History of Dzeia

Various nomadic, and sedentary, states and nations have ruled the present-day area of Dzeia.

Prehistory

Paleolithic

The archaeological record shows that the mountainous lands near the Inner steppes had been inhabited by an ancestor of the modern dze, Tenacitherium anthropopsius, from around 2,500,000 years ago until evolving into the modern dze, Tenacitherium terrible, around 500,000 years ago. Both a species of paleolithical industry, it is thought that they mostly stayed around the eastern reaches of the Greater southern range, travelling in small bands of nomadic hunter-gatherers. By around 110,000 years ago the archaeological record shows that the first proper material culture arose among the dze during the middle paleolithic, the Ŋ́ynƚaq culture, named after a valley in the near eastern reaches of the greater southern range; this culture's name also comes from the name given by scientists to the arrow and spear tips found, which bear a distinct leaf shape in their shape and cutting technique to them, both for practical purposes of streamlining the flint and with an apparent religious meaning, as burials in places of known ninlaqian industry are known to contain Flint mounds, piles of arrow and spear heads arranged in various shapes; a tradition still carried to this day in certain clans.

It was generally thought that early on this culture absorbed much, if not all, of the dze populations due to their small range of inhabitation during this period due to the lack of findings of other paleolithic industries. This would however be disproven with the discovery of the middle paleolithic Pax̣ŋ́eç culture in the southernmost edges of Polykarya, which put into light the inhabitation of the dze in areas much further than what was originally expected, with some artifacts even being found on the other side the P.E.L. itself; the deepening of genetic studies also showcased that the amount of haplogroups and haplogroup diversity was much broader than previously thought, both in Y-DNA and mntDNA haplogroups, of which most arose during this era and later suffered still un-explained bottlenecks, isolating these until after the neolithic.

The ŋ́ynƚaq culture spread throughout the mountains along river valleys and cliffs where they carved caves into moon-like shapes, these sites nowadays called Tx̣edlał̣, that are still frequented in the present day, some of the oldest being carbon dated to around 110,000-90,000 BR; although it is unknown how a prehistoric people manually re-shaped natural structures to this scale, it seems to have been a seasonal process, where each winter they would inhabit these caves, and shape them, to then leave in summer for warmer places. Other distinguishing factors of this culture are an affinity towards temporarily inhabiting mountainside cliffs rather than caves properly and their hunting method, which is depicted in some paleo-art, which puts more emphasis in persistance hunting in combination with either driving or calling methods as a coordinated maneuver between archers and spearmen rather than the expected scavenging or ambush hunting. This would all allow for them to slowly fill the gaps of deserted lands once inhabited by peoples of the same species. The ŋ́ynƚaq culture managed to mantain a continuity until around 50,000 BR when it began to splinter with the start of the Mesolithic, with a similar transition occuring to the pax̣ŋ́eç culture

Mesolithic

By 50,000 BR there is evidence for a change in the style and production of stone tools as well as the start of ceramic pottery, distinguished by their simple shapes and square painting patterns made with dark dyes or ocre. It is also around this time when the dze population began to spread into the Central plateau and Coastal range, as evidenced by the surging of several related haplogroups theorized to come from this area, however appearing to mostly remain in the eastern reaches of the land as evidenced by a higher abundance of archaeological remains in those areas compared to the western areas of polykarya as well as the evidence for mass migration towards the oriental fjords. In this era the old paleolithic cultures began to splinter towards epipaleolithic or mesolithic industries, with those who remained in their original range retaining the highest degree of conservatism in their styles and industries. The most commonly found artifacts during the first milennia of the Mesolithic belong to the Ḳyxq́içyw and the Ḳopł̣oq́ cultures, which are part of an eastern set of ninlaqian offshoots, the former inhabiting much of the Oriental steppes and the Eastern Range.

There is also evidence for advancements that could be called Proto-Agriculture, with signs of land clearing and selective placing of several species of flora or the mass culling of species in certain periods, suggesting an artificial increase in populations of game and careful management of populations. These developments support the later cultural and technological advancements that occured during the neolithic and signals the start of the dze's signature lifestyle, transhumanism. Lastly, it is in the late mesolithic when pottery begins to be used, though it's use is restricted to figurines, as pottery vessels dating to before the neolithic have not been found and the development of these is deeply entrenched with the cultures that arose after the mesolithic, rather than those in this time period.

During this age it seems the pax̣ŋ́eç culture both survived and later splintered as well as evidenced by the rise of the Ŋ́eçnuł̣ń culture. The mesolithic also was defined the start of the transition from fully nomadic to a semi-nomadic lifestyle as evidenced by the recent discovery of massive stone circle-shaped structures throughout the steppe regions and later in the western and southern areas, in appearance like prehistorical walls and laden with pottery figurines and material remains, surrounded by ditches near river valleys which are thought to be temporary summer refuges, later abandoned in preference for warmer places in winter like the various mountain hotsprings that dot the eastern range.

At the end of this era however the southern and western industrial complexes dissapear as well as some ninlaqian descendants, that left only the eastern cultures alive. The reasoning for this occurrance the end of the mesolithic and the survival of only the ninlaqian descendants is unknown. One theory suggests early human-dze conflict brought about their end by the late mesolithic in most areas due to pressure as they began to expand beyond the reaches of the P.E.L., where food sources were less nutritious and they were not given enough time to adapt due to heavy competition with early humans, this theory is favoured by many dzeologists given the lack of evidence for intra-dze conflict this far back in time, contrasted with the evidence for human-dze conflict throughout their written history. Enviromental disasters can be factored in, yet the lack of findings of truly catastrophic events provides little substance to any theory that discusses the mesolithic bottleneck.

Neolithic

Around 35,000 years ago there is evidence for the rise of different stone cutting and polishing techniques, starting the Neolithic period; it is during this era that the Dze populate all of the lands inside continental polykarya and reach their first population peak, with estimates ranging from 5,000,000 to 15,000,000 after having recovered from the mesolithic bottleneck. It is also during the Neolithic that the first concrete evidence for animal husbandry and agriculture arises in the lands of the Confederation, with the evidence of domesticated herds showing in paleo-art, with agriculture being quickly abandoned, or so it seems, in favour of continuing the development of a transhuman lifestyle; reasons for this are unknown, but from skeletal remains we can see that in older, early agricultural settlements the bones show signs of malnutrition and several vitamin deficencies, whilst later nomadic burials have much healthier remains.

It also seems that during this era is when the tradition to build stone pens at permanent locations to signal winter and summer camps for the safekeeping of herds began as evidenced by an abundance of animal remains and coprolites near sites or directly in them. During the middle to late neolithic there is archaeological evidence for the first usage of true pottery vessels, these were few, somewhat porous, made of earthenware and the usage of pottery vessels remained a rare occurance until later eras due to the lack of need for such, though they are helpful in more accurately identifying dzeii cultures and groups.

The archaeological findings of the Neolithic period end abruptly around 20,000 BR with the Late Neolithic Collapse, an event of unknown causes that led to the abandoning or destruction of the stone circles and the spreading of Dze populations westwards. A possible trigger of this event is the evidence for continuous volcanic eruptions in the eastern range around this era that triggered particularly cold years that might have caused the mass death of the game the Dze hunted as well as the deaths of most of their livestock or simply forced an emigration westards, the ending of these winters coinciding with the flooding of several rivers from the accumulated snow and ice, causing the destruction of most stone circles as evidenced by the abundance of polished pebbles in a thin layer of ground sediment dating to this period.

Despite the cultural collapse, populations seem to have more easily recovered from the disaster than the earlier mesolithic populations that vanished before them. By the end of this period the Dze began to undergo surprisingly fast cultural changes at a rate almost 10 times as fast as what had happened in the early stone age, which formed the basis for the Dze Cultural Hibernation hypothesis, and which may have allowed for their survival; though the Neolithic is thought to not have fully ended until 10,000 BR in some areas. In these milennia of archaeological darkness what little has been found, mostly dze remains and occasional pottery shards, show us that the population dispersal allowed for the complete control of polykarya by the dze by the start of the Chalcolithic once these recovered.

Chalcolithic

After the Late Neolithic Collapse, the archaeological record shows us that after population levels recovered a few thousand years after the collapse there appeared many chalcolithic cultures almost simultaneously, around 15,000 BR, including the Moonblade, Caveshrine and Lowmound cultures, each of which began to participate in localized forms of trade, slowly expanding until the Steppe roads arose, a collection of several trade routes that led from the westermost points of Dze inhabitation all the way to the eastfjords. One evidence of this is the usage of the Dze Hieroglyphic script by the Woodhut culture in the far west by a few hundred years after the script was first developed from the earlier pictographic and logographic forms.

Key developments that occured in this time also include the start of the usage of wheels and carts as depicted in art and evidenced in writings by the Early Moonblade period at 14,500 BR which allowed for the true start of the semi-nomadic lifestyle the Dze prefer nowadays as well as the invention of the stirrup, a localized development that occured in the Moonblade III period around 12,000 BR. By the end of the chalcolithic the Dze managed to spread back to most of their currently owned lands, now also inhabiting the open prairies that define the landscape of their territories. Around 25,000 BR a second collapse occured in where population levels seem to have decreased, though a much more tame event compared to previous catastrophes, evidenced by the partial dissapearance of writing in some areas as communities fled instead of the complete anihilation of peoples and cultures; this one we know was caused by increased volcanic activity that forced the Dze out of many of their traditional homelands for extended periods of time.

Kraterolithic

By 10,000 BR the remnants of the Moonblade culture seem to have fully recovered from the collapse and evolved into the Flower Stirrup culture, named as such by the shape of the steel footing and the intricate bronze decorational patterns of their stirrups. By 9,000 BR the usage of Bronze alloys had spread to all corners of Dze inhabitation and there is extensive findings of items made with this material, which quickly superseded traditional copper as a tool material; of the alloys used the most common by far was tin bronze, as arsenic bronze was deemed to be weaker and tin bronze to be cleaner and easier to mold, though tin itself was found in high concentrations it was still nontheless rarer than copper. Other alloys were too rare, though we occasionally find items in these rarer combinations, such as the famous Swords of Alx̣tśan, a collection of swords made with aluminium and silicon bronze allows that belong to the rulers of the alx̣tśan clan to this very day that were made during this early age.

The most important developments of this age are the various blacksmith gears that have made the caste so famous with outsiders, with elaborate masks, gloves and equipment that allow for the trade to be as safe as possible, which allows, against most expectations, for blacksmiths and forgers to avoid organ or blood poisoning from metal or fumes. These gears have remained mostly unchanged since this time and they mark one of the most important developments of Dze technology and they are special too in that they are cremated or molten with the blacksmith, as they are deemed to be magic in nature, with scant findings of burials or skeletal remains showing that the health of bones belonging to blacksmiths was much healthier in the kraterolithic than in the chalcolithic.

By this time the Old Liturgicals had evolved into entire families of languages and, starting with the Flower Stirrup people, these began to be written as well, starting a literary revolution and the development of several new scripts to adapt these languages which led to a cultural golden age from about 9,000 to 8,000 BR, from which we have the bulk of liturgical findings of the Dze's early history, both in their old liturgical languages and these new evolving ones that were exquisitely codified, though much of their content remains undeciphered still.

Older Era

Arrival of humans

Human arrivals to the Dze lands begin to be documented from 8057 BR in the Çunyw Stelai in the far south, which tell of meetings between Dze chieftains and the chieftains of four migrating tribes of Çunyw, "Short Folk", as they are referred to in the carvings which, have been identified with the Longplow, Broadaxe, Highstone and Red Arrow cultures. The arrivals were both of peaceful and agressive nature and texts unearthed in nearby localities and dated to the same time period reveal that by the end of the 9th millennium BR proper Human-Dze conflict arose, specifically with peoples of the Longplow, Broadaxe and Highstone cultures, which led to the slow creeping of humans into the territories of bronze age dze cultures in the south and west as these were unable to keep up with the numbers of arrivals into their territories; the Red Arrow culture however seems to have settled around the north-western shores and the westernmost edges of the eastern range without evidence for conflict during those times.

The Red Arrow culture was a collection of different peoples, thought to be the first proper human arrivals north of the P.E.L., who settled as refugees, rather than migrants or conquerors, due to their noted distaste for the human groups that followed them; a still hunter-gatherer, mesolithic culture, these would adopt metalworking from the dze in the coming centuries, yet some of them would seemingly retain their old lifestyle rather than becoming sedentary or transhuman, though in the modern day most of these have died out.

Initially it seems that humans had the upper hand due to their larger population numbers as they constantly migrated northwards, driving the descendants of the Woodhut and Caveshrine cultures from the western areas of polykarya into the Hammerfall peninsula. These early aggressions began to propel the dze into more organized forms of tribal governance; while the title of Tʿaan had risen up among them as a word for a chieftain or general ruler during the Dze Golden Age, it was during the start of The Invasions that it began to become a universal term for the ruler of a clan, akin to a king. After some generations the Dze clans slowly coalesced into the First Dze Confederation under Tsotʿaan Quƚaq (7274-7231 BR) of the Alx̣tśan clan in 7274 BR, who had spent fifty years uniting the clans through diplomatic means, to avoid the spilling of blood between his people that would have otherwise occured, via duels to first blood and pacts.

The first confederation

Upon rising to power throughout the 73rd century BR, Quƚaq would for the first years consolidate his power through a series of decrees that would end up becoming prevalent or even universal cultural practices for the dze, of these the most famous of which is the forbiding of murder, penalizing the murder of a dze with either mutilation or exile. Although later on inter-dze conflict would occur, for many tribes and, later on, for the entirety of the country, it became one of the pillars of dze societies to almost entirely forbid murder, with direct first-degree murder being viewed as one of the highest sins one could commit. Through this he would unify the dispersed clans, prefering to duel the tʿaan of other tribes to first blood rather than fight to the death or with armies, instilling a code of honor known as the Tśal that would later dominate the martial aspects of many dze cultures.

Under the leadership of Quƚaq the armies of the first confederation would score several victories against the forming human kingdoms during a swift campaign known as the Thunderstride (7271-7270 BR) which culminated in the Battle of Bones in where a coalition of human kingdoms were soundly crushed by Quƚaq, the site of which was then made into a pile with all of the corpses of the defeated, which began the practice of Corpse mounds in dze warfare. After the Thunderstride the rest of Quƚaq's reign was spent warding off human expansion, weakened by the thunderstride, into the central meadows and eastern steppe, resorting to more defensive, guerilla style warfare to deter invaders rather than offensive military campaigns. Succeeded by his daughter, Tsotʿaan Tx̣eńat (7231-7182 BR), the confederation mostly kept to this policy, however during the Jhu'kan Campaigns (7190-7180 BR) they faced off against the forces of the Jhu'kan Empire in the Battle of Alx̣ḳyx in which the Dze managed to defeat the forces of Ka'sun I, dealing a decisive military defeat and securing peace between the dze and the jhu'kan for the following centuries. Both campaigns assured the Dze periods of relative peace, the first one lasting 88 years whilst the later lasted for 278 years, while having minor skirmishes were present, these periods represented unparaleled levels of tranquility that would not be achieved again for over three milennia.

During this time, the peoples descended from the Red Arrow Culture were also victim to the Jhu'kan campaigns, like the people of the Bör Kingdom, which led to an exodus of these peoples who, seeking protection, came to the lands of the Confederation, inhabiting the hammerfall peninsula or the mountainous slopes at the edges of the eastern range.

The confederation and the Jhu'kan empire spent the rest of the 8th millenium at peace amongst eachother however at the start of the 7th millennium BR, tensions began to arise as the Jhu'kan desired a region known as Latuq, meaning "The Lake" in Old Dze, as well the surrounding Lat highlands due to these being less desertic than the warm steppes that characterized the south-central areas of polykarya, which culminated in the devastating Latuq War (6902-6893 BR) in where the lands of the confederation, under the rule of Tsotʿaan Tx̣eł̣eeq, great-great grandson of Tx̣eńat, were invaded and ultimately driven from the central meadows and steppes, resulting in the death of the Tsǫt'aan after a battle in where the dze, outnumbered 7 to 1, fought a last stand and the disbanding of the confederation; the jhu'kan however, weakened by the war, also faced a period of strife in their lands due to the cost of the war, which allowed for the emerging confederations and clans of the dze to be left alone in the aftermath of the latuq war.