Birthplace of Tsalal Civilization Uncovered

**Birthplace of Tsalal Civilization Uncovered**

***New Register, April 17, 1966 (AP/CE)***

What is being touted as a landmark find in the prehistory of the Tsalal civilisation has been located in the lower Tsalmothua valley, the earliest ever discovered coal complex.

Dated to approximately 8900 years ago, or 6900 BCE, archeologists have found extensive evidence of a year round coal mining operation which appears to have been at the center of an elaborate trading network, and has been associated with oral histories of the so called 'First Kingdom, Tcho-Tsai.

"This really is an astonishing find," a Tsalal archeologist reports. "Previously, the evidence is that the entire lower valley drainage complex was going through a population collapse. But in this region, we see very little evidence of collapse. We see instead population continuity, dramatic expansions at the expense of local groups, a uniformity of style of art and tools, even significant evidence of reforestation and land management, all of which is unheard of for this period of time."

Three years of digs and reconstruction suggests a complex history.

"Originally, we think that there was seasonal occupation," the Archeologist relates. "During winter periods, there was a massive surplus of agricultural labour available. It appears to have changed the tribal dynamic. Shifting fuel gathering to coal in the winter rather than wood in the summer left much more time for summer agriculture and expanded the capacity for food production. Societies became more densely populated and robust, despite general collapse elsewhere."

"Within a relatively short time, however, there appears to have been regional competition for the resource, and we have evidence of some very bloody battles, which resulted in year round occupation by the defending group."

"Of course, this inhibited the agricultural capacity of the defending group. So at that point, they were either overrun, or they were able to make some sort of arrangements with their neighbors. Either way, we see, for the first time ever, a form of regional or community specialization and the establishment of bulk trading networks, with the coal complex providing winter fuel and the outlying communities supplying food or winter products."

The so called 'Tcho-Tsai anomaly', apparent evidence that a large region had managed to avoid the apparent population collapse that devastated the Tsalmothua subcontinent has been debated hotly for well over a decade. Most serious archeologists have dismissed the anomaly as a misreading or misdating of earlier or later sights, or have argued for a series of small scale or local solutions, unusually warm locations, local coal deposits, etc. However, new evidence has turned Tsalal archeology on its head.

"Using the chemical signatures of the coal deposit, we're finding matching ash residues up and down the river valley. A lot of communities were tied into this network."

"We're even finding penguin bones and egg shells in the middens around the coal complex, which tells us that their reach extended to the seashore, hundreds of miles away. It's really a startling find."

It is estimated that within the trading or political influence of the coal complex, there was a stable population of as much as 10,000 or 20,000. "That's a guess though, at this point, we have decades of work ahead of us. The real population of the kingdom, or federation, or whatever it was could well have been over 100,000. After three years, we are only beginning the work."

But the end of the story is already clear.

"After about 900 years, give or take, the coal deposit was played out. It was a relatively small deposit, and not very good quality. Once it was exhausted, the entire house of cards must have collapsed."

By approximately 8000 BCE however, the recovery of population in the Tsalmothua continent was already under way. Natural increase and immigration from groups in Wang Gash and Azul, and a proliferation of plant and animal domestication techniques, was repopulating a region where humans had, in many areas, become extinct.

"The new era was one of emergent kingdoms, city states, confederations showing up everywhere. Coal trade was a very common factor, and coal mining seemed to be developed almost simultanously, overnight, in widely separated regions," the Tsalal Archeologist said. "Now, we're going to have to take a second look at that. What we may have been really seeing are refugees from the Tcho-Tsai coal complex spreading far and wide, and proliferating their knowledge and technology."

"This complex may well be a starting point for one of the key foundations of later civilizations."

Western archeologists are more skeptical.

"The Tsalal have an extraordinary history of making extraordinary claims which are invariably proved nonsense," Professor Emeritus Challenger of Harvard said. "So reports of this sort must be taken with a grain of salt."

One obstacle, Challenger related, was that the Tsalal do not allow foreigners access to their archeological sites, and all such investigations are closely vetted by Tsalal governments.

Doctor Partridge, of the Oxford Faculty of the Sorbonne in Paris, held similar views.

"These recent reports must be considered to be suspect in the extreme. While it is not outside the realms of possibility that there was some local coal excavation and trading for a period of time among local agricultural communities the significance is vastly overstated."

"It has to be remembered that, despite their penchant for extraordinary claims, the Tsalal during this time, were at best neolithic or stone age agricultural societies. They would not enter their copper or bronze ages until much, much later. It seems impossible."