Colchesia

The Nation of Colchesia is a Constitutional Monarchy located in Southern Vargelia, at the eastern edge of the continent, on the fringes of the Coclchesian Plains. The nation of Colchesia is a rump state of what was the former Colcheshian Empire, which once covered the entirety of the Colchesian Plains.

Elven Settlement (120,000 - 100,000 BP)
The area occupied by modern day Colchesia has been occupied since time immemorial. Before the first humans wandered across from Lamara, the landscape of the Southern Vargelian plains was littered with elven settlements. In the north, some evidence of small Terravan villages (120,000 - 105,000 BP) can be observed below pre-existing human settlements, though little to no artifacts has been found preserved. In the deep south, Mareveen era ruins (101,300 - 100,000 BP) remain relatively intact, being too far outside of the habitable zone for later human societies to make use of the ancient building materials. Environmental and geological evidence of a wider habitable zone than present times is attested and demonstrates that a warmer climate, higher sea levels, and heavy forestation prevailed across the Southern Vargelian plains until approximately 100,000 BP. This period of mild weather was followed by a period in which the climate of the region, and the world as a whole, experience rapid drying and cooling, resulting in the less than hospitable weather experienced today. During this time, evidence of abandonment appears across almost all elven sites in the region, suggesting a migration of those elves to greener pastures to the north and west. Some of those sites, such as the large cities of Ack-Veleran, Nem Postari, Ghoicaellon, Vandareen, are capped off by a layer of charcoal, suggesting many sites were burned and destroyed by intercity conflict. Records from this time are scarce, and the Elven Script A which was in use for much of the Mareveen period has yet to be deciphered.

Elven civilization in the Mareveen, named after the first site uncovered in northeastern Colchesia, was characterized by widespread intensive multiculture agriculture. Grains such as millet and guerava were grown intertwined with rousaberry bushes and Kabal squash. Food surpluses were substantial enough to found a wide range of city states each with 10,000 to 40,000 inhabitants. Work cooperatives appeared to be the most common means of goods production, with the most common ruin from this era being medium sized homes with looms, metalworks, and scribe tables. Unlike other ancient societies, and even other elven societies of the same time, the Mareveen were a predominantly literate culture. While the script has yet to be translated, writings have been found in a wider range of environments than in any other premodern society. Clay markings have been found etched into pots, kilns, on the bottom of stone tables, inside door frames, and in entrepot depositories. The meaning of such etchings in hither to unknown but may have been intended as a sort of protective magic.

Metalwork from this era was predominantly bronze and gold, though some urdigal ceremonial knives have been uncovered as grave goods. Casts from smithies indicate a wide variety of shapes were used from blades, some of which would have been impractical for anything other than ceremonial use. The variety of such shapes suggests that blacksmiths weren't too concerned about a scarcity of raw materials and were more willing to experiment with their craft. Jewelry from the period often takes the shape of hard gold and copper torques, which would have been bent around the wearers neck rather than hung. Protein swabs conducted on the torques have shown elven and dwarven blood, suggesting the torques are tied to a sacrificial function.

Religion from the period most likely involved the use of protective magical etchings and incantations to protect objects from wear, houses from collapse, and to ensure productive harvests. The pantheon of deities which these ancient elves worshiped do not seem to have been represented with specialized idols or votive figurines, but as either stone spheres or formalistic tangles of bronze and gold slag. Temples were generally located below the city, in hollowed out caverns associated with cisterns. Temple would be adorned with the flowing flesh looking stonework, tubular and arranged in capillaries stretching across the cavern ceiling toward a central pillar constructed out of mortar and skeletal fragments. Most bones examined at these sites appear to be elven, but some are unidentifiable, possibly ruined by the ravages of time. Despite recent interest in the region, no consensus has emerged regarding who the Mareveen worshiped, or what their ritual practices entailed.

Prehistoric Humans (50,000 - 12,000 BP)
The first evidence of human occupation appears approximately 50,000 years after the last elven settlements were abandoned in the south, though some elves may have still existed in the area as hunter-gatherers. The earliest immigrants to Colchesia were hunter-gatherers of the Faud-hin tradition (50,000 - 25,000 BP), building temporary structures out of hide and bone and making stone tools out of local flint and jasper sources. Evidence for widespread trade across the region is lacking, stone tools are made primarily with locally sourced lithics, though in a similar style to each other, suggesting a single migration across the continent. The Faud-hin tradition would eventually be supplanted by the Dzerjik tradition (28,000 - 12,000 BP) in the north, but would linger in the southern remote regions of Colchesia for several thousand years afterwards.

The Dzerjik tradition which succeeded the Gaud-hin is characterized by a horizon of fine, thinly crafted spear tips made from a lapis-rich blueschist known as Zaulstone.