Beringia and the Arm of Dorne: a new look on the chronology of the Long Night and the arrival of the First Men

[leonardof]

I thought of this theory while reading a discussion about the possible consequences of the Long Night on the sea levels. While only George Martin can say whether if this theory is true, I do find it interesting, and so I decided to share it with the forum participants. I'm looking forward for comments about any particular strengths and weaknesses of the theory I might have missed.

Simply put, the theory states that the Arm of Dorne was broken by a rise in the sea levels following he end of the Long Night.

What we already know

It is widely believed that, in our world, people crossed from Siberia to Alaska between 16,500 and 11,000 years ago, during the Late Glacial Maximum. Back then, sea levels where considerably lower and the Bering Strait was a grassland steppe. After the deglaciation, sea levels rose again and the crossing was submerged.

In Planetos, legends says the First Men crossed the Arm of Dorne 12,000 years before the Conquest. After arriving in Westeros, the First Men entered war with the Children of the Forest, whose spells rose the sea levels and broke the Arm of Dorne, to block the invasion. Archmaester Cassander, on the other hand, believes the Arm of Dorne was broken by a slow rise in the sea levels, caused by a series of long, hot summers and short, warm winters that melted the ice in the frozen lands north of the Shivering Sea.

According to legend, the First Men eventually established the Pact of the Isle of Faces with the Children of the Forest, more than 10,000 years ago. The Age of Heroes ensued after this peace treaty, and one of its most prominent was the Long Night, 8,000 years ago, when the Others emerged from the Lands of Always Winter and invaded Westeros during a winter that lasted a generation. They were eventually driven back by the last hero, with the help of the Children of the Forest.

How the theory fits in

Old Nan places the Long Night in a winter "that was cold and hard and endless beyond all memory of man". If this winter was as hard as Earth's Late Glacial Maximum, it might have lowered the sea levels, rendering the Stepstones into the Arm of Dorne. Naturally, when the winter came to an end, the sea levels would have to rise again, breaking the Arm of Dorne. If the Arm of Dorne was broken by the end of the Long Night, then both the legend and Archmaester Cassander's version would be correct. The Arm of Dorne would be have been broken by a slow rise in the sea levels, as a consequence of melting ice from the frozen lands north of the Shivering Sea, and this in turn would have been caused by the spells of the Children of the Forest, whom were helping the last hero fight the Others.

As a bonus, the theory provides motivation for the First Men to cross the Arm of Dorne. Although Westeros suffered the most during the Long Night, because it stretched up to the Lands of Always Winter, all of Planetos suffered with the winter, and even to a lesser extent with the invasion of the Others. We may expect the cold, hard and endless winter to have severely collapsed many ecosystems, forcing human settlements to move. Any such migration would be headed South, to a warm place, like Dorne.

In this theory, the First Men would have crossed the Arm of Dorne during the cold, hard and endless winter, looking for some place to settle. The first First Men were warmly received by the Children of the Forest, but as more and more men crossed the Arm of Dorne men eventually fought Children of the Forest for resources. Why, there might even be men or Children of the Forest on both sides of the war, as happened with Europeans and American Indians in the Americas or with Andals and First Men latter in Westeros. Anyway, eventually the First Men and the Children of the Forest made peace, probably because of the Long Night. After the Others were repelled and both the Long Night and the cold, hard, endless winter came to an end, the sea levels started rising again, and the Arm of Dorne became the Stepstones.

Because the Long Night was so devastating, all the petty kingdoms of the Age of Heroes we care about are those which survived the Long Night or were established after it. In example, legend establishes a time correlation the founder of House Stark (who would have build the Wall) and the founder of House Durrandon, and the fertility attributed to the founder of House Gardener might reflect a newly found fertility of the Reach after the end of the cold, hard endless winter.

How the theory doesn't fit in

While legend says the Long Night happened 4,000 years after the arrival of the First Men and the breaking of the Arm of Dorne, the theory says that the Long Night happened before the Arm of Dorne was broken. If the theory is correct, we would need to review the whole chronology of Westeros before the invasion of the Andals.

Probably, it means the theory is simply wrong. On the other hand, the legend might just as well be wrong. As Samwell Tarly kindly reminds us, "everything we know about the Age of Heroes and the Dawn Age and the Long Night comes from accounts set down by septons thousands of years later."

We might know more about the breaking of the Arm of Dorne from the Children of the Forest living in the cave of the three-eyed-crow, where Bran is. An even more interesting possibility would be learning the truth from the Green Men, the sacred order that guards the Isle of Faces. George Martin has stated that they will eventually appear in the books ("The green men and the Isle of Faces will come to the fore in later books.").

Conclusion

I found this theory amusing, even if there is weak evidence against it. We will probably be able to put the theory to the test when the Green Men appear in A Song of Ice and Fire.

I  believe any story about the breaking of the Arm of Dorne is likely to involve the supernatural, and thus will leave margin for interpretation. Just like we might argue forever about whether if Robb Stark died because of Bolton and Frey's betrayal or because of Melisandre's spell, or about which (if any) religion is the true one, we will probably never be 100% sure whether if the Arm of Dorne as broken by natural causes.

 

[edd tollett:(]

I think this is very plausible. Like you pointed out, the Westerosie time line is just guess work, after a certain point. So I don't see that as an issue. But if you think Mel's leeches had anything to do with the war of the five Kings, your crazy lol

[Seams]

This seems logical to me, but I'm not a big expert on timelines. I think the author wants some details - scientific information, locations of magical items, rules of cyvasse - to remain unexplained or to be subject to the embellishments and prejudices of oral history. The exact cause of the breaking of the Arm of Dorne may be one of those things. I think you are right to refer to the Bering Strait as a plausible real world parallel, and the land bridge connecting ancient France to ancient Britain would be another example.

The "breaking of the arm" of Dorne may be more important to GRRM for its literary symbolism. Can you see how it might have symbolic parallels to the amputation of Jaime Lannister's arm? Donal Noye?

[Maester of Valyria]

I am quite interested in the Breaking of the Arm, and in the past I myself have postulated that the Arm was in fact broken by rising sea levels. However, I took a slightly different approach: I believe that the Children caused the seas to rise in order to break the Arm of Dorne and stem the tide of First Men. If you're interested a link is in my signature (out of interest, was it my theory you were referring to at the beginning?).

I found your piece very interesting: it has a lot of excellent ideas in it. Well done! 

[leonardof]

Thanks everyone for the compliments!

11 hours ago, Seams said:

The "breaking of the arm" of Dorne may be more important to GRRM for its literary symbolism. Can you see how it might have symbolic parallels to the amputation of Jaime Lannister's arm? Donal Noye?

I did not think much about the textual description ( "breaking the arm"). I was more worried about what happened.

My motivation to study the legend of the breaking of the Arm of Dorne was to better understand the arrival of the First Men. There are many other events in the same theme, both in-book (like the decline of the Children of the Forrest and the Giants, the Andal Invasion and the rise of the worship of R'hllor) and real (like the human colonization of the Americas more than ten thousand years ago and again in the Age of Discovery, as well as the human colonization of Ancient Greece, the Iberian Peninsula and Britain). While we might see such events as mere facts, their historical importance of these events render them full of meaning.

6 hours ago, Maester of Valyria said:

I am quite interested in the Breaking of the Arm, and in the past I myself have postulated that the Arm was in fact broken by rising sea levels. However, I took a slightly different approach: I believe that the Children caused the seas to rise in order to break the Arm of Dorne and stem the tide of First Men. If you're interested a link is in my signature (out of interest, was it my theory you were referring to at the beginning?).

I was referring to a side discussion about how a new Long Night might (not) flood Braavos. On the other hand, before posting this theory I searched the forum for similar theories. When I found your theory, I had to stop and think twice before posting my own theories. As you said, both of them try to explain the same event, but with slightly different approaches.

I agree with you that we shouldn't take the hammer and the breaking of the Arm of Dorne too literally. If the Children of the Forest were responsible for breaking the Arm of Dorne, as we believe, rising the sea levels would be a great way, and it might just as well ruin other human civilizations, intentionally or not. There is considerable archaeological evidence of ruined civilizations, and we don't know why many of them were ruined.

Of course, civilizations don't need natural cataclysms to fall. Humans are pretty good at creating and destroying civilizations. But in human history / archaeology there are some civilizations whose fall is thought to have been precipitated by natural disasters, and a sudden rise of the sea levels, as you theorized, is a great reason.

In my theory the rising of the sea levels were more benign, because they were unnaturally low because of the Long Night and its associated cold, hard, endless winter, to begin with. If we believe the spells of the Children of the Forrest (or the defeat of the Others, or a natural deglaciation) returned the sea levels to what they were before the Long Night's winter, then we would have to believe the Long Night and its associated winter a more likely cause of the fall of civilizations than the rise of the sea levels itself.

[Maester of Valyria]

13 hours ago, leonardof said:

I was referring to a side discussion about how a new Long Night might (not) flood Braavos. On the other hand, before posting this theory I searched the forum for similar theories. When I found your theory, I had to stop and think twice before posting my own theories. As you said, both of them try to explain the same event, but with slightly different approaches.

Ah, my mistake then!

There's always room for different interpretations on these things: new theories are always good to read!

13 hours ago, leonardof said:

In my theory the rising of the sea levels were more benign, because they were unnaturally low because of the Long Night and its associated cold, hard, endless winter, to begin with. If we believe the spells of the Children of the Forrest (or the defeat of the Others, or a natural deglaciation) returned the sea levels to what they were before the Long Night's winter, then we would have to believe the Long Night and its associated winter a more likely cause of the fall of civilizations than the rise of the sea levels itself.

Well yes: I'm still working my way around the chronology of the whole period myself: it does get difficult! My preferred explanation for the sea level rise is volcanic: the Children (those who sing the song of the earth) caused a supervolcano under the polar ice cap to erupt, melting sea ice in huge quantities and rapidly raising sea levels the world over.

[leonardof]

Episode 5 from season 6 of the Game of Thrones show provides evidence for or against this theory. I'm not sure posting anything more specific is allowed per this policy, even with (anti-)spoiler markup, so I'll refrain from providing further details.

[Lord Asher Forrester]

Very good topic i always like when people have a science basis for the theories. Um abraço do sul.

[House Cambodia]

You've inadvertently tapped into the big Geological controversy of the 19th century, that of Gradual Erosion vs Catastrophism.

We've got poster LucifermeansLightbringer positing the latter, in brief a comet plunging into a destroying a second moon, causing thousands of meteorites to crash into Planetos, whereas you're going for a gradual melting of the ice cap. You should include the flooding of the Neck too.

[Lord Vance II]

If only the maesters bothered to check...

I feel the debate could have been ended if the Citadel every sent anyone to do a depth analysis of the step stones. If it was a gradual rise (which I do not believe, for the record) than presumably the seafloor would be fairly uniform and the sea much more shallow. If it was busted, it would be more rough and irregular (though I suppose thousands of years of erosion might make it less clear). All they need is a boat and a rope with a weight, equipment that should be common to any ship of any size. 

Lazy asses...

[leonardof]

On 24/05/2016 at 8:05 AM, House Cambodia said:

You've inadvertently tapped into the big Geological controversy of the 19th century, that of Gradual Erosion vs Catastrophism.

We've got poster LucifermeansLightbringer positing the latter, in brief a comet plunging into a destroying a second moon, causing thousands of meteorites to crash into Planetos, whereas you're going for a gradual melting of the ice cap. You should include the flooding of the Neck too.

Thanks for the comment, I wasn't aware of that (former) controversy, and I certainly wasn't aware of LmL's theories. For the others' (lower case!) sake, I leave some links:

 

 

[leonardof]

On 24/05/2016 at 8:32 AM, Lord Vance II said:

If only the maesters bothered to check...

I feel the debate could have been ended if the Citadel every sent anyone to do a depth analysis of the step stones. If it was a gradual rise (which I do not believe, for the record) than presumably the seafloor would be fairly uniform and the sea much more shallow. If it was busted, it would be more rough and irregular (though I suppose thousands of years of erosion might make it less clear). All they need is a boat and a rope with a weight, equipment that should be common to any ship of any size. 

Lazy asses...

Indeed, the Middle Ages were not a prime time for Geology, specially in Europe.