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Medasteria (Gaullican: Medastérie; Luzelese: Medastéria; Vespasian: Medasteria; Ruttish: Medasterija; Blostlandic: Medästeria; Asteriaans: Medasterië; Soravian: Медастерія) is a geographical region consisting of the regions of the Asterian continents along the coast of the Arucian Sea and the islands within the Arucian, most commonly invoked as a historical region consisting of the civilizations which existed in the area before the discovery of the Asterias and the arrival of Euclean explorers and settlers in the late 15th and 16th centuries. Today, Medasteria occupies portions of Eldmark, Ardesia, Vinalia, Gapolania, Puramape, Satucin, Aucuria, and Nuvania, as well as the entirety of Sainte-Chloé, Carucere, Imagua and the Assimas, Bonaventura, and Île d'Émeraude.
Medasteria is home to two of the world's true cradles of civilization, where sedentary civilized society emerged independently: pre-Assimian Aucuria, and Tonatihcan in modern-day Ardesia and Vinalia. The cultivation of plants and animals such as maize, potatoes, tomatoes, beans, cacao, chili, llamas, guinea pigs, and turkeys between 7000 BCE and 2000 BCE enabled the emergence of sedentary societies with complex social orders.
The diverse cultures of Medasteria subsequently developed a number of shared cultural traits and innovations, including the construction of major ceremonial sites marked by monumental architecture, intricate artistic works in a variety of mediums, complex religious and cultural rituals, the concept of zero, and the use of terre noire. Other cultural innovations found in part or all of Medasteria include Tonatihcan calendars and pyramids, non-alphabetic systems for recording information such as Tonatihcan pictographs and ancient Vaskaranan khipu; public infrastructure such as the Cutinsuan road & warehouse system and the Nati yukayeke; the use of axe-monies for trade; and agricultural practices such as Three Sisters polyculture, milpa crop rotation, the waru waru and chinampa techniques of raised field agriculture, and pukyu aqueducts.
Medasteria was connected by extensive trade between the various cultural regions it encompassed, including extensive trade over the Arucian Sea. Food crops, practical goods like textiles, dyes, stone, and ceramics, and luxury goods such as copper, gold, silver, turquoise, jade, cinnabar, obsidian, hematite, lapis lazuli, pumice, and Spondylus shells were all traded widely across the region, with artifacts from Cutinsua, Zapoya, Calkhun & Itzel, and Terachu being found in each of the others' domains. Groups on the periphery of Medasteria's major powers, such as the Mwiska, Odavli, and Chanuche, were also integrated into these trade networks, often serving as a gateway for trade with other parts of the Asterias; the Nati, Mutu, Narapan, and coastal Marai, who lived on the coasts and islands of the Arucian and plied the waves with canoes and balsa rafts, played a key role as middlemen and brokers of intercontinental trade, which enabled them to form confederal polities like the Karukera Confederacy.
Eucleans first arrived in Medasteria when Assim Asteris reached the Horn of Asteria, in modern-day Eldmark, in 149X. Subsequent explorers, such as Auguste d'Antibes, Johannes van Twiller, Álvaro de Mascarenhas, and Pierre Avenard, steadily penetrated further into the region in the next few decades, and were followed by conquerors & early colonizers such as Julio Marinho, Jurgis Leikauskas, Rasse Féret, and Nunzo di Rosignelle from the 1520s to the 1550s. Colonization from across the Vehemens was joined by colonization from across the Lumine following the expeditions of Grigori Kosh in the 1560s. While Euclea benefitted massively from the Medasterian commodities it obtained in the Asterian exchange, Euclean conquest and settlement devastated the region. The indigenous populations of Medasteria were ravaged by imported diseases, massacres, and exploitation; local trade routes were destroyed in favor of the exportation of raw resources from the Asterias to Euclea in line with the doctrine of mercantilism; and the demographics of Medasteria were radically changed by Euclean settlement and the Transvehemens slave trade.
In spite of this, Medasteria has left a rich legacy. Surviving Medasterian indigenous populations have worked to keep their languages and cultures alive, maintaining practices and traditions harkening back to pre-contact Medasteria. Some aspects - such as the use of terre noire and Vaskaranan terrace farming - were even adopted by settler populations due to their practical benefits. Some of the modern nations in Medasteria have come to regard the pre-colonial civilizations that once existed on their territory as a key part of their national identity (Aucuria with Cutinsua and Ardesia with Zapoya, for example). Additionally, some authors - such as [NAMES TBD] - have postulated that a "new Medasteria" has been created by the modern economic and cultural ties connecting the nations along and within the Arucian.
Etymology and definition
Medasteria literally means "in the middle of the Asterias", from the combination of the Solarian medius ("middle") and the word "Asteria", derived from the name of Rahelian explorer Assim Asteris. [when and how is the term coined? by who, for what purpose?]
[what defines medasteria as a singular cohesive unit? how did cultural diffusion work to unite the region?]
[proposal: medasteria was coined alongside counterpart terms for other regions that haven't caught on, akin to "aridoamerica" and "oasisamerica" existing as obscure terms coined alongside the much more successful "mesoamerica" - a term for the arid non-arucian parts of eldmark and the AFR, a term for the temperate belt stretching across rizealand and chistovodia, a term for astinf south of the south asterian range & sierra bianca, etc?]
Geography
[in the simplest sense medasteria consists of the region of astinf and astsup laying in and around the arucian sea, which served as a conduit for cultural contact and exchange]
[medasteria is also defined by the various mountain ranges that mark much of its outer edges - the south asterian range and sierra bianca in astinf; the ryggrad, acopa & ocotlan, and juyu ruwach mountains in astsup - which were not an impervious barrier but did mark a dividing line between the very interconnected societies along the arucian and those beyond the ranges]
[within medasteria there is very substantial geographic and climactic diversity due to the region's large spread and diverse terrain; these variations helped create various sub-regions]
History
[very very broad and basic recounting of medasteria's history, focusing mainly on:]
[1) its role as home of two cradles of civilization;]
[2) broad regional trends in medasterian history;]
[3) the thriving of medasteria at its peak;]
[and 4) its destruction by euclean colonization]
Periodization
[tbd]
Culture and common characteristics
Subsistence and diet
Agricultural innovations
Medasteria featured numerous agricultural innovations, that allowed it to sustain large population centers. The primary innovation was the domestication and improvement of Maize, from the wild teosinte, with Maize being the most important crop in numerous Medasterian societies. A primary issue suffered by Medasterian societies was poor soil quality, and overuse of agricultural land, this resulted in specialized sites being developed for agriculture.
Vaskaranan terraced farming was developed to accomodate to the unique topological, and climatic challenges of their environment. Although terrace farming was not unique to the Vaskaranas, the societal impact such development created was unique to the region. Likewise Tonatihcan cultures use of the Milpa cycle along with the three sisters Maize, beans, and Squash ensured that yields were high, and the health of the soil was mantained.
Terre Noire, an anthropogenic soil (anthrosol) first developed in the Sythe Rainforest, was used extensively throughout Medasteria, primarily as a result of Marai adoption and later exchange with Medasterian societies. Special plots were developed in Tonatihcan cities for the preparation and use of Terre Noire, which ensured the health and fertility of soils. Likewise the use of Chinampas throughout Tonatihcan, also developed a system of utilizing well developed irrigation systems to fertilize and mantain soil quality. With these gardens being replenished with easily accessible river sediment.
Medasterian agriculture was diverse and well adapted to its unique environmental challenges. Use of techniques to maintain soil fertility, along with Polyculture, forest gardening, and crop rotation were keystone concepts in Medasterian agriculture.
Significant domestic plants
Several species of plants were domesticated in one or more parts of Medasteria:
- Maize, cacao, tomatoes, avocadoes, squashes, jicama, breadnut, mamey sapote, and vanilla were domesticated in Tonatihcan, as was the non-food crop cotton;
- Potatoes, cassava, quinoa, oca, mashua, ullucu, lucuma, pacay, and coca were domesticated in the Vaskaranan region of contemporary Aucuria;
- Different species or cultivars of the common bean and chili pepper were domesticated or developed separately in both Tonatihcan and ancient Aucuria (the chili species Capsicum annuum, frutescens, and shangaenense were domesticated in Tonatihcan while Capsicum pubescens and baccatum were domesticated in Aucuria, for example);
- The guava, papaya, and sweet potato were domesticated either in the Sythe-Juoda region of what is now Aucuria and Satucin, or along the New Aurean Strait between Satucin and Ardesia, or on the islands of the Arucian Sea;
- The cashew was domesticated in modern-day Nuvania;
- The pineapple was domesticated in modern-day Satucin;
- Peanuts, the strawberry cultivar Fragaria chanuchensis, and erba mate were domesticated in what is now Gapolania and Puramape;
- Tobacco was domesticated somewhere in Medasteria, though precisely where is unclear;
- The calabash was also cultivated in Medasteria before 1488, though how and where the Coian plant species arrived in the Asterias is a matter of debate among experts.
These plants were then spread throughout the whole of Medasteria by trade networks, as was knowledge of how to cultivate them and prepare them for consumption (for example, the process of nixtamalization for preparing maize). Plants domesticated or cultivated in other parts of the Asterias - such as agave in what would become the AFR and sunflowers, winter squash, & goosefoot from the Northern Agricultural Complex - were also brought to Medasteria by trade, though climactic differences sometimes restricted their local cultivation.
Several animal species were also used as domesticated food animals in Medasteria, including the turkey, dog, and duck in Tonatihcan and the llama, alpaca, and guinea pig in the Vaskaranas.
[further stuff on diet - commonalities, unique local stuff & variations, how cultural contact shaped things]
Political organization
Economy and trade
Art and architecture
Language and writing
Science and technology
Mythology and cosmology
Subregions
Vaskaranas
[the first and oldest cradle - the various civilizations leading up to the !inca (cutinsuans), plus cutinsua itself]
Tonatihcan
[the other one of the cradles - the various civilizations leading up to the !maya (tecpans) and !aztecs (tzapotlans/"zapoyans"), plus the tecpans (calkhun, itzel, etc) and the tzapotlans themselves]
Southern Diasteria
[the marai, terachu]
Western Arucasteria
[nati, mutu, karukera - mercantile intermediaries between the continents]
[colonization by the marai, tzapotlans]
Eastern Arucasteria
[narapan - mercantile intermediaries between the continents, but on the other side of the straits]
Jansplata and Cisacopa
[odavli et al in jansplata; groups like the chichimeca and purepecha in cisacopa?] [important role as intermediaries between the medasterian network and the peoples of aridasteria and silvasteria, spreading crops and goods between those regions]
Kustveld
[mwiska et al; important as intermediaries between medasteria and austrasteria]
Sythe-Juoda
[the most obscure, but recent research has uncovered geoglyphs and cities lost in the jungle, which suggest it might have been much more prominent than previously believed]
Altipiano and Costa
[chanuche in the altipiano, and are big players with some expansive conquests; whoever lives in the costa; important as intermediaries between medasteria and planasteria & occidasteria]
Legacy
[surviving indigenous populations and their efforts to preserve their traditions] [traditions which were adopted by settlers]
[incorporation of medasterian civilizations into modern national identities]
[the concept of a "new medasteria" between postcolonial countries and societies]