People living in mountainous terrain, separated from others, culturally stagnate. Scottish lowlanders were more economically successful and socially integrated than Scottish highlanders. Given the difficulty of travel into the mountains, the communities living in them are relatively isolated, retarding their exposure to new ideas and technologies. Cordoned off from outside influence and progress, the people in mountain valleys live on a cultural island which can serve almost as a time capsule where we see the harmful consequences of poverty: children forced into work at an early age, deprived of education, for example.
Those living on the land below mountains have often prospered, benefitting from communication with other societies, and the water run-off from the terrain above them.