People as in settlers? Or people as in American citizens?
During the Renaissance, trade allowed for new philosophical ideas to be spread throughout Europe and even in overseas by books being copied in printing presses. Philosophers works like John Locke, Montesquieu, Voltaire, etc had made there way around Europe through trade which promoted more progressive ideals in governments. Like the abolition of serfdom, religious tolerance, end of the death penalty or cruel and unnecessary torture. These influenced the monarchs of Russia, Prussia and Austria. These also influenced the revolutions in North America, France and later South and central America.
Ancient DNA analysis has revealed an involvement of the bacterial pathogen Yersinia pestis in several historical pandemics, including the second plague pandemic (Europe, mid-14(th) century Black Death until the mid-18(th) century AD).
The story numbers give us is an amount of a price, because them actually being the price is telling us.
Depends on when you are talking about. This sounds like a Biblical Question so I'll answer it that way.
Very surprisingly, during David's time the population wasn't much more than a couple of thousand according to archaeologists. The area covered was no more than 40 acres even during Solomon's time when Jerusalem was a very important city. It may have had a larger population than in David's time, but the size was not much different.
Forty acres was not much. To give you an idea just how big that might be, consider that a section of land is 1 square mile. 1 section = 640 acres.
40 acres is 1/16 of a square mile. That's like 5 city blocks in any direction and that might be overestimating in. Imagine that? I was very surprised to read that. The temple was massive when you read about it and so were the stables for the horses.
Anyway, if I find out any differently, I'll post in comments. These are secular accounts and not Biblical ones, but I don't hear anyone seriously disputing this.
