[wizofaus]

Arguably any period of history where the majority of people lived as subsistence farmers and rarely interacted with others not part of the household was an anomaly though, and very different to how pre-agricultural societies lived.

[kelipso]

It's very likely just a US thing. You go to Europe, you see villages (as in groups of houses) and agricultural fields extending out from each village. While US, I believe it's isolated houses surrounded by farmland.

[wizofaus]

Oh I suspect it was quite common in much of Europe for fairly long periods too, when there very limited options for travel for vast majority of people, who were in fact farmers. Yes, the farms were small, but most of your energy went into tending those, and interactions with those even only a km or so away was possibly often only once a week. I don't think it's an environment most people would thrive in though.

[kelipso]

I seriously doubt it since isolated families would have to worry about marauders, thieves, being in they way of some oncoming army, etc and being within a community buffers against that. America you had more space, less density of people, more recent movement of peoples, so probably they didn't have to worry about such things.