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Prehistory of Great Kirav: Difference between revisions
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===Neolithic Éorsa=== | ===Neolithic Éorsa=== | ||
[[File:Old scatness 2.jpg|thumb|Social innovations on Éorsa (now [[Ilánova]]) allowed for more permanent Neolithic settlements to take root.]] | |||
Initially, the same conditions that prevailed on the Kiravian mainland (constant endemic warfare between small, tribal groups practising shifting cultivation) were also the case on the offshore island known classically as Éorsa and now more commonly called by its Gaelic-derived name, [[Ilánova]]. However, sometime around 6000 BC, developments took place on Ilánova that allowed its inhabitants to break the cycle of endemic violence that plagued the mainland and advance to a higher stage of social and technological capability. | Initially, the same conditions that prevailed on the Kiravian mainland (constant endemic warfare between small, tribal groups practising shifting cultivation) were also the case on the offshore island known classically as Éorsa and now more commonly called by its Gaelic-derived name, [[Ilánova]]. However, sometime around 6000 BC, developments took place on Ilánova that allowed its inhabitants to break the cycle of endemic violence that plagued the mainland and advance to a higher stage of social and technological capability. | ||
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The rise of the [[Coscivian Emperor|Emperors]], who imposed the [[Four Laws and Four Rites]], forming a tribal confederacy capable of overwhelming any individual hostile tribe and also capable of maintaining peace and cohesion within itself, opened an exit from the Age of Blood for the tribes of Éorsa. The population growth brought on by decreased mortality from warfare enabled the Lawful Tribes to expand territorially into larger (though still thoroughly tribal) political-territorial units, and enhanced the military strength of the Commonwealth as a whole. Using the traditional narratives as a source, it would appear that the key military advantage ensuring the security of the Lawful Commonwealth was its primitive form of {{wp|collective security}}: Lawful tribes were safe from attack than Lawless tribes because they could rely upon neighbouring Lawful tribes for assistance in a simple threat environment wherein numerical superiority was sufficient to guarantee victory. The deterrent effect of collective security allowed the Lawful tribes to become more populous as they were spared the extremely high death rates from warfare that afflicted the Lawless tribes, providing additional fighting-age men that galvanised the deterrent effect. The Lawful Commonwealth would eventually include most of the tribal territories on Ilánova, and it is possible that some nearby areas of the Kiravian mainland (i.e. coastal [[Harma]]) may have somehow participated in or imitated its model. | The rise of the [[Coscivian Emperor|Emperors]], who imposed the [[Four Laws and Four Rites]], forming a tribal confederacy capable of overwhelming any individual hostile tribe and also capable of maintaining peace and cohesion within itself, opened an exit from the Age of Blood for the tribes of Éorsa. The population growth brought on by decreased mortality from warfare enabled the Lawful Tribes to expand territorially into larger (though still thoroughly tribal) political-territorial units, and enhanced the military strength of the Commonwealth as a whole. Using the traditional narratives as a source, it would appear that the key military advantage ensuring the security of the Lawful Commonwealth was its primitive form of {{wp|collective security}}: Lawful tribes were safe from attack than Lawless tribes because they could rely upon neighbouring Lawful tribes for assistance in a simple threat environment wherein numerical superiority was sufficient to guarantee victory. The deterrent effect of collective security allowed the Lawful tribes to become more populous as they were spared the extremely high death rates from warfare that afflicted the Lawless tribes, providing additional fighting-age men that galvanised the deterrent effect. The Lawful Commonwealth would eventually include most of the tribal territories on Ilánova, and it is possible that some nearby areas of the Kiravian mainland (i.e. coastal [[Harma]]) may have somehow participated in or imitated its model. | ||
The peace brought on by the expansion of the Lawful Commonwealth allowed for the advancements of the High Neolithic to take pleace earlier on Éorsa than on the mainland, including the first stone settlements since the Society II culture and the intensive cultivation of {{wp|polyculture}}s with {{wp|crop rotation}}. | |||
It follows that the Lawful Commonwealth could only be defeated ''{{wp|Africa|in toto}}'' by an adversary if a countervailing tribal alliance was able to assemble more fighters, or if the Commonwealth itself became unable to maintain its own cohesion. The available sources from {{wp|oral literature}} maintain that the latter happened: After the death of the Emperor Akˣɛ, a struggle for succession ensued between five different claimants, each with the backing of different cohorts of tribal allies. The civil war - if it can be called that - resulting from this dispute is said to have ended inconclusively, with each faction diminished into a small splinter confederacy under the leadership of its preferred Emperor. There is no clear archæological evidence to confirm nor controvert this narrative. Tradition maintains - and later history would appear to confirm - that even after the splintering of the Lawful Commonwealth, members of the former Lawful Tribes "carried the Law with them to the edges of the Sea," taken to mean that they would go on to emigrate from Éorsa and establish new Lawful settlements along the coast of mainland Great Kirav and in Suderavia-Levantia. | It follows that the Lawful Commonwealth could only be defeated ''{{wp|Africa|in toto}}'' by an adversary if a countervailing tribal alliance was able to assemble more fighters, or if the Commonwealth itself became unable to maintain its own cohesion. The available sources from {{wp|oral literature}} maintain that the latter happened: After the death of the Emperor Akˣɛ, a struggle for succession ensued between five different claimants, each with the backing of different cohorts of tribal allies. The civil war - if it can be called that - resulting from this dispute is said to have ended inconclusively, with each faction diminished into a small splinter confederacy under the leadership of its preferred Emperor. There is no clear archæological evidence to confirm nor controvert this narrative. Tradition maintains - and later history would appear to confirm - that even after the splintering of the Lawful Commonwealth, members of the former Lawful Tribes "carried the Law with them to the edges of the Sea," taken to mean that they would go on to emigrate from Éorsa and establish new Lawful settlements along the coast of mainland Great Kirav and in Suderavia-Levantia. | ||
===== Back-Migrations Mainland Kirav and Levantia ===== | ===== Back-Migrations Mainland Kirav and Levantia ===== | ||
The maritime technology introduced to Kiravia by the Itaho-Atrassic invasion spread around and up the coasts | The maritime technology introduced to Kiravia by the Ʒ-Q Invasion (or Itaho-Atrassic invasion) spread fairly rapidly around and up the coasts of Great Kirav, with their adoption by littoral peoples continuing along the eastern seaboard and from there on to Éorsa. Here, these technologies enabled large-scale (by the standards of the era) outward migration from Éorsa in two direction: | ||
In the first direction, back toward the Kiravian mainland, Ʒ-Q nautical technology allowed at least two waves of back-migration, one which is believed to have carried the Trans-Kiravian language family, and another which is believed to have carried the Austro-Kiravian language family. Trans-Kiravian speakers also may have sailed northward to [[Koskenkorva]]. The landings of these Éorsan navigators are believed to correlate with centres of megalithic construction on the mainland ([[Prehistory_of_Great_Kirav#Megalithic_Coscivians|see below]]). | |||
In the second direction, toward northern [[Levantia]], Ʒ-Q nautical technology allowed for the resumption of contact between Kiravia and the lands from whence the Ice Age settler ancestors of Kiravians had originally come, quite likely for the first time since 18,500 BC. These back-migrations were directed mainly toward what is now western [[Faneria]], [[Covina]], [[Suderavia]], and (controversially) [[Wintergen]]. At least some of these back-migrations must post-date the establishment of the Lawful Commonwealth, because they carried the Four Laws and Four Precepts and the rudiments of the proto-ethnic Coscivian identity with them, beginning the history of the [[Mainland Coscivians]]. | |||
Back-migration is estimated to have begun around 6750 BC and continued to trickle on thereafter, transferring important agricultural breakthroughs such as and buckwheat cultivation to the mainland, as well as advanced apicultural techniques adapted to Boreal bee species. Many of the back-migrants may have left to flee the constant violence of the Age of Blood. With the arrival of the technologically sophisticated [[Fenni]] in the Vandarch 6000-5000 BC, regular trade was established between Great Kirav and the Mainland, and would later accelerate as the Fenni became well-established in the region and as the Age of Blood wound down in Great Kirav. | |||
=== High Neolithic === | === High Neolithic === | ||
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Importantly, the infusion of Itaho-Atrassic marine technology would facilitate back-migration from Éorsa to the Kiravian Mainland. It has been demonstrated that back-migrations from Éorsa sometime between 4500 BC and 3500 BC (though possibly earlier) were responsible for the spread of the Austro-Kiravian (Kuomo-Passaic + Kapushitic) languages to southern and western coastal Kirav on one hand and the spread of the Transkiravian languages to northeastern Kirav, Koskenkorva, and far northwestern Levantia on the other (see map). Indeed, back-migration to Levantia also continued during this process, carrying this nascent Coscivian identity to the existing Kiravian-descended communities of continental Levantia. There is every reason to believe that a common culture extended across the Macro-Koskenkorvan-speaking, megalith-builder cultures along this bicontinental maritime transmission belt. | Importantly, the infusion of Itaho-Atrassic marine technology would facilitate back-migration from Éorsa to the Kiravian Mainland. It has been demonstrated that back-migrations from Éorsa sometime between 4500 BC and 3500 BC (though possibly earlier) were responsible for the spread of the Austro-Kiravian (Kuomo-Passaic + Kapushitic) languages to southern and western coastal Kirav on one hand and the spread of the Transkiravian languages to northeastern Kirav, Koskenkorva, and far northwestern Levantia on the other (see map). Indeed, back-migration to Levantia also continued during this process, carrying this nascent Coscivian identity to the existing Kiravian-descended communities of continental Levantia. There is every reason to believe that a common culture extended across the Macro-Koskenkorvan-speaking, megalith-builder cultures along this bicontinental maritime transmission belt. | ||
====Old Adratic civilisation==== | |||
[[File:Dolmen Russia Kavkaz Jane 1.jpg|thumb|An Adratic dolmen]] | |||
A separate megalithic society, the Adratic, emerged in the inland Texta Valley around the same time as the proto-Coscivian megalith builders, though it would appear that the Adrates began megalithic construction independently of any contact with the coastal megalithic cultural centres. The old Adratic tongue is currently believed to have been a {{wp|language isolate}} ancestral to later Classical Adratic and Modern Adratic, the latter of which is still spoken by small populations today. There is an abundance of archæological evidence demonstrating that the Old Adrates were proto-Sarostivist devotees of the Divine Moon, like many other Kiravian peoples of this time, including the Megalithic Coscivians. Unlike the Coscivians, however, the Adrates did not observe the Rites and Precepts and had not restructured their ancestor worship around the Emperor. It is known from later Classical Adratic writings that the Adrates believed that they were creations of the Divine Moon and had previously lived on the Moon, and descended directly from the Moon to ''Kam'' (either Earth or specifically Great Kirav). | |||
====Other early civilisations==== | ====Other early civilisations==== | ||
Other, more isolated, pockets of relative civilisation would appear on the Mainland while Megalithic Coscivian civilisation made its inroads from the coasts. The ancestors of the [[Ethnic_groups_in_Kiravia#Demarești|Demarești]] | Other, more isolated, pockets of relative civilisation would appear on the Mainland while Megalithic Coscivian civilisation made its inroads from the coasts and Adratic civilisation arose in the Texta Valley. The ancestors of the [[Ethnic_groups_in_Kiravia#Demarești|Demarești]], for example, developed a parallel civilisation during this time, having independently emerged from the Age of Blood and apprised themselves of the social and technological advances necessary to produce large structures. | ||
* '''Proto-Demarest''' - Demarest did not construct megalithic edifices, preferring instead to employ {{wp|rammed earth}} in their construction efforts, but did achieve a comparable level of social complexity and stratification to the Megalithic Coscivians and the Adrates. | * '''Proto-Demarest''' - Demarest did not construct megalithic edifices, preferring instead to employ {{wp|rammed earth}} in their construction efforts, but did achieve a comparable level of social complexity and stratification to the Megalithic Coscivians and the Adrates. | ||
* ''' | * '''West Highlands Latter Neolithic''' - Potato-growing communities in the Western Highlands had lower rates of endemic warfare, likely thanks to geographic barriers that encouraged the formation of stable communities in protected valleys. Variance of microclimatic and other agriculturally-relevant environmental conditions across different parts of the mountainous landscape encouraged intercommunity {{wp|barter}} and allowed for the peaceful diffusion of pottery industries and lithic techniques across relatively long distances, forming an identifiable material culture. | ||
* '''[[Ethnic_groups_in_Kiravia#Caoi|Caoi]]''' - The isolated Caoi people of the Gypsum Plains had permanent stone settlements during the Coastwise Megalithic, remains of which are accessible for study outside of Restriction Zone 48, where the surviving modern Caoi colonies are located. | * '''[[Ethnic_groups_in_Kiravia#Caoi|Caoi]]''' - The isolated Caoi people of the Gypsum Plains had permanent stone settlements during the Coastwise Megalithic, remains of which are accessible for study outside of Restriction Zone 48, where the surviving modern Caoi colonies are located. | ||
=== Æneolithic === | === Æneolithic === | ||