Elves Elves Elves
A few months ago Roberto and I talked about what dwarves eat and how much space they needed for their cities. After reading Guns, Germs, and Steel I revisited the question but started first with elves. Working with Padraic and Clayton this is what I have come up with so far.

Elves simply came into being sometime during the last interglacial period (the Sangamonian 125-75 thousand years ago) in Eastern North America. They developed a medieval level of civilization based in the forests of Eastern North America, from approximately the Great Lakes south to the Gulf Coast. The center of thier civilization flowed with the retreat, expansion and retreat of the ice sheets. This migration caused an apocalyptic crash, leaving ruins in some areas but in others entirely scouring the signs of civilization off the earth. The low point was the peak of the Wisconsin glaciation (75-12 thousand years ago) some 22,000 years ago. Sometime after this they also came into contact with humans coming over the Bering Land Bridge.

Additional crisis occurred as the ice melted and animals from the 100 mile savannah along the coast invaded the forests.

  • 300,000: Illinoian Glaciation ends.
  • 150,000: Wisconsin Glaciation of the Laurentide Ice sheet starts to expand south.
  • 70,000: Wisconsin: Tahoe phase reches maximum
  • 30,000: Cordilleran ice sheet appears in Northern Rockies to Alaska Range
  • 30,000: Wisconsin: Tioga phase begins
  • 22,000: Ice sheet maximum. The two sheets have merged.
  • 22,000: Humans trapped in Beringia (Saskatchewan/Alberta) by ice sheets
  • 16,500: Humans expand south
  • 16,000: Kankakee Torrent (Ohio/Mississippi)
  • 15,000: Missoula floods start (Columbia)
  • 14,000: Bering Land Bridge flooded
  • 13,000: Missoula floods end
  • 12,900: Younger Dryas impact event
  • 10,000: Cordilleran Ice Sheet gone
  • 10,000: Wisconsin: Tioga phase ends
  • 10,640: Lake Agassiz stops flowing down the Mississippi.

  • Elven Agriculture
  • A Conversation w Grier
  • Assumptions