The Hawklords, An Raqówa, are the mysterious first civilization of Pan. They appear to have come from the Herowi mountains. At a time when the other peoples of Pan were still in the Mesolithic, the Hawklords had domesticated some vegetables, dogs, hawks, and later, even the spotted horse. They built cities, invented writing and conquered much of the island before suddenly disappearing during the last Ice Age.
Biologically, the Hawklords mark the first appearance of Homo intelligens. A number of small stone dwellings, much like the cliff dwellings of the Southwestern USA are known from the period ca. 20,000 BP. Now greatly deteriated, they occasionally contain remains of this species. No older remains of this species are known and it appears that the rest of Pan was inhabited by Homo panensis. The ruins of this time period are concentrated in a relatively small region of the South Central Herowi. There is some slight, but hardly conclusive, evidence for the domestication of the red potato even at this early age.
About 17,000 BP, small stone cities begin to appear in mountain valleys. None of these survive wholly intact. Most were scoured by the glaciers and all suffered heavy damage during the Ice Age. Within a few centuries, the carved hawk emblem that gave the Hawklords their name began to appear. Carved into caves, stelae and boulders, its significance is not known. One of the small cities, now known as Raqónin, underwent a sudden growth spurt. It has been estimated that its population went from ca. 1000 to 20,000 within a century. The remains of storehouses indicate the certain presence of agriculture. Also known from this period are the first domesticated animals, dogs and cony marmots. Hawk remains are known but it is unknown if they were already domesticated.
Raqónin became the center of a rapidly growing culture. Stone terraced fields began to appear, some of which are still visible today. Baked clay tablets with some form of writing are known from as early as 15,500 BP. This writing is indecipherable today and its form, whether it was logographic, syllabic, etc. is unknown. New cities were founded as the culture spread, at this point still confined to the Herowi. Sometime during the period from 15,500 to 15,000 BP, something happened, what exactly is unknown, and the Raqówa came boiling out of their mountain redoubt.
Hawk stelae began to be erected over much of Pan. Fully 2/3 of Pan below Nordland is enclosed by a line connecting the farthest known stelae. A precipitous decline in the population of Homo panensis occured as the Hawklords spread. At some point, the Hawklords domesticated the spotted horse, its remains and the associated hardware indicate that it may have played a role in the ability of the Hawklords to spread over a large area so rapidly.
From this period, we find the first examples of ceramics and metal working, although stone remained the material of choice. The Hawklords left a few tombs, apparently for their royalty. A magnificent unlooted example was discovered in the Great Central Valley in 1931 and much of what we now know about the Hawklords is based on this one tomb. Representational art, both sculpture and painting, were used by Hawklords. Based on the altars and ruins of a few temples, they had some kind of religion but nothing is known about it.
It is commonly assumed that the Hawklords were destroyed by the Ice Age but there is little basis for this. Certainly their great mountain cities were ground away by the glaciers but they could have simply moved down into warmer areas. They did build a few cities outside of the mountains though and most of them have modern cities on top of them, e.g. Zapoþán (Rajak) and Shúratt'i (Mré). Perhaps their empire, if such it was, collapsed from other reasons and the Raqówa simply moved to other places as the ice advanced. It is impossible to say for sure. In any case, by 14,000 BP, the Hawklords had stopped building cities and erecting hawk marked stelae. They disappeared into legends with a thousand different peoples claiming descent from them and each with their own tale of the downfall to tell.
It is also commonly believed that all modern Nowan languages
and peoples are descended from the Hawklords. The former is
possible, all Nowan languages are related, apparently at a time
depth that would be just about right for them to spring from
Hawklordish. The latter is probable too but harder to provide
evidence for. It is certain that they were the first known Nowan
culture to build cities, to use writing, to domesticate animals
and to develop agriculture and all of these gifts they left as
their legacy.