| abstract
| - None of the inhabitants of the world that Westeros is set on can say with certainty how old it is, nor how long the human race has lived on it. Different religions offer different supernatural origin myths for the human race, though it isn't clear which - if any - is correct. It is unknown if humans were literally created by supernatural forces, such as how the races in Tolkien's Middle-earth legendarium were created, or if they evolved from simpler life-forms as on real-life Earth (though the concept of biological evolution has never been developed by the inhabitants of Westeros's medieval setting). Within the known Timeline, written historical records stretch back about 6,000 years before the time of the TV series, around the time that the Andal invasion introduced a full writing system to Westeros. Several of the older civilizations in Esssos (such as Old Ghis and Yi Ti) have written records that stretch back to the Long Night cataclysm, about 8,000 years ago. Humans were still active before the time of written records, in the Dawn Age, stretching back to at least 12,000 years ago when the First Men became the first humans to migrate to Westeros - though humans were living in Essos long before that. There were several older lost civilizations in the Dawn Age but they left only ruins behind. It is unknown if humans originated (by whatever means) in Essos, Sothoryos, or some other now-unknown continent, as even oral history does not extend that far back, instead fading into folklore and religious explanations. The dividing line between "ancient" cultures and peoples and "contemporary" ones in this article is defined as before or after the Targaryen Conquest of the Seven Kingdoms, which took place three hundred years before the War of the Five Kings. The last major migration to Westeros was made by the Rhoynar, about seven hundred years before the Targaryen Conquest (the Targaryens themselves were Valyrians but their numbers were so few that they did not have a significant impact on the continent's overall ethnic makeup). The cultures of the Free Cities and other lands of Essos in the present were largely shaped by the Doom of Valyria, which occurred one century before the Targaryen Conquest, during which the Valyrian Freehold collapsed and its surviving colonies reformed into independent city-states and realms. Therefore, the Targaryen Conquest makes a convenient cutoff point (it is also used to mark Year 1 of the dating system used in Westeros). Some of the "ancient" cultures, however, simply evolved into modern ones gradually: the Andals who invaded the Westerlands 6,000 years ago initially formed many small petty kingdoms, and only coalesced into realms such as the "Kingdom of the Rock" many centuries later. Yet by the time of the Targaryen Conquest, they had been unified under their own Lannister kings, and had thought of themselves as "Westermen", for many centuries. Still, for the purposes of the Game of Thrones TV series, this provides a fairly reliable break between "ancient" and "contemporary" or ("modern") cultures and peoples. Indented text in this article is used to indicate notes based on further information in the novels (though no particular spoilers are included for those caught up with the current TV episodes).
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