Areth
The Areth are a people inhabiting the continents of Arophania and Marcasia, and whose country, Arithia, spans the two. While not all Areth live within the borders of modern-day Arithia and not all Arithians are ethnically Areth, the concept of Areth nationhood has always been closely tied to that of an Arithide state.
Terms
History
- Main article: History of Arithia
Origins
Due to the ambiguity of archaeological evidence, the origins of the Areth are shrouded in doubt, and while the Marcasian Theory of Origin has gained widespread currency both in academic circles and among the general public, much of it relies on inference, deduction and intelligent hypothesis to fill in the gaps left by archaeology, or the deficiencies thereof.
According to the Marcasian Theory, the Areth first arose as a distinctive ethnicity (Arithide: kyteos) as the sedentary, agricultural Erda culture along the lower reaches and delta of the river Or, more than 6,000 years ago. The Erda were in turn descended ultimately from the hunter-gatherers who had settled in southwest Marcasia approximately 67,000 years ago. Hemmed in by the Chisthian Sea and the Iryag, the Erda peoples faced, from the beginning, very visible limits to the the land and its fertility, and such persistent population pressures led to successive waves of emigration, some northwards over the Iryag into the Marcasian interior, but most were headed south across the Chisthian, the easier route by far for a fishing people. This so-called Southerly Movement, by which the Areth came to settle in northeastern Arophania, was once thought to have emptied their homeland in Erdia and attritionally established the settlements of the Nuroi, Pisa and Duvai cultures along the way, but is now considered to have left a minority behind, who fled a flooding of the Or to establish the mentioned three successor cultures..
