In Robert E. Howard`s Conan stories from the 1930s, he set them in his hypothetical Hyborian Age…a period of prehistory that sometimes seems like classical Greece and sometimes like feudal Europe. He had established trade routes, large cities, dynasties rising and falling.
Now, Howard established all this about 12,000 years ago, after Atlantis fell and before the rise of the sons of Aryas (I guess the supposed Aryan migrations) and this seems pretty unlikely in light of what we know of Europe at that time.
So when (if ever) would be a good possible time for the Hyborian Age? I would tend to set it as far back as possible, maybe in a preglacial period. Is there any good period in which to plop Conan and his assorted giant apes and nubile wenches?
Well, if it’s of any help, this site, which gives quite a bit of info about the Hyborian Age as portrayed by Marvel Comics, place the Hyborian days as occuring circa 18,000 B.C. to 8,000 B.C., with Conan’s adventures taking place around 10,000 B.C.
Ranchoth
(Conan lives in the same universe as Squrrel Girl…it just…isn’t right, somehow)
I always thought that Conan’s people were pretty closely related to the Kurgan culture of the Steppes.
Shows how much I know…
Being unfamiliar with the stories (only the Arnie films) I may be off track here, but a broadsword is almost useless unless it is made of steel (first produced in Europe about 1000CE after being brought from China).
Go much furtehr back from the “Classical” period and you end up with mere bronze weapons, which are hardly very butch at all.
Its significantly better than iron. But of course, COnan’s sword was the sword of Krom! Krom like sword, Krom have good sword! Krom like pie!
Fire Bad!
If you’re putting the L. Sprague DeCamp stories and even the comics in with the RE Howard stories, then what you end up with is a kind of fantasy time which can conveniently echo different eras and cultures throughout human history. For example, some issues of Savage Sword of Conan place Conan squarely in an Inquisition-like era (with the Hyborian gods of Mitra and so forth replacing the “real-world” dieties) complete with auto-de-fe and someone in the role of Grand Inquisitor. He’s also been in stories that seem to recall the Vikings (with his battles against the Vanir and Aesir) and stories that seem to refer to Druidic cults and Pagan rituals.
If you’re going by the level of technology in the stories, they certainly have crossbows and catapults and steel armor and weapons. I always used to think of the Hyborian World as one that existed in a pre-cataclysmic Europe that existed after Altantis fell and before the beginning of recorded history…the idea being that the use of steel and crossbows and all that could be technology that was gained and then lost with the fall of the Hyborian age, and regained somehow in the most recent rise of humanity.
Of course, all of this is full of horrendous inconsistencies because no such age existed, apart from our imaginations.
Well, if it was in an interglacial period,
the last major interglacial before the one we are in now was the Ipswichian, (according to the English naming system anyway)
125,000 years ago- although there have been brief interstadial
periods as well since that time which might suit your purposes.
Unfortunately the inhabitants of Europe at that time were Neanderthals, with perhaps some Homo erectus as well;
Conan looks pretty neanderthal alright, but that description doesnt really fit Red Sonia…
SF worldbuilding at
http://www.orionsarm.com/main.html
Obviously, it’s the age between Lemuria and Atlantis, or maybe not.
Atlantis and Lemuria, IIRC, are both supposed to predate the Hyborian age.
Don’t forget to work in the lace-cuffed pirate stories and the buckskinned settlers that were rewritten for Conan.
