- "In the Dawn Age of Westeros, before the coming of man, and the raising of castles and cities, there were only the Children of the Forest."
- ―Bran Stark
The Dawn Age is an epoch in the history of The Known World. It was the first historical epoch, ending roughly 8,000 years ago and extending backwards into the mists of time before the age of mankind. Little information about it has survived, even in legends.
Humans did not live in the Westeros at all for much of the Dawn Age. For centuries beyond count, the continent was only inhabited by two non-human races: the Children of the Forest and the Giants. The Children were a small people skilled in magic, wielding weapons made of wood, bone, and dragonglass (obsidian) - which they used to make razor-sharp arrowheads and daggers. They were later called the "Children of the Forest" by humans, because when full-grown they were no taller than a human child in height, and they preferred to live in the deep forests and caves, building hidden villages in the trees. The Children worshiped deities known as the Old Gods of the Forest - the countless and unnamed spirits of every tree, rock, and stream.
According to legend, about 12,000 years ago the First Men migrated to Westeros - so-called because they were the first humans to arrive in the continent. The First Men crossed over from Essos using a land-bridge known as the Arm of Dorne in the southeastern corner of Westeros. They settled the plains and cut down forests for timber and to clear new land. This led them into conflict with the indigenous Children of the Forest, particularly when they cut down the Weirwood trees that the Children carved faces into, known as heart trees, which were sacred to the Old Gods.
The Wars of the First Men and the Children of the Forest lasted for many centuries. The Children were very woodcrafty, fierce fighters, and skilled in magical powers, but the First Men were more numerous, physically larger and stronger, possessed warriors mounted on Horses, and introduced weapons made of bronze (which while not as sharp as dragonglass is much sturdier, for longswords and armor). In desperation, the wise men of the Children, known as Greenseers, used their magical powers to call up the Hammer of the waters: the oceans rose up and broke the Arm of Dorne, destroying the land bridge between Westeros and Essos. All that remains of it in later eras is an island chain known as the Stepstones. It was too late, however, as the First Men already had a firm foothold in southern Westeros. Later, the Children attempted to call up the hammer of the waters again to keep the First Men from passing into the North, but they were only partially successful, managing to flood the narrow isthmus leading into the North known as the Neck, turning it into a near-impassable swampland.
Even so, while the Children were gradually losing, at this display of their powers wiser leaders prevailed among both sides, who tired of the bloodshed. About 10,000 years ago, he leaders of the First Men and the Children of the Forest came together at the Isle of Faces in the middle of Gods Eye lake to make a lasting peace between the two races, known as "The Pact". In subsequent centuries, the First Men and the Children often became staunch allies, and the First Men even adopted the religion of the Children, worshiping the Old Gods at the faces carved in weirwood trees.
The signing of the Pact signified the end of the Dawn Age in Westeros. The new era that began after it was known as the Age of Heroes, during which - about 8,000 years ago, and 2,000 years after the signing of the Pact - the Long Night fell upon the world, and the White Walkers rode out of the Lands of Always Winter in the far north, raising the dead to kill the living.
In the books
Practically nothing is known about the Dawn Age. Even peoples and events from the Age of Heroes - including the Long Night, defeat of the White Walkers, and the raising of the Wall - are considered to be mostly the stuff of legends, and the Dawn Age is thousands of years older than even that era. The Age of Heroes later ended 6,000 years ago with the Andal Invasion of Westeros, and the Andals introduced the first true writing system to Westeros: everything that came before that it mostly dependent on oral tradition. Even so, the First Men in the Age of Heroes at least possessed a basic rune system for marking graves, and produced ruins of castles and settlements which back up some of the oral tradition. In contrast, there is almost no evidence of anything from the Dawn Age. Even the oral tradition is only vague and sketchy about it - much knowledge was destroyed during the Long Night cataclysm about whatever cultures or civilizations lived during the lost eras that came before.
It is generally believed that the First Men migrated to Westeros about 12,000 years ago, and finally made peace with the Children of the Forest 10,000 years ago with the Pact, which is officially considered the end of the Dawn Age in Westeros. However, the "Dawn Age" in a broader sense goes back before the arrival of the first humans in Westeros, into the untold centuries and millennia that it was inhabited only by the Children of the Forest and the giants.
In Westeros, history is very loosely divided up into five eras. First was the Dawn Age, in which the First Men arrived 12,000 years ago, ending 10,000 years ago with the Pact. Second was the Age of Heroes, beginning with the Pact, continuing through the Long Night 8,000 years ago, and ending when the Andal Invasion began about 6,000 years ago (a long migration period which only finished about 4,000 years ago, when the Iron Islands were the final region the Andals entered). After the Andal Invasion a loosely defined period began known as the "Age of a Hundred Kingdoms", in which the Andals were still divided into dozens of petty kingdoms across the continent. Over time, these petty kingdoms gradually coalesced into a few larger kingdoms, and ultimately "seven" very large kingdoms. Dorne was the last of the Seven Kingdoms to be unified, in about 700 BC, and the Stormlands conquered the Riverlands around 360 BC. A formal name hasn't been given for this next period, when seven large and centralized kingdoms contended with each other. Eventually the Targaryen Conquest unified the Seven Kingdoms, 300 years before the beginning of the novels, an event which was taken as year 1 of their new dating system.
The peoples living in Essos and other lands don't exactly use the same reckoning of historical epochs and eras, though they also loosely speak of "the Dawn Age" as the earliest period of human history. Because Essos did not have a corresponding Pact with the Children of the Forest from Westeros or an Andal Invasion, they dodn't have a corresponding "Age of Heroes". The "Dawn Age" in Essos is generally taken to mean everything before the Long Night 8,000 years ago - which was a global cataclysm and also affected Essos, from the region of the modern Free Cities to Yi Ti in the distant east. Rhoynar legend says that the Rhoyne River froze as far south as its tributary the Selhoryu River (about as far south as the Stepstones). These were generally followed by the period when the Ghiscari Empire was the dominant power in Essos (west of the Bone Mountains and not including Yi Ti, about 8,000 to 5,000 years ago), and then the period when the Valyrian Freehold used its dragons to conquer most of Essos, half the known world (5,000 to about 400 years ago), and finally the current era after the Doom of Valyria four centuries ago.
Humans seem to have come to Westeros from Essos, but where humans came from before that is pure speculation, fading into various religious or legendary explanations. Several different known civilizations in Essos have rival claims to be the eldest, though if they were they must have been in their infancy during the Dawn Age, before the Long Night 8,000 years ago. The Valyrians were comparatively young, a society of simple shepherds until they discovered dragons in the volcanoes around their homeland about 6,000-5,000 years ago, so they did not originate as far back as the Dawn Age. Those with particular claims to extending back to the Dawn Age are Yi Ti, Qarth, and the Ghiscari Empire, but if they were extant then they must have been in their infancy.
Of these, only the Ghiscari Empire possessed a written record extending far back enough to serve as reliable proof that it was eldest, and that originated in the Dawn Age. The Ghiscari Empire is confirmed to have originated before the Long Night and survived, and though it was still young at the time of the cataclysm, its written records reliably date its founding to the later end of the Dawn Age. Yi Ti claims that it had an even older empire for many thousands of years before that, but which was destroyed during the Long Night and had to be rebuilt (the tales of this Dawn Empire are fabulous and apparently mostly legend, filled with emperors who lived for centuries and warred with gods). Still, only a few generations separated the confirmed founding of both, Old Ghis slightly before the Long Night and Yi Ti slightly after. Ultimately the Ghiscari Empire was wiped out by the Valyrian Freehold 5,000 years ago, however, while the Golden Empire of Yi Ti has had a continuous run of civilization for the past 8,000 years since the Long Night.
