Cradle of the Snake

[Red_Spy]

The Late Red Turtle Culture into the Weir Culture

So named because throughout this period more and more interconnection between the Red Turtle Culture and Aurelley Culture occurred ending with the homogenization of the two groups into what is known as the Weir Culture, the Late Red Turtle Culture is marked by the development of shamanistic divination practices. Not too dissimilar to peoples in Ancient China, around this time period western coastal Lemurians are thought to heat the shells of Redback Loggerhead Sea Turtles and the more widespread Loggerhead Sea Turtle, especially as the numbers of the former began to dwindle, causing cracks to form along the shells. It is believed that these cracks, evidenced by yet-undeciphered symbols cut next to them, would be read as omens about future events. This marks the discovery of what is to believed as one of the first concrete signs of the religious beliefs of early Lemurians and, perhaps more importantly, the beginnings of a developing proto-writing system.

The Migration of Late Red Turtle Culture Remnants to [Name] Isle

Not all people of the Late Red Turtle Culture homogenized into the Weir Culture. Some of them, perhaps driven by competition for resources, made the journey away from the first landing point of the Proto-Lemurians along the coast, passing the Bretnish culture, and arriving on what is now called [Name] Isle. They retained their largely maritime diet, though it expanded to include the eggs of the Brigadier penguin. More important, however, was the discovery Red Turtle Culture-styled pottery shards and necklaces found in Cloud People archaeological sites dating to this period. This suggests that the Late Red Turtle Culture and and the local Cloud People did, perhaps for the first time in human history, meet and establish some level of interaction, though it is unknown to what extent this was.

 

[thomas.berubeg]

Some groups related to the Aurelley complex have moved away from the Riverine network that provided their ancestory (And still provide to their cousins) a livelihood. The dry plains have allowed them to transition to a truly semi-nomadic lifestyle, following the immense herds of Nico that roam it's expanse. They have retained the animistic religious practices, though this has translated itself to the existence of "Circles" of ground stone animal effigies in the same style as those on the river complex, circles which are shared by any number of tribes that meet and trade and communicate and air grievances in a neutral area. In the later part of the period, the remains of these people are often associated with ground or shaped bone, which show signs of wear indicating they may have been worn as peircings in jewelry.

 

[SouthernKing]

Update 2: The Mesolithic, Part 3 (~6500 BCE)

This period saw a flowering of the Aurelley culture through the western plains. Some moved south, into drier landscapes that allowed for a more pastoral lifestyle following the nico herds. It was a radical departure from the previous riverbourne lifestyle, but the art styles--especially the depictions of animals--remained very similar. Indeed, these plains Aurelley are best known for the circles of stone animals they left behind, giving rise to their common name, the Circle Aurelley.

Further downriver, the riverine Aurelley and the Red Turtle cultures slowly homogenised, especially after the eponymous animal of the latter seems to have fallen into decline, perhaps due to overhunting. What defined the descendant culture was the appearance of weirs, relatively sophisticated wood-and-earthen structures used to control and master the flow of water. Therefore, these people are often known as the Weir Aurelley.

Interestingly, Weir Aurelley remains, even somewhat far inland, are found with turtle shells, run through with webbed cracks. Some claim that these cracks, and the act of their reading, served as a primitive form of divination. Interestingly, some later shells display undeciphered, pictographic symbols: some controversially claim this as an extremely early form of writing. Furthermore, it was the Weir Aurelley who first domesticated an animal. Otter remains are well and truly interspersed with human remains, and demonstrate clear signs of domestication.

Nonetheless, as resources grew scarcer, some of the Red Turtle populations appear to have dispersed along the shore. Some of them appear to have been assimilated into Bretnish culture; the few known Bretnish sites from this period demonstrate a sudden emergence of Red Turtle art.

Others spread to the more tropical islands to the northwest, where they subsided off seafood and penguin eggs. Archaeologists call this the Insular Red Turtle culture. Very little else is known about their lifestyle, but what is known--and has proven a point of great contention--is the finding of Red Turtle bonework in sites far inland, belonging to the Cloud People, suggesting some form of contact.

In the mountains, the Herachel continued to develop, this period seeing their canon of folklore grow exponentially as they grew to master their alpine environment.

In the interior, the Lei-Lei continued to grow more semi-sedentary, and during this period they seem to have lived in waterside mobile villages. As their society grew more bountiful, there seems to have been a flowering of craftsmanship: there is an exponential increase in pottery finds from this period. Furthermore, totems and other artwork found during this period demonstrate a transition from plant forms to more anthropomorphic forms. Many depict a sort of mother goddess, which anthropologists believe to have been some proto-monist divinity from which all of nature, and especially the sugar lilies, were derived.

***

Next turn will cover 6500-5000 BCE. Probably will update Saturday.

 

[jackelgull]

The appearance of the Aurox people on the Northern Plains was a sudden development, with no accepted explanation. Their origins are shrouded in mystery. The current prevailing theory is that they were part of a second wave of migration of the Red Turtles people that moved to the grassy Northern Plains. These peoples were hunter gatherers who lived following the Aurox herds wherever they went, and hunting them for meat. Due to the difficulty of hunting Aurox (hunters needed to separate one from the herd) every Aurox tribe had a sophisticated command structure to coordinate the task, and no part of the animal was wasted.

 

[thomas.berubeg]

The Wier-culture experienced a massive cultural explosion in the early part of this period, as greater connectivity between the various groups of people in Lemuria brought the highly productive sugar lotus from the isolated Lei-Lei people to the Aurelley river complex. The introduction of the sweet and nutritious Tuber was accompanied by a population explosion, as well as a degree of sedentarianism. Though swaths of the population still retained an at least semi-nomadic existence, the people along the river developed into what is known as the Later Wier Culture, which was characterized by the evolution of the earlier wood and mud wiers into increasingly larger and more complex monolithic structures, with stone imported from sometimes miles away. Accompanied by this is the near vanishing of the shamanistic animal figurines in a public setting, replaced, in many cases, by what appears to be a stylized representation of a flowing river in public spaces, presumably a diety of sorts. Certain human remains, however, are found with small animal-figures retaining many of the stylized characteristics of earlier examples, indicating that the shamanistic beliefs perhaps evolved into one of personal totems or guardianship.

 

[Robert Can't]

During this period of history the Herachel remain highly insular with very little contact with the cultures from the lowlands. It was during this time that they began the domestication of the Giant Treeshrews that lived in the mountains. Their use as hunting companions and social companions would become a core part of daily life in the mountains.
A tight family unit began to emerge out of the oral folklore traditions of the Herachel. The storytellers became effectively matriarchs of the families. There is an important cultural emphasis on how one will be remembered in the stories and this is used by the matriarchs to encourage a moral code.

 

[Danwar]

The Lellian Shift

When one looks upon the major cultural and lingusitic changes of the Lellian Shift without much knowledge of the factors at the time, they appear to have simply occured out of the blue: no major migrations or invasions into the Lei-Lei ocean valley occurred during this period, and business continued as usual for many, with there being a rather sudden shift in archaeological samples from the Late Lei-Lei period into the Lellian one. However, should one dig deeper, they will figure out the main cause of this: the end of the Lei-Lei isolationism. Soon after the estimated start of the Shift, many samples of Sugar Lillies popped up in sites of other early cultures, mainly the Weir. Many believe that the mutual growth of the two cultures during this period was due to a trade connection between them, and many ideas eventually appeared in both groups.

The Lellian Shift is the common historical definition of the transition of the semi-nomadic Lei-Lei peoples into the developed, sedentary Lellians. This was marked by a development of writing, the end of the tribalistic migrations to neighboring villages and (largely) permanent habitation of settlements, multiple new innovations in Sugar Lilly breeding, and evidence of the simplification of language and the organization of religion. In addition, numerous subdialects from previous periods are thought to have crystallized in this period, often due to interactions with more migratory foreign cultures. Large amounts of weapons are found at once in many sites, marking an increase in organized conflict between Lellian groups. Evidence of large stone shrines becomes more and more apparent in this period, often with wooden carvings in the shape of sugar lillies within. These stones are often thought to be hewn in large quarries from mining settlements along the mountainous borders of the Lellian culture.

Many Weir goods have also been found in many major Lellian sites in this period, furthering the theory of trade between the Lellians and the Weir. One major site, however, is thought of by historians as the largest site of all - located in a city later to be known as 'Lellia', hence the term 'Lellian Shift'. It appeared to be the largest settlement in the region, holding what some estimated to be over a thousand people. A large marketplace was discovered with an abundance of goods from many other cultures, including nomadic ones such as the Aurox and perhaps even a few from the Herachel. There is even evidence of a form of pictographic writing system being discovered here, although whether that occurred during this period or after is a subject of heated debate among early historians. Nevertheless, the Lellian shift is considered by the vast majority of historians and archaeologists alike to be the foundation of later Lellian culture within the region and the eventual development of the culture into a civilization.

 

[thomas.berubeg]

The Leidar:

Certain groups of people related to the central Lei-Lei complex migrated into the mountains, pushed out by demographic pressures of increasing population. Though they brought the sugar lily with them, the mountains proved to be a less than ideal agricultural local for the crop. Though some groups maintained carefullly cultivated grounds on valley floors, other, less lucky groups, were forced to subsist on sparser product, supplemented by hunt and gathering. These groups are characterized by brutal internecine warfare, raiding and tributizing each other, valley Lei-folk, and the Lei-Lei themselves for wealth. Simultaneously, it seems, these mountain groups began to carve homes in the side of the cliffs, seemingly in search of ever more protective locals. Religiously, not much is known about the Leidar, though it seems likely that they worshipped some personification of death, as well as the Life-giver in the form of the ancestral lily-goddess.

 

[Radagandruman]

Oh yeah! I remember the first of these. I may or may not be trying to recreate my culture from that...

Lei Lei Migrations

As the Lei Lei population continued to expand, internal pressures led to the spread of Lei Lei cultures throughout Lemuria, with remains of Lei Lei settlements found as far East as the Western shore of the larger of the two inland seas. Naturally, the spread of the culture group this far led to fracturing of the culture, with many subsets emerging in the newly settled lands. Most notable of these are the Lainar, characterized by an increased reliance on trade across the great sea. The most noticeable element of this culture is the use of Gloworm slime in rituals. This slime was one of the most valuable materials in Lainar culture, accounting for almost two thirds of Lainar trade with the mountainous tribes to the north and west.