"Scotland is now far more populated and has more resources than it did in the 1700s"
I suspect the wilder parts of Scotland are actually far less populated than they used to be - the original populations of many areas being systematically removed by landowners in favour of sheep or deer:
Edit: Of course, as well as the clearances there is the fact that lots of remote spots just aren't sustainable as they used to be. Working out how to keep viable populations in remoter areas is something Scotland struggles with to this day.
This isn't the case. Less people are living there relative to the 1800s, but there are still a lot of people living there because so many people choose to retire there (the Islands are largely populated by the English now). And these places are still tourist destinations.
The actual wilder parts, like the Cairngorms, were never populated because you can't survive there. The clearances happened in areas that are still populated today, and had some degree of arable/pastoral activity.
Jesus, that Wiki page...you can tell it was written by a Yank with a fetish for Scotland.
No though, the Scottish population was not nomadic...obviously. Something like 75% of the country is just wasteland. The population lives in dense areas where agriculture was possible (70% of the population live in the central belt).
I don't think you need to explain the geography of Scotland to arethuza (who is, iirc, a Scot). And the article has a bit of flowery stuff about songs - but overall it's not saying Scottish people were nomadic, just that some people moved seasonally between a couple of locations with their livestock.
Yeah that's pretty much what I meant - shielings appear a lot on Ordnance Survey maps that I use when walking in Scotland (I'm slowly doing the Munros) - often at about 500m to 600m - perfectly pleasant in summer but not where you'd want to live in winter!
> I suspect the wilder parts of Scotland are actually far less populated than they used to be - the original populations of many areas being systematically removed by landowners in favour of sheep or deer:
Fair enough point on population. But I still believe that resources and even interest in recording such things may not have existed then.
In the 1700's the landowner was either likely well educated and living elsewhere, or poor and not able to read and write. The people spending the majority of their time in remote areas probably didn't have the resources to keep accurate records.
My point is, we are treating this really old data as if it is a ground truth. We need to take greater care.
> Working out how to keep viable populations in remoter areas is something Scotland struggles with to this day
Not just Scotland. I travelled in the Loire valley (France) recently and was struck by how dead many of the small villages and towns were.
Of course, if you get the answer wrong in the other direction, then you get local populations swamped by incomers, with affordable local housing replaced by multiple AirBNBs (e.g. parts of the SW of England).
I suspect the wilder parts of Scotland are actually far less populated than they used to be - the original populations of many areas being systematically removed by landowners in favour of sheep or deer:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highland_Clearances
Edit: Of course, as well as the clearances there is the fact that lots of remote spots just aren't sustainable as they used to be. Working out how to keep viable populations in remoter areas is something Scotland struggles with to this day.