Yularan History

The island of Yulara is found within the Sea of Petals, in the continent of Syltor. It is known for the civilisations of the Sand Republic, The Kingdom of Lennox, the Dominion of Ostia and the Kingdom of Valle, along with the Republic of Halge and its holdings.

Yularan history is defined by warring communities and frequent societal collapse due to both internal and external factors. The nature of the region as having large swathes of desert dividing the North from the South led to many numerous and isolated cultures emerging over time. Most dates are defined by a unique dating system of Before Dragoonid Collapse (BDC) and After Dragoonid Collapse (ADC), due to inconsistencies in unifying a date system with the rest of the Syltoren continent as a result of isolationism and historical record disruptions.

Raft-Culture Era (~50,000-100,000 BDC)
The Raft Culture Era is named after the Raft Peoples, immigrant tribes of unknown origins who marked the first humans to occupy the isle of Yulara. The exact timeframe of their arrival has been difficult to determine, due to numerous difficulties in obtaining any form of physical records of their existence or culture.

Historians first discovered evidence for the Raft Peoples' existence from excavations of primitive boats in southern river valleys in Yulara. The presence of rich delta soils allowed for a good preservation of a sole rare specimen of a boat, which was little more than assortments of twigs and branches held together with reeds and twine. Due to the unlikely nature of such a vessel being seaworthy, it is theorised that these peoples arrived via nearby land either in modern-day Andorn or along land bridges from elsewhere. The latter theory holds the most prominence among academia due to a lack of finds of Raft settlements along the southwesternmost point of Yulara, in the Riverrun Region.

The Raft Civilisation were likely hunter-gatherers, thriving on endurance-based hunting accross the savannah and coastal desert regions for subsistence. Finds of pointed wooden spears in and around the Riverrun, Heliodusion and Ib regions suggest that these early settlers utilised burning the ends of their spears to create a hardened point. The skins of killed animals were used as clothes, with the pelts of antelope being particularly prized.

Beyond this, little is known of this period in Yularan History due to a lack of permanent structures enabling an effective preservation of specimens. The discovery of Raft Culture specimens has largely been through sheer luck, as some are found well-preserved in river-delta mud, but in areas farther from a river, preservation seems unlikely due to both exposure to the elements and the Fall of the Dragoonid civilisation some 100,000 years later. Prior to these discoveries, the basis for Raft Peoples' existence lay largely in the form of educated guesswork, a migratory seaborn people being the likely explanation for a genesis of human presence on Yulara.

Usage of stone tools occurred not too far before the following period after the Raft Peoples Era, and was the starting premise for the Dawn of Agriculture on Yulara.

Dawn of Agriculture (~25,000 BDC)
Some 25,000 years before the Fall of the Dragoonids, Yularan communities developed stone tools and primitive agriculture through cultivation of grain and small berry shrubs. A consistency of a food supply developed, leading to a nuceleation of communities together in arable areas arround river valleys such as the Epipria, Brhakus, Thura, Akh and Katoum rivers.

Society rapidly began to form during this era. Grain was gathered and collected by farming families into single granaries and storehouses, allowing for these farmers to hold immense sway in their local communities. It is believed that society operated on a basic bartering system, where the different members of the community traded between eachother in order to acquire food and water. The farming families distributed grain in the form of primitive currency to labourers accross the local community, as evidenced by excavations in Ib and Heliodusion revealing skeletons of labourers buried outside clay structures with the bodies exhibiting structural stress on the bone structure from toiling. Those inside larger clay structures had less obvious structural defects suggesting a lesser degree of work.

Housing began to spring up in a more refined manner, with mud and clay from riverbanks being used to sculpt basic dwellings. In many cases however, wooden huts assorted from fallen logs and foliage were used in absentia of their clay counterparts due to an estimated lenghty construction time. From finds within these communities it is estimated that the average diet consisted of a primitive bread, fish, berries and wild game.

Over subsequent centuries, pottery and carpentry began devlopment apace, with jars and containers occupying households to store freshwater and grain. An early evidence of writing was found enscribed upon shards of potterry, likely with a sharpened stone. The wrtiting resembled a sort of cuneiform. It is likley that most pottery was created from hardening of clay in the harsh Yularan sunshine.