Arcél -2500

From Almeopedia

Over the period from the last map, the ancestors of the Uyseʔic peoples— it’s convenient to call them the Uyram, ‘the ancestor people’— adopted agriculture. This change seems to have been prompted by overhunting, which would have been felt first in the grassy southern plains, while the northern forests were still full of game.

The chief crops were millet (kreʔ) and pell (phel), native to the grassy river valleys of southern Uytai; other crops included potatoes (lyum), ko beans, and the gram squash. Sheep (khoyt), the small notseh cattle, and piebirds (related to the turkey) were raised for meat; the donkey-like sammule was used as a traction animal. The chief textile crops were cotton (a different species than that grown on Ereláe, but the same genus) and huar, a coarse fabric made from the fibrous inner bark of the huar tree.

Agriculture allows a greatly increased population density (indicated by solid coloring on the maps), and this in turn has a multitude of effects. Peasants form a demographic threat to remaining foraging populations. They are also a threat to themselves as crowding and poor sanitation encourage disease. Agriculture also promotes specialization: chiefs and shamans become full-time rulers and priests.

The Kereminthic peoples have begun to settle Ȟaibalai.

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