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So how old is civilization in the known world?


Varysblackfyre321

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1 hour ago, AlaskanSandman said:

Well this just sounds an unfounded repute and reaching.

We know the Blackwoods were exiled no sooner than 3000 years ago. 
We know that Brandon the Builder Built Winterfell and is the First Known Stark as the House originator. 

As the person who arrived and built a castle on the lands once owned by House Blackwood. Either Brandon the Builder ousted them, or his father. There is no possible Stark prior that could have done it. And House Blackwood had to have been exiled by then and not after as Brandon lived up till the Walls creation. 

Edit- Sure House Blackwood could have been in the Riverlands for a little while before their fued, but thats the best chance to stretch this time line. Not the ousting.

The Blackwoods lived in the Wolfswood. Not at Winterfell. The Starks lived in the Winterfell area since before the Long Night, and built the original Winterfell keep around the time of the Long Night. 

Their wars against the various other petty kings then began, and stretched over thousands of years. The Blackwoods were merely one of these petty kings.

From the order in which the wars are listed, the conflicts with the likes of Gaven Greywolf, the Warg King of Sea dragon point and the centuries long conflict with the Barrow Kings happened first. But there is no indication exactly when the Blackwoods were driven out.

But lets hypothetically put it at 5000 years ago. There is no evidence that disputes that date, and it seems to fall more or less in the early part of the post Long Night period, which fits the historical narrative.

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9 minutes ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

The Blackwoods lived in the Wolfswood. Not at Winterfell. The Starks lived in the Winterfell area since before the Long Night, and built the original Winterfell keep around the time of the Long Night. 

Their wars against the various other petty kings then began, and stretched over thousands of years. The Blackwoods were merely one of these petty kings.

From the order in which the wars are listed, the conflicts with the likes of Gaven Greywolf, the Warg King of Sea dragon point and the centuries long conflict with the Barrow Kings happened first. But there is no indication exactly when the Blackwoods were driven out.

But lets hypothetically put it at 5000 years ago. There is no evidence that disputes that date, and it seems to fall more or less in the early part of the post Long Night period, which fits the historical narrative.

As far as this.

The war with Gaven Grey Wolf on a white battle field, is i imagine how the Starks came by their sigil. IMO.

The warr with the Barrow kings is listed at 1000 years at the longest, not thousands. Based on Kings living 1000 years and Brandon maybe having lived that long, he could have started and finished that war. Or his kids finished it. Or his father started it and Brandon Builder finished it. Either way could hypothetically work.

And no, no exact indication i guess. But they ruled the wolf wood, nothing stated they lived in it. The Starks now rule the Wolf wood. I imagine to build his catle with out getting attacked by the Blackwoods, that he had to subdue them first. 

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On 27/02/2018 at 0:31 AM, Varysblackfyre321 said:

I'm sorry but wouldn't the little advances in technology hint it being substantially younger if anything? Yes, yes Martin has posited there are plenty of societies that are basically static in terms of development but those are typically small remote communities who have no reason to advance.

True, but not entirely. The entire continent of the Americas had whole swathes that were relatively static in terms of development for a long period of time. Yes, it was isolated from Eurasia/Africa, but there were advances in South America that had little impact on the North. 

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1 hour ago, AlaskanSandman said:

As far as this.

The war with Gaven Grey Wolf on a white battle field, is i imagine how the Starks came by their sigil. IMO.

The warr with the Barrow kings is listed at 1000 years at the longest, not thousands. Based on Kings living 1000 years and Brandon maybe having lived that long, he could have started and finished that war. Or his kids finished it. Or his father started it and Brandon Builder finished it. Either way could hypothetically work.

And no, no exact indication i guess. But they ruled the wolf wood, nothing stated they lived in it. The Starks now rule the Wolf wood. I imagine to build his catle with out getting attacked by the Blackwoods, that he had to subdue them first. 

The Kings of those days were petty Kings. They ruled local areas only, from small, primitive keeps. 

If the Blackwoods ruled the Wolfswood that means they lived in the Wolfswood. As did the Glovers, on its western edge, and the Starks on its eastern edge.

The WOIAF itself says the war with the Barrow Kings likely lasted for a couple of centuries rather than the mythical 1000 years. But we know that the wars of consolidation of the North in its entirety lasted until the first Andals started crossing the Narrow Sea in their longships. So around 2500 years ago in my timeline. Thats when the Boltons finally knelt.

I would imagine that the Blackwoods were exiled earlier rather than later in this process, given their proximity to Winterfell. That's why I guestimate their exile at around 5000 years ago.

Giving a thousand years or so for the world to recover from the Long Night and the early wars against the Barrow Kings and others to play themselves out.

All very rough dates, of course.

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7 minutes ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

The Kings of those days were petty Kings. They ruled local areas only, from small, primitive keeps. 

If the Blackwoods ruled the Wolfswood that means they lived in the Wolfswood. As did the Glovers, on its western edge, and the Starks on its eastern edge.

The WOIAF itself says the war with the Barrow Kings likely lasted for a couple of centuries rather than the mythical 1000 years. But we know that the wars of consolidation of the North in its entirety lasted until the first Andals started crossing the Narrow Sea in their longships. So around 2500 years ago in my timeline. Thats when the Boltons finally knelt.

I would imagine that the Blackwoods were exiled earlier rather than later in this process, given their proximity to Winterfell. That's why I guestimate their exile at around 5000 years ago.

Giving a thousand years or so for the world to recover from the Long Night and the early wars against the Barrow Kings and others to play themselves out.

All very rough dates, of course.

You could stretch that that far i guess, though i would challenge you to explain what was happening then with the rest of Westeros given The Andals arriving 2000 years ago. Also, notice that your assumed time line draws an interesting note in it self. Old Ghis falling when the Long Night ended. 

Though i would argue your chosing to ignore my quote from Martin about Dawn being forged 2000 years ago and the general idea people have that it's Light Bringer that Azor Ahai forged. Which was forged at the end of the Long Night to win the Battle for the Dawn.

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This thread has got me trawling through sources for different timelines, so I'm putting together king lists and the like to sift through some of the contradictions and vaguenesses, and the one conlcusion I can make for sure, so far, is that 'a thousand years' means anywhere between 200 and 2000 years.

Anyway, one oddity showed up - even if there was some intermarriage, how can Benedict Rivers (eventually Justman) be an Andal, when both his parents' families still claim to be First Men?

Quote

The World of Ice and Fire - The Riverlands

The Andal kings who brought down Oldstones and slew Tristifer the Last intermarried with remaining nobility of the First Men and butchered those who would not bend the knee. A quarrelsome, warlike folk, the Andals divided up the riverlands amongst themselves. The blood of the last kings of the First Men had scarce dried before their Andal conquerors began to war each upon the others for dominance. Though many a lord would name himself King of the Rivers and Hills or King of the Trident, centuries would pass before any of these petty monarchs held sway over enough of the riverlands to be worthy of these titles.

The first of the Andal kings to bring all the riverlands under his sway was a bastard born of a tryst between two ancient enemies, the Blackwoods and the Brackens. As a boy, he was Benedict Rivers, despised by all, but he grew to be the greatest warrior of his age, Ser Benedict the Bold. His prowess in battle won him the support of both his mother's house and his father's, and soon other riverlords bent their knees to him as well. It required more than thirty years for Benedict to throw down the last of the petty kings of the Trident. Only when the last had yielded did he don a crown himself.

 

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1 hour ago, Rufus Snow said:

This thread has got me trawling through sources for different timelines, so I'm putting together king lists and the like to sift through some of the contradictions and vaguenesses, and the one conlcusion I can make for sure, so far, is that 'a thousand years' means anywhere between 200 and 2000 years.

Anyway, one oddity showed up - even if there was some intermarriage, how can Benedict Rivers (eventually Justman) be an Andal, when both his parents' families still claim to be First Men?

 

The Brackens converted to the Faith at one point. I'm guessing it's either a conflation of Andal and the Faith or just an error.

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On 2/28/2018 at 1:52 PM, AlaskanSandman said:

You could stretch that that far i guess, though i would challenge you to explain what was happening then with the rest of Westeros given The Andals arriving 2000 years ago. Also, notice that your assumed time line draws an interesting note in it self. Old Ghis falling when the Long Night ended. 

Though i would argue your chosing to ignore my quote from Martin about Dawn being forged 2000 years ago and the general idea people have that it's Light Bringer that Azor Ahai forged. Which was forged at the end of the Long Night to win the Battle for the Dawn.

Except that George did not say that Dawn was forged 2000 years ago. He said: "Dawn goes back at least a couple thousand years, and before that things get fuzzy anyway"

Meaning that written records only go back around 2000 years (to the time of the Andal takeover). Before that, the mists of time take over. So we have no confirmation of when Dawn was forged.

Plus, there is no confirmation that Dawn was Lightbringer. That is just one interpretation. It is certainly possible, but even if so, the above timeline uncertainty applies.

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I think civilization is very old. I.guess it started with non human beings , we have talk about Old ones and ancient Asshai'i in the world book.

And then we have K'Dath which supposedly are the oldest city in the world. Anyway I think civilization was started in the far east by non human species. 

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1 minute ago, LordImp said:

I think civilization is very old. I.guess it started with non human beings , we have talk about Old ones and ancient Asshai'i in the world book.

And then we have K'Dath which supposedly are the oldest city in the world. Anyway I think civilization was started in the far east by non human species. 

Agreed. There is an entire ancient era - or multitude of eras - of non-human species that ruled the world. We know the Children of the Forest for example go back a million years at least. They were probably contemporaries of the Deep Ones and other non-human ancient species.

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59 minutes ago, Universal Sword Donor said:

The Brackens converted to the Faith at one point. I'm guessing it's either a conflation of Andal and the Faith or just an error.

I think you're probably right with that bit. For one thing we know nowadays (according to Hos Blackwood) that the two families have intermarried so often to try to settle the feud that each family has as much of the other's blood as its own, and I guess with all the Andal-First Men intermarrying, whether a family calls itself Andal or First Men is as much a matter of choice as of blood - a question of 'identity' rather than 'genetics'.

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1 hour ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

Except that George did not say that Dawn was forged 2000 years ago. He said: "Dawn goes back at least a couple thousand years, and before that things get fuzzy anyway"

Meaning that written records only go back around 2000 years (to the time of the Andal takeover). Before that, the mists of time take over. So we have no confirmation of when Dawn was forged.

Plus, there is no confirmation that Dawn was Lightbringer. That is just one interpretation. It is certainly possible, but even if so, the above timeline uncertainty applies.

 

Quote

 

You've mentioned that Dawn has an illustrious history -- is there a ballpark figure for how long the Daynes and/or Starfall/Dawn have existed?

Oh, I'd say Dawn goes back a couple thousand years... and before that, things get a little fuzzy anyway.

 

 

Actually yes he really did. 

It's existed for a couple thousand years. His continuation about before that things get a little fuzzy any ways, is too vague to draw that conclusion imo. He could simply be refering to the other part of that question. How long the Daynes or Starfall have existed. Guy did ask 3 questions after all and GRRM only answered one really.

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25 minutes ago, Rufus Snow said:

I think you're probably right with that bit. For one thing we know nowadays (according to Hos Blackwood) that the two families have intermarried so often to try to settle the feud that each family has as much of the other's blood as its own, and I guess with all the Andal-First Men intermarrying, whether a family calls itself Andal or First Men is as much a matter of choice as of blood - a question of 'identity' rather than 'genetics'.

It's not that easy. Look at the genetics of England. 

If they only took wives then that will effect the genetic line differently than taking in sons too. Or vice versa. 

Think about it. We as men pass our Y. So it doesn't matter who we marry to pass on our Y. Long as its some one in said family with the Y passing it on. 

In the case of House Lannister, we see something else. House Lyddon taking over the male line and replacing Lann's Y chromosome. And the Casterly X is not likely in House Lannister again, unless reintroduced. Itd be floating around between houses as Women's lines do. 

It's not like mixing milk and water or something lol you dont just get mixing as easily as that with humans. If that was the case, the original Briton blood would be gone, and not the prominent blood still in England. 

Quote

Geneticist Professor Sir Walter Bodmer of Oxford University said: “What it shows is the extraordinary stability of the British population. Britain hasn’t changed much since 600AD.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2016/03/14/britons-still-live-in-anglo-saxon-tribal-kingdoms-oxford-univers/

 

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28 minutes ago, AlaskanSandman said:

It's not that easy. Look at the genetics of England. 

If they only took wives then that will effect the genetic line differently than taking in sons too. Or vice versa. 

Think about it. We as men pass our Y. So it doesn't matter who we marry to pass on our Y. Long as its some one in said family with the Y passing it on. 

In the case of House Lannister, we see something else. House Lyddon taking over the male line and replacing Lann's Y chromosome. And the Casterly X is not likely in House Lannister again, unless reintroduced. Itd be floating around between houses as Women's lines do. 

It's not like mixing milk and water or something lol you dont just get mixing as easily as that with humans. If that was the case, the original Briton blood would be gone, and not the prominent blood still in England. 

 

I'm very familiar with England's gene pool, thank you. lol.

You seem to have missed my point entirely. You do realise there are another 20 chromosomes beyond X and Y, right? And when a male passes on his X the child is called a 'daughter', right?

Not that this matters in Westeros because they only have the concept of 'blood', and not genes, chromosomes or genomes. If you really want to poke your milk-and-water strawman, do it in Hoster's direction.

We know in real life that people of mixed heritages often choose to favour one side of the family over the other for their own identity; others prefer to emphasise the full breadth of their heritages. Sometimes it's politically or socially expedient to belong to one 'ethnicity' rather than the other, sometimes it's downright dangerous. Sometimes it varies from generation to generation as society changes. Hence, a declared ethnic identity can be a choice.

 

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