HUMAN MIGRATION

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WHAT IS MIGRATION?
Migration is the movement of people from one location to another.

What are some of the reasons that force the migration of people?
A population of humans living in a given area faces certain pressures. Those
pressures depend on the size of the population, the resources available and
the community's ability to exploit those resources.
FOOD
The most basic population pressure is food. An area of land can only support a certain
population with the food produced there. Modern agricultural techniques and technologies can
increase food output, but in the past, humans subsisted by hunting and gathering. If the
population grew too large, there wouldn't be enough meat or fruit to feed everyone. A portion of
the population could simply move away to find new hunting grounds.
SPACE
You can only pack so many humans into a given space. At some point the population
becomes too large for the area. This can lead to outbreaks of violence or the spread of
virulent diseases. A general decline in living conditions leads some people to move
elsewhere.
WEATHER AND CLIMATE
Weather events can drive a population out of one area. Flooding and severe storms can cause
this. Long-term migration patterns have been shaped by climate change. A drought that turns a
once-fertile area into a desert will drive the population to find a new home. Changes in sea level
can reveal large stretches of coastal land. Massive sections of frozen ocean that occurred during
the most recent ice age gave humans access to parts of the world they might not otherwise have
reached.
PATTERNS OF HUMAN
MIGRATION
1. BILLIARD BALL MIGRATION
● Sometimes, a group moves into an area inhabited by another group which moves into
another area inhabited by still another group and so on, so that several groups are
affected by one group’s migration.
● These images represent migration causing displacement. A group of people take over
the land of another group of people. This forces the first inhabitants out and causes
them to then invade a different land. This forces these inhabitants out of their land,
and the process continues, resulting in the eventual displacement of a group of
people. Like pool balls, one ball will hit another and this ball will hit the next one and
so on.
Example of Billiard Ball Migration
● The trinovantes were a celtic tribe who lived in England during the year 40 B.C. they invaded the
catuvellauni and made them move somewhere else. The Roman Empire invaded England and forced the
tribes who lived there to move North and to the West. The romans invaded England from the south.
2. THE CLEARING OF A FOREST
● People sometimes cut forest and burn an area, getting wonderful soil for growing crops. After a
few years, they decide to move to another area to cut forest and burn that area to get more good
garden space. Pretty soon there is a lot of space recovering and trying to re-grow forest.
● In this form of migration, a group of people clear the land, by cutting trees to make way for
agriculture or to build shelters. People destroy the land as they clear it. After a certain period of
time this land will no longer be useful. The soil will end up infertile, so people will have to
migrate to a new area.
● Each time the group migrates; they clear and attempt to cultivate a new piece of land. The
people may return to a previous location once the land in that area has regenerated.
infertile
3. BREAKING DOWN THE WALL
● One group creates a barrier, or a wall, so that no one can move. Then, someone breaks
through and a large number move through, breaking over or through the wall.
● This chart demonstrates what happens when a horde invades a peaceful group. They
destroy anything that protects or keeps this group together.
● It also explains why people decided to build a wall around their kingdom to protect their
own from the barbarians. The people who lived inside the walled city could go in and out
as they pleased; nevertheless, the barbaric groups who lived outside the walled city got
stronger and stronger, and when they were the strongest group, they would invade those
living inside the city and destroy the kingdom.
Examples of Breaking down the wall
One example of this is the Western Roman Empire, which began to disintegrate during the 3rd
century as the Germanic invasions overwhelmed the capacity of the Empire to assimilate the
migrants and fight the invaders.
These groups took advantage of the internal problems that the Roman Empire was having.
They trespassed it and robbed it.
The Romans were successful in fighting the invaders, but the Empire had so many Germanic
people who were loyal to Rome that the empire started to dismember itself. They tried to stop
the barbarians, but they were just too powerful and savage.
4. INFILTRATION AND FUSION
● Sometimes groups move into another group and simply set up their own groups within it.
● It describes how a nomadic group finds groups that are already established. These established
groups are strong and they are wealthy. They have food and shelter.
● The nomadic groups will continue to move and they will tell other groups who they encounter
along the way about these very wealthy groups that they met.
● This curved triangle represents the wealthy groups and the red arrows the nomadic group. We can
see how the nomadic groups surround them. They establish a relationship and sometimes this
creates a larger group.
● Here we can see how the wealthy groups can join into a bigger group but always remaining
together as one true entity.
● italian
Examples of Infiltration and Fusion
● There are little areas in New York City, for example, called “Little Italy” or
“Chinatown,” where, at least for a while, groups migrating to the city maintained
their own communities within it.
● This type of migration is like the one we are currently seeing in our country.
People from Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala are walking across Mexico to
go to The United States, they are seeking a better life, they can't find work in
their countries, they don't have food and in some cases they don’t have a house.
● The living conditions in their countries are insecure. They would rather risk their
lives than stay in the conditions they are in now.
● For many years a lot of Mexicans have
been trying to cross the border every
day in search of the ¨American Drea.
● We see this type of migration all over
the world. People from different
cultures, races, religions, nationalities
will get together all around the planet
We are living in a global era.
● Different circumstances are making
people migrate evendough sometimes it
is difficult.
5. MOVEMENT OF THE NOMAD HORDE
● All kinds of groups move in, work together, or don’t, and eventually, retaining some
of their original characteristics, likes and dislikes, talents and styles, they form a kind
of a swirl of humans representing many different origins.
● The Horde is a movement caused by powerful groups that invade peaceful groups. It
starts like the displacement migration, but in this case, the smaller established groups
of people join a larger, dominant group that arrives to their territory. This happens
because the horde is powerful and aggressive. The smaller groups completely merge
with the larger groups, creating a unified culture.
Examples of The Nomadic Horde
● When the Mongols tried to invade China by
trespassing the Great Wall of China they were not able
to do it , so they went to Europe instead.
● These hordes destroyed and invaded all the lands they
went through, they made people abandon their
territories and in most cases join them.
● The Mongolian invasions took over, and as a result the
Mongolian Empire got stronger, it occupied a big part
of Asia and Eastern Europe.
CONSEQUENCES
● As we can see, migration has existed since the beginning of humankind and it
still does..
● As we now know, people migrate for different reasons, it can be to seek a better
life, or because they have changed their environment and so on.
● Migration can cause many problems, because not everybody likes new people
coming to live in their communities, they don't like change.
● But it also has a lot of benefits and improvements like cultural exchanges and
different traditions.
PUSH AND PULL FACTORS