As in our own world, the discovery of agriculture was a tremendous revolution. Over time, the Common-folk peoples who committed to this new way of life made a fateful exchange: reliable food sources that could support unprecedented population densities, at the cost of back-breaking labor, social stratification, and subjection to a growing class of gods and priest-chieftains.

While the primary center of agricultural development was around the ancient site of Tar-Karun, in the end five distinct peoples (and one outlier) took advantage of the new technology. These formed new language-group communities, each with its own distinct cultural template. They slowly spread across the Great Lands, displacing the thinly scattered hunter-gatherer population . . . and where the new Neolithic peoples went, their gods went with them.

The Karuni peoples were probably the most religious, devoted to gods of the sky and the harvest, building the first temples in the world. Their societies tended to be strongly patriarchal and rather aggressive, forcing others aside to gain access to the best farming lands.

The Zari peoples took a softer approach, especially after they crossed the narrows of the Sailor’s Sea and took root along the coasts of the northern continent. Zari societies tended to be more egalitarian, dividing authority between male chieftains and female priestesses. Later they took to building megalithic structures, lines and circles of standing stones, possibly in memory of ancient Tar-Karun.

The Mahra peoples took up a mixed lifestyle, some of them farming in the river valleys and by the shores of the Great Lakes, others following herds of goats and sheep in the grassy uplands. They were patriarchal but not aggressive, preferring to move away from danger rather than confront it.

The Tamir–Nandu peoples spread rapidly across the south-eastern coasts, taking advantage of the plentiful monsoon rains and rich soils of the region. They were distinctive for their relative lack of social centralization and stratification. In such a rich land, anyone dissatisfied with the leadership at home could simply pack up and move, setting up new farms or villages at a safe distance. Rather than building temples for a few primary deities, the Tamir-Nandu societies continued in the Mesolithic tradition of venerating myriad local spirits, building small shrines for them.

The Ka-Meret peoples pursued a mix of river-irrigation and monsoon-irrigation, and were the most centralized cultures of this period. Their relationship with their gods was distinctive – their culture put great value on ecstatic states of “possession,” in which gods spoke and acted through human hosts. Some Ka-Meret chieftains became almost permanent hosts for their divine patrons, setting up an early form of divine kingship.

Wherever these people went, they brought a Neolithic technical set with them. Back in the heartland of the Karuni and Zari societies, a Chalcolithic technology had arisen as well, with the use of copper to supplement stone tools. This and the following maps will mark the boundary of each new stage of technological development.

In the far south, the Muri peoples were not yet fully Neolithic, but they had begun independent development of farming and herding in their own territory. Their communities were tied together by a strong tradition of endogamy and matrilocality. Young men tended to leave home and travel long distances in search of a bride, and then settle down in her village after the marriage. This led to lasting links between villages, permitting exchange of trade goods, languages, and ideas.

The ancient Smith-folk looked on all these developments with concern. Before the era of agriculture, the balance between Common-folk and Smith-folk had been stable across thousands of years. Now Common-folk were starting to swarm across the land, bringing their gods with them – no longer so dependent on the Smith-folk for survival, and threatening to outnumber them by wide margins. This admittedly brought new wealth to the old Smith-folk enclaves, but some conservatives feared disastrous consequences in the long run.

Thousands of the Smith-folk departed for the distant north, setting up new enclaves far from the agricultural wave. Unfortunately, in so doing, these migrants unwittingly set up the conditions for the very disaster they had dimly foretold . . .

Here’s a link to the DeviantArt page for this map.