We actually have no idea how long that village endured before it was finally abandonned. It could easily have lasted hundred, if not thousand of years. After all, elves used to be immortal, so it makes sense they would have inhabited the same place for long periods of time. It also makes sense they would have built their homes to last, even in small remote village. else, it would be the equivalent of us having to rebuild every five years 
Edit : TOP Solas
Ooh, I hadn't thought of that. 
That would make a lot more sense.
Assuming that immortality wasn't restricted to the upper classes, long-lasting villages make perfect sense.
God, if I thought the small village 'Where everyone knows every single time you've screwed up, and all of your relatives' was bad, imagine having the local village elder being able to not only bring up your every indiscretion, but to complain about your great-grandfather, who is indignantly standing by your side. 
A society full of immortals that retire only by uthenera or death didn't make much sense to me. They didn't seem to have disease,*
Now that we're getting hints that the Dreamer ruler caste were jackwagons, just how much ritual and protection went into uthenera, and the fact that the pantheons warred with each other for power, it makes more sense.
*I was recently brushing up on my Colonial American history. It made the uncomfortable point that Americans basically live atop an apocalypse. It's estimated that the diseases brought by Columbus and the first explorers bounced throughout all of the native civilizations, wiping out on average 90 percent of the population. The Black Death only managed sixty percent. Whole civilizations died out before Europeans ever got there. There's a distinct trend of colonies only succeeding in places where the natives had been nearly wiped out by disease already. Where the natives were still strong, they were either annihilated or joined up with the tribe willingly. In particular, the Pilgrims got there a few years after the plague hit New England. Squanto returned to find his tribe dead from the disease. 
There was also hilarious anecdotes from Europeans basically complaining that, "The native men are pretty, so very pretty, and they don't seem to even try. 
" And more anecdotes from natives exasperated at how you could smell incoming Europeans from their unwashed filthiness.
And the oblivious Europeans noting how America was a paradise, since the forest was so easily traversed, and all kinds of tasty fruit and vegetables were growing all around them. Kind of like an English garden, but bigger and prettier.
Because...you know. They were walking in farmland abandoned by the natives. 
There's also even a theory that, much like the Black Death, or the Mongol Invasion, the massive death toll on Americans led to a lot of farmland being overgrown, with new forests rising up. This may have helped cause the Little Ice Age, which contributed to a lot of turmoil in Europe. I like to think of it, along with syphilis, as the natives' retaliation. (They got the Pope. THE POPE. OH YEAH! 
)
My random plot bunny was, what if the Quickening wasn't really an end to immortality? What if the humans, coming from a separate continent, with their own diseases, caused a similar apocalypse among the elves as they were in the middle of their civil warring?
A confluence of disasters is usually needed to wipe out an empire.
Attila did not destroy Rome. Neither did Alaric or Odoacer or disease or climate change or Emperors assassinating their power-hungry but effective regents*. It was all these things working in tandem with similar disasters, built up over centuries, along with a bit of happenstance, that made Rome fall in the West.
It took two world wars and several independence movements for the British Empire to wane.
The assassination of Mythal leads to infighting amongst the gods, more than usual.
The Neromenians begin to rise in power, subverting Elvhen magic. Eventually they form the Imperium.
Plague ravages the elf populace, who retreat in terror from this unexpected threat. Only by isolating themselves from humanity and quarantining themselves can they be safe. In their absence, humanity grows strong.
The red lyrium reenters the picture, corrupting some of the gods and worsening the conflict.
Fen'harel seals away the gods. The People are left to their own devices. A few centuries of clinging to the idea of Arlathan pass, before the Tevinter Imperium enslaves the pale shadow of the Elvhen.
*
I just don't see the same sort of magical might being poured into a village as they would the strongholds, temples, and skeletons of cities that we see in the game. Solas certainly didn't seem so interested in it.
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