In a poorly understood yet recurring phenomenon, communities occupying diverse settings within a region may undertake large-scale migrations that cannot be easily attributed to single variables such as climate change. As a result, the study of these movements has increasingly focused on the distinct histories of localities to address how they may have articulated as large-scale abandonments. We adopt this micro-history perspective on the fourteenth to fifteenth century depopulation of a large portion of the North American Midwest and Southeast, popularly referred to as the Vacant Quarter. Our research on the Middle Cumberland drainage within the Vacant Quarter suggests that a significant exodus began slowly ca. 1300 CE; then, it accelerated extremely rapidly in the first half of the fifteenth century CE. This genesis of this trajectory seems to be related to a pattern of severe droughts, but it was brought to a close by social and demographic challenges such as endemic conflict and adverse health conditions.

在一个人们知之甚少但反复出现的现象中，一个地区内占据不同环境的社区可能会进行大规模迁移，而这种迁移不能轻易归因于气候变化等单一变量。因此，对这些运动的研究越来越关注当地的独特历史，以解决它们如何表现为大规模废弃。我们采用这种微观历史视角来看待 14 至 15 世纪北美中西部和东南部大部分地区（通常被称为空置区）的人口减少。我们对空置区内坎伯兰中部排水系统的研究表明，大量人口的外流是在大约 1997 年缓慢开始的。公元 1300 年；然后，它在公元十五世纪上半叶加速得极其迅速。这一轨迹的起源似乎与严重干旱的模式有关，但它是由于地方性冲突和不利的健康状况等社会和人口挑战而结束的。