The Pxae are the primary indigenous peoples of Pahekur island. Prior to colonization, they spoke the Pahecan languages, a branch of the Limarusian language family, but modern speaker rates vary by tribe. Though in English Pxae is used to refer to all Pahecan peoples, only Southern coastal, swamp and certain river tribes use it as an endonym. Due to historical overcrowding of the island causing famine and conflict, many Pxae lived in self-developed urban settlements prior to colonization, with developed agriculture, though most were hunter-gatherers.
Name
The word Pxae means water in Central Southern Coast Pxae, and is in reference to water Pxae's reliance on bodies of water for sport, food and transport, as opposed to mountain, forest and plains Pxae.
History
Prehistory
Indigenous Limarusians came to the Limarusian archipelago around 6,000-8,000 BC, from Tibetan populations. Most Pxae belong to Y-DNA haplogroup D1a2.
Over the next few thousand years, they spread across the Limarusian archipelago and their population grew. Along the coast of the central Pahekur Lake there are archaeological remains of a village, made of mud brick and clay. The earliest building was built around 2500 BC. The village had recorded accounting documents, but no evidence of written language.
A highly intact tablet dated to c. 2350 BC was found in 2002 that appears to show the population of the village- 148. In 2003, 2006 and 2015 and 2022 four new tablets were found from around the same time in various parts of the archaeological site, which show populations of 43, 29, 14 and 57 in different sections. The tablets with 14 and 29 population also listed 14 and 29 presumed names and ages, while the other tablets did not list extra information.
Most scholars believe this was a census conducted by the village, and it shows that there was significant social hierarchy, as some people were thought more important to list than others. More evidence comes from that while the life expectancy calculated from remains located in cemeteries in the village was 24 years, the mean age listed on the two tablets was 29 years, showing better treatment than other people. Additionally, records show that the sections where the higher classes lived received much more medicine and had more diverse food.
A building was found with residue of an alcoholic beverage, indicating that the Pxae of the village may have drank alcohol. However, some scholars dispute this, saying that the building was rather a storeroom for fruit, which fermented over the thousands of years.
Outside of the village, all Pxae were hunter gatherers, without agriculture or built environments.
Around 2200 BC, the village was abandoned, and there were many deaths, and between 40 to 65% of the Limarusian population died. This caused language death and separate populations mixed. Reconstructions of Proto-Pahecan, Proto-Southern Limarusian, and Proto-Losningan show many substrate words of clear Limarusian origin that were loaned at around the same time, indicating that many branches used to exist (up to four more have been hypothesized to exist based on loans), before being consolidated into three. This conveniently provides an easy way to date linguistic innovations.
During the next few thousand years, the population is estimated to have been around 8,000, lower than the 15,000 estimated prior to the Limarusian collapse.
WIP