, have seized the safer and commanding position on the hills, descending in winter with their cattle and horses to pasture and prey upon field and granary of the valley folk, whose better soil is a questionable advantage.