====== Prehistory ======
**Prehistory** covers the entire period up to the invention of writing on [[universe:mikurmiya:Avishraa]]. In this section only, dates are given in //[[concept:timekeeping#cycle|cycles]] before present// (CBP).

<dwtimeline title="In the beginning...">
<milestone title="~850 million CBP" description="A star is born">
The star [[universe:Mikurmiya:]] ignites, having formed from a [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molecular_cloud|molecular cloud]] then located in [[universe:seluurins_palace|Seluurin's Palace]]. Its planets form and attain their present positions over the next million cycles, including [[universe:mikurmiya:Kastun]] and its largest moon, [[universe:mikurmiya:avishraa]].
</milestone>
<milestone title="~740 million CBP" description="Oceans">
Avishraa's crust cools sufficiently - and is hit by infrequent enough heavy impactors - for water to condense out of its atmosphere and form the oceans.
</milestone>
<milestone title="~700 million CBP" description="Abiogenesis">
Enriched by nucleotides and sugar molecules delivered by meteorites, increasingly sophisticated chemical reactions result in the first life forms on Avishraa.
</milestone>
<milestone title="~120 million CBP" description="Animals">
The first animals appear, though they are at this point little more than [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sponge|sponges]].
</milestone>
<milestone title="~95 million CBP" description="Vertebrates">
The first [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vertebrate|vertebrates]] appear.
</milestone>
<milestone title="~93 million CBP" description="Dance of the galaxies">
Having been approaching each other for the last hundred million cycles or so, Seluurin's Palace begins its first collision with the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenticular_galaxy|lenticular galaxy]] later known as the [[universe:mists_of_khezri|Mists of Khezri]]. As with most [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interacting_galaxy#Galaxy_collision|galactic 'collisions']], one passes through the other with virtually no physical strikes, but their mutual gravitational pull ties them together and distorts their shapes. Mikurmiya is pulled outward toward the edge of the galaxy.
</milestone>
<milestone title="~90-80 million CBP" description="Land plants">
The earliest land plants appear; at this stage they are mostly internally undifferentiated.
</milestone>
<milestone title="~75 million CBP" description="Hexapods">
The first [[species:clade:hexapod|hexapods]] appear. These are descended from long-finned fish that use their limbs as navigational aids among the dense vegetation growing in the shallow waters of wetlands.
</milestone>
<milestone title="~65 million CBP" description="Forests">
With the appearance of vascular plants, able to survive in a wider array of environments, the first trees appear.
</milestone>
<milestone title="~59 million CBP" description="Amniotes">
While hexapods capable of leaving the water have now existed for some time, their eggs had to be laid in water. The development of eggs with a protective layer allowing them to be laid on land allows them to roam further away, and feast on the invertebrates that have thus far had inland areas to themselves. Early in hexapod history, the [[species:clade:tantine|tantines]] diverged from the common ancestors of the [[species:clade:nitvighine|nitvighines]] and [[species:clade:zalkine|zalkines]].
</milestone>
<milestone title="~15 million CBP" description="Another dance">
After having earlier passed through Seluurin's Palace, the Mists of Khezri had been slowed by the former's gravity, swung around, and come back. The two galaxies connected again and then began to separate, trailing a bridge of stars and dust between them. Mikurmiya is among the stars swept into this region; by the present day it is well between them, though still more closely associated with its parent galaxy. 
</milestone>
<milestone title="~6.5 million CBP" description="Draconiforms">
A clade of small, arboreal zalkines whose lifestyle had previously involved leaping between branches in dense forest - not unlike Earthly squirrels - develop their anterior limbs into wide, flat surfaces for gliding: the [[species:clade:draconiform|draconiforms]]. They enjoy modest success in the equatorial rainforests, feeding on seeds, nuts, and fruit, though the air is currently dominated by flying nitvighines.
</milestone>
<milestone title="~4.7 million CBP" description="Sea level rise">
A relatively sudden rise in sea level triggers mass extinctions throughout the world. The draconiforms, like many terrestrial clades, suffer severely, with many of their lowland forest habitats being flooded and drowned. Nonetheless, they fared better than many, gaining an early toehold in the new swamp-forest ecosystems that formed in and around the inundated areas. The rich fishing in these new habitats, and the lack of competition except from the distantly related aquatic [[species:clade:vallakiform|vallakiforms]], contributed to the appearance of piscivorous species and the development of true flight.
</milestone>
<milestone title="~4.4 million CBP" description="Dragons errywhere">
Sea level rise over the past few hundred thousand cycles triggers a widespread shift in habitat distribution and accompanying mass extinctions. The preferred lowland forests of the draconiforms are temporarily decimated, but the appearance of extensive marshes and, eventually, mangroves, spur them to develop the capacity for true flight, and to adapt to a [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piscivore|piscivorous]] diet. This proves to be the beginning of a period of [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adaptive_radiation|adaptive radiation]], with draconiforms diversifying into niches once held by nitvighine species now extinct or in decline. Most of them are small- to medium-sized fliers.
</milestone>
<milestone title="~3.2 million CBP" description="Dry period begins">
A climatic shift occurs, causing a resumption of less precipitation and lower sea levels.
</milestone>
<milestone title="~2.8 million CBP" description="Settling of draconiforms">
While the radiation of draconiform species never fully stopped, its impetus fades by this time as the new dry period gathers strength; by now they have become a ubiquitous sight around the coasts and oceans of the world.
</milestone>
<milestone title="~1.7 million CBP" description="Wet period begins">
The climate shifts to a new wet phase, facilitating the expansion of the draconiforms into continental interiors.
</milestone>
<milestone title="~750 thousand CBP" description="Takmoids">
While the earliest draconiforms had spread easily along coasts and other water bodies, residing permanently in continental interiors, beginning around 1.3 million CBP, had proven difficult until the advent of another wet period in Avishraan history. Among these are the first [[species:clade:takmoid|takmoids]], who occupy a niche not unlike those of Earthly wading birds, having long legs, a long neck, and a long, narrow muzzle. Their descendants slowly grow larger and less dependent on flight for their living.
</milestone>
<milestone title="~200 thousand CBP" description="High and dry">
The current dry period begins, with lower rainfall and sea levels.
</milestone>
<milestone title="~91 thousand CBP" description="Takmids">
By the time that the wet period had ended, many takmoids had taken up lifestyles that took them away from the water and into the wider grasslands for lengthy periods. The lineage known as the [[species:clade:takmid|takmids]] are among the largest and sturdiest; though they spend much of their time ambushing prey on land, they retain an affinity for the water and for fish.
</milestone>
<milestone title="~78 thousand CBP" description="Bipedalism">
Takmid necks had shortened considerably from those of their proto-takmoid ancestors, leaving them unable to see over tall grass or obstructions. It appears to be for this reason that, about this time, the takmids develop the ability to stand on their hind legs for long periods, and to evolve enough flexibility in their forepaws to hold onto low branches and other supports. Regardless, takmids at this stage cannot walk upright and keep their balance; they travel on all fours. Ancestral takmids possess at least two basic [[takma:scales_and_coloration|scale types]]: massive and cavitated.
</milestone>
<milestone title="~74 thousand CBP" description="Sundering of the takmids">
At the time bipedalism appeared, the takmids had already begun to diverge into separate populations, separated by mountains. The tendency developed more fully in those residing in the [[geography:sekhaa:region:Sea of Grass]], but for those in what is now the [[geography:sekhaa:region:brightness]], an alternation between bipedal and quadripedal stances became the norm. By this time, the two groups have fully separated, and are known as the [[species:clade:dvidalin|dvidalins]] and [[species:clade:takmin|takmins]] respectively.
</milestone>
<milestone title="~52 thousand CBP" description="Scale replacement">
Among the takmins, the massive scale type has come to predominate. A mutation of the massive scale type has appeared, the stratified scales. The cavitated scale type has become increasingly rare, and disappears around this time.
</milestone>
<milestone title="~35 thousand CBP" description="Harem genre">
Though the Brightness is, at this time, a grassland, it was already drier than the Sea of Grass and has been becoming drier all the time. This has driven a tendency, in the takmins, for multiple males to bring food to female nests for aid in child-rearing, which in turn has led to a more fully-developed [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyandry_in_nature#Paternity_sharing|cooperative polyandry]] in which several one or more males actually reside with a female on a long-term basis. This development roughly coincided with several other sociobiological shifts that resulted in the development of the first takmin societies above the level of packs, of female dominance hierarchies, and presumably of language.
</milestone>
<milestone title="~18 thousand CBP" description="Divergence">
The increasing desertification of the Brightness has forced a divergence between takmin populations who crowd around the largest remaining bodies of water and those relegated to the margins. The former - who maintained a certain level of physical size and social complexity - are the ancestors of the [[takma:|takmar]], while the latter - who have started to become smaller and rangier, more independent, and more environmentally flexible - are the ancestors of the [[xtauh:]].
</milestone>
<milestone title="~15 thousand CBP" description="Migration">
With their habitat continuing to shrink, the proto-takmar begin to strike out from the river valleys and oases they have been inhabiting. While some of them are able to join the proto-xtauh, with whom interbreeding is still possible, others migrate through the somewhat more hospitable foothills of the [[geography:sekhaa:region:spine_of_sirdanth]]. While there are already other proto-takmar living here, it provides a useful corridor to other lands, and bands of proto-takmar use it to go around or through the mountains toward the foothills on the southern side. Over several subsequent waves of migration, the [[geography:sekhaa:region:cerulean_tangle]] is also colonized.
</milestone>
<milestone title="~9 thousand CBP" description="Separation and assimilation">
The Brightness attains approximately its present size and condition. The river habitats around which the proto-takmar originated have become too restrictive to support large pre-agricultural populations, and no further significant migration occurs from them; the majority of the proto-takmar have by this point long since lived south of the mountains. Those that remain have been increasingly subject to displacement or to assimilation by interbreeding with the proto-xtauh, who by now far outnumber them. The southern proto-takmar, meanwhile, no longer attempt to inhabit the Brightness. The bulk of them now live in the Tangle, though some still reside in the foothills on either side of the mountains. While some proto-xtauh eke out ad existence in the hills as well, from this point onward gene flow between them becomes rarer and rarer as their appearances diverge from each other.
</milestone>
<milestone title="~6 thousand CBP" description="Speciation">
Gene flow between the two populations has almost entirely ceased; the two have effectively become separate species, the [[takma:|takmar]] and the [[xtauh:]]. Spongiform scales, the genes for which are derived from the same ones that produced cavitated scales, have begun to appear with greater frequency among the takmar.
</milestone>
<milestone title="~3800 CBP" description="Cerulean scales">
Spongiform scales become prevalent in a large percentage of the takma species, especially among the ancestors of the [[takma:start#variations|lowland]] races.
</milestone>
</dwtimeline title="Ancient Era">
{{tag>wip}}