I guess the folly lies rather in having figured out all the patterns than to overlook later changes... (looking up guiltily from the remnants of his first KoS softcover)
>David Dunham notes that historical agricultural densities are 1-2
people/sq. km >for dry farming and up to 6-12 people/sq. km for irrigated land.
>(See: http://www.pensee.com/dunham/facts/food.html )
"Dry farming" is the norm for non-mediterranean climate, really. Irrigation is practicable only when you have long periods of dry spells and the means of maintaining a large population on fairly small terrain.
Late neolithic and all of Bronze Age Middle Europe was farmed from fairly smallish communities rather than agricultural cities (like Jericho or the Anatolian Plateau) for the simple reason that the climate made communal projects like maintenance of irrigation ditches superfluous.
I view Dragon Pass as decidedly non-Mediterranean in climate and agricultural technique. If you need an excuse why the northern Solar lands depend on fertile crescent technology while the lands to the south don't, consider elevation and sea winds.
>The Questlines article has 18,000 Colymar on a package of land about 60 by
>100 km (pre 1613).
On which of the many available scales did you base these distances?
Did you include the Malani lands in Arfritha Vale, just north of the Quivin Mountains, and the lost clan around Quackford in your calculation? In terms of Dragon Pass gameboard hexes (three of which make a day's march), the Colymar dominated about 40 hexes of northwestern Old Sartar, 14 of these valley bottoms, the rest hillside.
>Assuming that 50% of the land is arable (overly generous perhaps)
Possibly. In the valley bottoms, I'd go for 50%, on the hillsides, perhaps 25%.
>this gives us a population density of 6 ppl/sq km, excluding the added load
>of towns and cities. Even including a fertility bonus of 10% from Ernalda
>(or whomever), this would mean that the Orlanthi have a pretty sophisticated
>irrigated agricultural system
The Orlanthi have an extremely sophisticated irrigation system. It is called "weather control" and surpasses conventional technology by far.
>and are fairly densely packed in their farming vales.
I like to use the numbers from RQ Gamemaster Book for these calculations. If you take the "village" of three to twelve grouped steads as the basic centre of living, you will find the arable land situated right next to the steads, and the good pasture/haymaking lands right next to them. Have a look at reports on Danish Iron Age villages if you can find any (there might be some available on the Web, e.g. for Hjemsted or Lejre archaeological centres) for the distribution of land around such longhouse steads.
Usually, when drawing a detail map of Orlanthi-settled terrain, I place the villages mentioned above at intervals of about five to six kilometres, with over half of the distance being common wilderness used as opportunity pasture, and the other half given to fields (maybe 200 to 500 metres around the village, depending on population density) and grazing around this. IMG the fields are surrounded by hedges of hazel and various berry-bearing, low growing trees.
>Apparently, Tarsh is the richest province of the Empire, so I assume that
>Sartar is also fertile, even though it is mountainous.
IMO the entire Pelorian Barbarian Belt as well as eastern Maniria has a lot of places with quite rich Loess soil from the glacial period (finely ground sand and clay carried by the winds to be deposited on grasslands, forming quite mighty layers of fertile soil, and manageable even with the light Barntar ard-plough). It fity mythically, too, that out of Valind's destruction and Orlanth's love for Ernalda special fertility is born...
>So, given the populations in Questlines, a clan would be about 1000 to 1200
>people, living in about 200 nuclear family units/steads, each farming 1 to
>2 sq km (250 to 500 acres). Presumably, much of this is odal pasture lands,
>with smaller irrigated grain/alfalfa/fallow fields in a multi-year rotation
>and small market gardens.
Rotation farming is a fairly recent introduction in RW agriculture IIRC and wasn't practised anywhere during the Bronze or Iron Age.
>Irrigation and cattle both mean ready souces of water, brooks and streams from
>Skyfall Lake and/or Creekstream River.
I'd forget about irrigating Sartar - that's like irrigating the west coast of Ireland or Norway. Water will usually be present in abundance, as rain, which is bound to run off in streams and brooks.
>So, rural Quivinland is a rich country of heavily farmed, fertile farm
>valleys watered by innumerable brooks and streams. The cattle graze in
>the valley floors, the sheep on the hill sides and the goats in the
>unpopulated moors on the hilltops. It sounds a lot like Wales or Nova Scotia,
>but decidely more fertile.
>How does that sound?
About correct.
IMO rotation farming is replaced by regular sacrifices of blood to the earth (as well as Bless Crop rituals which may or may not involve such sacrifices). It is quite likely that the husbandry is grazed on the fields after the harvest, giving it a proper amount of fertilizer, and, if pigs are kept (usually the best meat-animals you could have near the stead) a proper autumn workover of the soil as well.
Wales is IMO an excellent comparison - especially if you keep Anglesey in mind, sort of a grain chamber of the country. The Quivin mountains would look similar to Snowdonia, and rise about as high above the surrounding valleys as well.
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