The Syntax of Mining in the Proto-Drem language:

 

Mining and technology styles:

 

Mining in the Dremish cultural period was that of flux and change as technologies appeared and finally the transition into the copper age as the Dremish tribes began to exert cultural influence thru trade. The cultural influences of the Drem were generally due to several things. First was the increase of knowledge and application to create deep chamber mines and be able to trade with other cultures and develop a communication network over a wide area. Second were the clans becoming more sedentary with earthen enclosures surrounding hilltop villages which oversaw the growing mining industry. Third was the use of domestication and specifically deer for their antlers and use the animal as more of an economic use instead of as a food item. And fourth, the shift of where the clans chose to live as the rivers and lakeside clans chose hilltops which were very close to mining sites.

 

The Drem were at heart for most of their lives were hunters and gatherers, living in secluded clans roaming around their hunting grounds. The Drem use small rounded stones as hammers, usually found in the hills or creek beds. The ability to form stone axes and blades had been done for thousands of years, and in fact the Drem are known to use flint, but dug out of shallow holes, just working the surface.  The hunting and gathering led to clans just barely working a site, maybe staying a few weeks at most, as they follow herds of animals or finding wild berries, nuts and grains to supplement their largely meat diet.

 

Mine development took place over centuries as the Drem saw the importance of flint and the importance of fine tools and that the tools could be traded for items such as shells, blankets, stones for monument building, and other items. The mines began as shallow scratches in the ground, barely 6 feet deep as clans having only a few people, would only have 1 or 2 specialized flint workers and therefore miners who could search for and find flint deposits. The deposits would be quickly worked as the clans were still very nomadic following herds and constantly searching their territory for daily supplies of game, nuts, wild grain and fruit.

 

Miners were by this time were well acquainted with the geology of the area to accurately determine the minerals found and also the size of the find. The spots would be tested as a small dig was done to dig thru and see if the site would be a possible mine site. In the later Dremish period, the test hole would be roughly 12 feet deep to see if the mid-layer of flint would be reached. If so, then the miners dug in earnest to get down to the floor-layer flint when the mine would be seen with a deep shaft up to 33 feet deep. If the test hole didn’t come up with flint, or too little flint, a small shrine would built with small blocks of chalk and a few antlers to please the spirits and hope for a profitable mine next.

 

A mined material that was not flint, but still important to the area was called ‘greenstone’ but is known as variscite. The greenish phosphate is similar to turquoise and can be easily cut, polished and is made in beads, necklaces and bracelets. The Drem due to the flint mines didn’t pay much attention to these mines, but did find that jewelry brought in a fine trade value to other nearby cultures that had started to see a demand for the product. The varascite being a marine sediment and is found in grey shale deposits gives modern geologists a good idea of the age and general make up of the highlands and that this area of the continent was under the ocean many, many years ago. The Dremish mine is one of the largest mines at roughly 3000 feet of galleries and is 5 levels deep or roughly 150 feet deep. The mine is fairly old as well and worked continuously for centuries.

 

Another mined material that is important to the Drem was actually imported by the Drem. This material is a form of iron oxide gives itself away in the naturally reddish clays it is found in. The red-ochre is naturally a yellowish orange color, and is usually burned to enhance the color and turn it red. The blocks of hematite are easily used as a ‘crayon’ where cave paintings can be seen with reddish markings. The markings are usually considered to give life to the markings and runes as ochre is thought to be magical in its power. The ochre has been thought to be mixed with oils to make a paint or paste. The hematite rocks would be crushed into fine sand and washed as the sand would be carried in hollow bone tubes.

 

At the end of the period, The Dremish found small bits and deposits of copper. Since copper needs to be heated to roughly 1200 before slag is removed, and a standard wood fire gives a temperature of around 700, the only main thinking is for lead to be smelted first, as lead ore (known as Galena) being smelted easily outdates copper by 3000 years, and next is silver which needs to be heated to 1100 is thought to be the intermediate step between lead and copper. Cooper, especially raw copper could be hammered into small pins or beads, as it would take another 1000 years (roughly 3300 BCE) for kiln technology to become good enough to start smelting copper. So for the late Dremish period, only bits of pure copper being found as balls, beads or pins will be found.

 

One major development was domestication. In the case of the Drem, the animal domesticated was the deer. The deer would be used for skins and meat, but more importantly for antlers which would be chosen for the constant supply of picks miners would need to dig flint nodules out of the chalk. The large clans when finally settled at the end of the Dremish period, would easily see groups of 10 miners need 120 deer to supply the miners with enough antlers to do their job correctly during the year. The deer were bred specifically to create long, strong and tough antlers, as the work would usually require 1 antler per miner per day. So that when a normal mine was used up after say 6 months work, thousands of antlers would be found in the mine as rubble.

 

Lastly, the clans shifted their lifestyle from a people that mostly lived along the lake edges and hunting for clams or eel, to a more upland style. The uplands are basically hilltops which can oversee who were coming and can watch over the mine field. Thus the villages became strategically located close to water and on a hilltop that could be easily protected by an earthen enclosure. The earthen enclosures would be basically a large dry moat, as the village would be surrounded by a log palisade as a protection against marauding nomads who would want to take over the mines for themselves.

 

Dremish technology is fairly varied as several aspects will be seen, especially in dealing with mining, and also an important aspect, pottery. Dremish ability is the same as it is world wide, as other cultures found similar discoveries sooner or later than the Drem, but the Drem were seemingly in an unknown and relatively ‘backwater’ region compared to other continents and the discoveries that started man on the way to being civilized. The discoveries below are not thought of as much, and pretty much disregarded as important, but they were found here on the continent, and made an impact.

 

The Neolithic Drem was known to have several technologies to get them started along the civilized path. First was the thrower, which was generally a notched stick that the hunter held in order to launch the spear farther and more accurately to strike at prey easier. Next was the lever. The level would be a typical tree branch used to pray chalk blocks away from the mine, or moving a block of stone into place to create a monolith. Next was a wedge which was important for construction projects. The wedge was easily used to split logs and create timbers for housing and other projects. Lastly is the pulley which used with rope made from swamp reeds gave any worker an easier time, and so construction projects went faster with less effort.

 

Mining and technology during the late Neolithic period (6400 BCE – 5000 BCE):

 

Almost all of the mining and technology advances were seemingly very rare and unseen, as for this period, the Drem were still very much as they had been for centuries before. Construction projects weren’t on the horizon yet, as huts were still small circular mud & waddle built homes. With a simple thatch roof, they could be easily built and torn down as well.  During this period, life is very simple and the people are much in tuned with nature and the animals around them.

 

Mining and technology during the Neolithic/chalcolithic transition (5000 BCE – 4300 BCE):

During this time, advanced came to be seen, used and developed as the Drem became more sedentary, and wealthy due to the great flint mines in the western highlands. The technology that allowed the Drem to work less and build larger projects can easily be seen in the organizational skills of Dremish leaders. The great earthen enclosures, the

 

The first half of this period saw the rise of technologies which allowed some mining advances to take place. The newer technologies such as the lever, wedge and pulley allowed the large chalk blocks to be taken out of a mine shaft so as to dig the mine deeper and faster with fewer accidents as well.

 

 

The second half of this period saw the rise of the Dremish copper age, as the advances in smelting technology allowed copper jewelry and tools to be seen.

 

Basics of Proto-Drem Name Syntax:

 

Syntax is the way sentences and clauses are divided up to give them words meaning. The arrangement is usually important is any language, Proto-Drem is no different. Syntax for naming is divided into 3 general areas, Rooms/Buildings, Place names and Personal Names. One important key to note here is the lack of modifiers. No particles, conjunctions, no affix markers, these naming clauses are basically just a string of roots put into a specific order to give meaning. These naming clauses, just like normal ones, keep the key root at the end, which is the focus for the whole clause. The roots that precede the main root, are once again description roots, just like adjectives and adverbs, for instance ‘Green River’ where the river is our focus, and green is our description of the river.

 

 

1)     Initial Modifier: for Architecture, the root can be usually not found. It is uncommonly seen in room names. Initial Modifiers are seen a lot in Building names, and Place names with the commonly seen root XXX which means ‘To be situated/located at’ and is used here as “place, place of”

2)     Descriptor roots are nearly always there for names, in that these descriptor roots are used exactly like adjectives and adverbs in Proto-Drem.

3)     Main root: The main root is just that, the focus of the name. If one is talking of a mountain, and focusing on that mountain, then your main root will be XXX ‘Peak, Mountain’

 

Proto-Drem word	Mining	meaning
XXX	Shallow Mine	A shallow mine that is usually just a ‘hole’ dug into the ground. They are usually up to 12 feet deep. These mines are prevalent during summer
XXX	Deep mines	These deep mines with deep shafts and chambered galleries are usually 33 feet deep and in uses thru winter
XXX	Mine crew	A group of around 5 to 10 specialized flint miners that work year-round in the mines
XXX	Mine shaft	The shaft (entrance) that leads down to the miners below
XXX	Mine entrance	The very top of the mine shaft
XXX	Tunnel/Gallery	The long tunnels mined that radiated out from the main mine shaft. The galleries were typically 4 feet tall as miners knelt or crawled in the galleries as they mined and took out rubble.
XXX	Flint nodules	The nodules that are still un-worked and are basically raw flint.
XXX	Good quality flint	This is for a good large nodule of flint with seemingly few defects if any. These are the pre-worked flints that are brought up the surface for processing
XXX	Red ochre	The very spiritually significant red earth found in several places on the continent. It is traded over a wide area and is economically important.
XXX	Greenstone	Variscite is like turquoise and is easily cut into beads, necklaces and bracelets for jewelry that is traded far and wide. Found in the grey shale deposits on the west side of the highlands.
XXX	Lead	Galena which is smelted into lead and formed into small beads. It is fairly rare in Dremish times, as the Drem still haven’t gotten a smelter hot enough to smelt silver. The Galena is found on the eastern sides of the Grey mountains and is traded for.
XXX	Copper	Copper, with a high arsenic content is found in very small batches in the western highlands. The Dremish can only hammer bit of pure copper into pins instead of being able to smelt ore which will take another 1000 years
XXX	Ladder	Usually 2 ladders of strong wood are used to create the way up or down for the mine.
XXX	Ventilation fire	A fire built of wood chips and tallow were burned in the mine shaft to keep air moving and ventilate the mine
XXX	Mine shaft roof	The roof is to protect the mine from summer & fall rains and winter snows.
XXX	Rubble (to fill in old mine)	When a new shaft is dug, the rubble is used to fill in the just finished mine shaft
XXX	Abandoned mine	An unproductive mine that had too little flint to be worthwhile
XXX	Good quality mine	A highly productive mine with good quality flint nodules
XXX	Flint ‘block’/unfinished tool	A semi-worked flint is then worked later at a processing center to finish the tool for sale
XXX	Tallow candle	The standard light source, which is from animal fat/oil mix
XXX	Chalk	The standard rock that flint is found in
XXX	Floor-level flint	The lower and best quality flint is found in this layer of the mine. It is found at the bottom of the mine, and the flint is always black, of good size and few if any defects.
XXX	Mid-level flint	This is the secondary and lesser quality flint of a mine.
XXX	Flint-knapper	This is a person who works the flint and creates finished tools from the raw ‘blocks’. Usually this person is quite experienced and a good asset for any mining settlement
XXX	Miner	This is a standard flint miner who works the mines every summer but yet does not have the skill to properly knap flint tools. The person is usually young, but not a child.
XXX	Anvil	A stone anvil of a fairly hard stone is used to work flint, as only the best flint is brought up to the surface to be worked.
XXX	Waste pile	The pile of pre-worked flint blocks that accumulate in the main mine shaft. The waste piles are filled with waste microliths and flint
XXX	“workshop”	At the mine entrance, where the flint-knappers worked and prepared the flint nodules brought up to the surface
XXX	Red Deer Antler pick	The main tool used by miners, which happened to be the antler of a red-deer
XXX	Proper Depth of mine	The normal depth of a flint mine is generally considered 33 feet.
XXX	Wooden platform	A wooden platform built in between the two ladders, as people pulled the flint and rubble up and out of the mine.
XXX	Right antler	This is the secondary and less favored of the antlers used
XXX	Left antler	The favored antler used of the deer kept for their antlers
XXX	Mine herd	The 120 or so red deer bred for their antlers and skins by the community
XXX	Good location	The mines usually found in hard-to-reach locations kept the demand high and gave the tools greater significance
XXX	Shaft distance	The proper distance between shafts so the galleries do not connect and somehow cause instability in the mine. The shafts were usually between 15 and 90 feet apart
XXX	Campsite	The temporary campsite for the miners which usually just use the campsite to rest before going home for the night. Or coming to the mine to get ready for the day.
	Technology names
XXX	Pulley	A contraption made of sticks and set into the ground, and rope is used to lift and carry stone blocks and make construction jobs easier and faster
XXX	Wedge	A simple wooden block goes a long way towards helping to split logs for house timbers, totem poles and canoes.
XX	Lever	These simple tools are used for a wide variety of projects