History of Aucuria

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The history of Aucuria extends across more than 10,000 years. One of the world's cradles of civilization, the Pativilkas civilization - the first civilization in Asteria Inferior - emerged in what is now Aucuria in 3,700 BCE. Potatoes, cassava, quinoa, coca, common beans, and the chili pepper species Capsicum baccatum and Capsicum pubescens were all domesticated in ancient Aucuria. After the Pativilkas civilization came a string of major indigenous cultures, including the Kiljakoljas, Tirakvas, Piura, and Kulkinčas.

The League of Five Cities, or Cutinsua, was formed in 1324 in response to the rise of the Kingdom of Oruras. Cutinsuan armies subsequently conquered Oruras in 1336, and came to control much of northern Aucuria through a mixture of diplomacy, assimilation, intimidation, and conquest by the start of the 1500s. By the time that Euclea discovered the Asterias, Cutinsua was the largest, and one of the most advanced and most powerful, states in Asteria Inferior.

Cutinsua was conquered by the Ruttish in 1530. The Ruttish subsequently established a colony in the region; this colony was officially dubbed Aucuria in 1561. Aucuria was declared a co-equal part of a pluricontinental monarchy, the United Kingdom of Ruttland and Aucuria, in 1693; however, the Ten Years' War saw Aucuria transferred to Rudolphine control in 1721. Unpopular Rudolphine policies led to the outbreak of the Aucurian Revolution in 1786. Werania recognized Aucurian independence in 1793.

Following independence, Aucuria endured several swings between republic and dictatorship, defeat in the War of the Arucian, the Aucurian Civil War, and the occupation of the country by the Entente during the Great War. The military regime established by the 1949 Aucurian coup d'etat was overthrown in 1980 with the Velvet Revolution; Aucuria has had a democratic government since.

Pre-Cutinsuan Aucuria

Paleo-Asterians in Aucuria domesticated several species of plant and animal.

Prehistory

Human remains and stone tools in the Čiklajus valley dated to 12,500 BCE, located in the state of Bendrieji Laukai, provide some of the earliest known evidence of human habitation in Asteria Inferior. Archaeological finds at sites such as Amotapas, Kotošas, Kupeniskvė, Mojekvas, and Senakelios attest to the presence of a series of lithic and preceramic Paleo-Asterian cultures in the area between the 12,000s BCE and the 3,000s BCE.

Potatoes and cassava, which would remain core staple crops in the region for millennia, were domesticated in Aucuria some time between 8,000 BCE and 5,000 BCE. Llamas, alpacas, and guinea pigs were domesticated in Aucuria in the 6,000s BCE; the domestication of quinoa, ullucu, mashua, and oca took place in Aucuria in the 2,000s BCE. The cultivation of corn, cotton, and calabashes spread to the region from Asteria Superior between 5,000 and 4,000 BCE. These indigenous populations spun and knit wool & cotton, and practiced basketry, but were aceramic and thus did not make pottery.

The arrival of cotton cultivation appears to be associated with a general shift towards sedentism in Aucuria's coastal regions and the valleys of the Vaskaranas Mountains, with the establishment of small villages based around varying combinations of farming, fishing, and herding. Marquez et al speculate that the weaving of cotton allowed for the creating of fishing nets and textile bags, which enabled agriculture and both riverine & ocean fishing; other archaeologists have found remnants of what might be early irrigation canals from this period, which could further suggest the growth of communal organization.

The remnants of a Pativilkas step pyramid and menhir.

Pativilkas civilization

The Pativilkas civilization existed in what is now the states of Chucisaca and Kunturiri from 3,700 BCE to 1,500 BCE. It is the oldest civilization in Asteria Inferior and in the Asterias as a whole, predating the Tetuolmec civilization (the first civilization in Asteria Superior, which emerged in the 1,600s BCE) by more than 2,000 years. The civilization began to expand in the 3,100s BCE, and reached its peak around 2,200 BCE.

The first urban site associated with the Pativilkas civilization, located near the village of Čukekiravas, emerged in the 3,500s BCE; the largest site and the site for which the culture was named, at Pativilkas, emerged in the 2,600s BCE. The main site at Pativilkas spans nearly 60 hectares and is home to seven pyramidal platform mounds, several smaller mounds or terraces, and two large sunken plazas. It was also divided into an "upper half" and a "lower half", with most monumental structures concentrated in the "upper half" & residences in the "lower half" being smaller and simpler, and middens suggesting that diets were simpler in the "lower half" than the "upper half". Pativilkas sites are also often marked by the presence of menhir, irrigation systems, and terraced farms. These all suggest complex social organization and stratification, as some form of societal organization would be necessary for construction projects and class distinctions on such a scale. Sites associated with the civilization have also yielded knotted strings which some archaeologists have argued could be early examples of khipu, potentially indicating the existence of a system of writing or proto-writing; subterranean ventilation ducts; and cornetts and flutes made of deer, llama, & bird bones.

Studies of middens at Pativilkas sites have suggested that the diet of Pativilkans was dominated by domesticated plants such as potatoes, quinoa, maize, squashes, and beans, supplemented by mashua, oca, ullucu, lucuma, guava, avocado, achira, pacay, and sweet potatoes. Meat remains found at Pativilkas settlements are almost exclusively from land or riverine animals - unsurprising given the civilization's location in the Vaskaranas Mountains - but some middens contain remains of anchovies, suggesting that they were caught by coastal populations, preserved, and traded with the Pativilkas inland.

Pativilkas sites show some marked differences with those of !mesopotamia & !egypt in Rahelia and the Bashurat Valley civilization in Satria. Most notably, the Pativilkas civilization was still preceramic. While pottery-making began to spread to Aucuria from neighboring Satucin in the 2,000s BCE, it did not reach those areas of Aucuria outside of the Sythe basin until after the collapse of the Pativilkas civilization; crops were cooked by roasting and bags woven from reed, wool, or cotton remained the predominant way of carrying objects. Pativilkas artifacts and sites also exhibit a strange lack of visual art, which researchers have struggled to explain; Girėnas suggested that Pativilkas religion might have been iconoclastic, but no hard evidence for this exists.

While the nature and degree of centralized authority within Pativilkas cities is unknown, Stulginskienė postulated that authority was likely religious in nature, with a focus on religious ceremony; Cornelis de Vries speculated that this religious authority was bolstered by trade with other preceramic populations in Aucuria's coastal and highland regions. There is a distinct lack of evidence of defensive architecture or signs of warfare at Pativilkas sites, indicating that the increase in social complexity was not driven by conflict and that authority was not derived from military leadership.

After its peak in the 2,200s BCE, the Pativilkas civilization entered a protracted decline, which accelerated after 1,800 BCE. The reasons for this decline are disputed; some have suggested that it might have been caused by climactic changes which led to population movement away from Pativilkas cities, while others have proposed that Pativilkas was simply overshadowed by other areas with more fertile soil and greater proximity to the coast. By 1,700 BCE, the site at Pativilkas itself had been abandoned; the Pativilkas civilization had faded away entirely by the 1,500s BCE.

Kiljakoljas culture

[1,300-300 BCE]

Sythe-Juoda culture

[500 BCE-1000]

Tirakvas and Piura cultures

[100 BCE-800]

Marai in Aucuria

[100-800]

Kulkinčas culture

[800-1200]

Kingdom of Oruras

[1252-1300s]

Cutinsua

Formation and early consolidation

[1324-1336 is initial formation and conquest of oruras]

[until 1417 - mankojupankis is the dynamic first ruler, tupakvalpas is unremarkable]

[atokjupankis v javarvakakas, the consolidation of andavailan hegemony]

[minor expansion under sinciankas, tupakukumarkis]

Reform and later expansion

[1417 to 1525 - the wars of ljokeamaras; his sidelining]

[the conquests and reforms of capatipomas sinčijačekas]

[maitakapakis, ljaktakusaris, and the early years of javarjupankis]

Colonial Aucuria

Ruttish conquest of Cutinsua

[conquest, summarized]

Ruttish Aucuria

[initially relies more heavily on local collaborators, kasikai and kurakai]

[beginning to do away with this in the 1590s leads to the 1608-1612 great cutinsuan revolt]

[as institutions created and strengthened, increasingly uniquely aucurian identity]

[ruttland depends on aucurian crops and the profits thereof, so to guarantee its continued connection to ruttland, it decides to create the UKRA]

United Kingdom of Ruttland and Aucuria

[further strengthening of local institutions due to the elevation of aucuria to equal status w/ ruttland]

[ten years war in aucuria]

Rudolphine Aucuria

[reduced back to colony, unpopular tariff policy, suppression of ruttish language, and promotion of weranian settlement stokes anger]

War of Independence

[course of the war]

Aucurian Republic

Early republic

[first republic - agrarian devolutionists vs. commercial centralists, w/ conservative monarchists mostly sidelined]

[second republic - dabrauskas]

[third republic until 1883 - (semi-)liberal modernists vs. moralistic conservatives, w/ smaller civilist and radical factions]

Arucian War through the Great War

[war of the arucian]

[aucurian civil war]

[fourth republic - (semi-)liberal modernists vs. moralistic conservatives vs. progressives and socialists]

[great war]

Postwar period

[fifth republic - liberal modernists vs. social democrats vs. very unhappy conservatives vs. socialists and ethnic groups]

Military dictatorship

[sixth republic - military dictatorship, years of lead, sugar crash and sugar high]

[velvet revolution]

Redemocratization into the present

[seventh republic]