Dawn Age

"They were people of the Dawn Age, the very first, before kings and kingdoms," he said. "In those days, there were no castles or holdfasts, no cities, not so much as a market town to be found between here and the sea of Dorne. There were no men at all. Only the children of the forest dwelt in the lands we now call the Seven Kingdoms."
- A Game of Thrones

The Dawn Age (or DA for dates) describes the period when the Children of the Forest, the Giants, and the Deep Ones dominated Westeros, and when the First Men began arriving from Essos over the unbroken Arm of Dorne until the sealing of the Pact on the Isle of Faces. It was followed by the Age of Heroes.

History

Very little is known about Westeros before the arrival of the First Men. The Children of the Forest lived here alongside the giants, though not always amicably. The Deep Ones also appear to have had certain structures built during this period. Of all the settlements that endured by the time of the Coming of the Andals, only Oldtown can be said with any certainty to have existed in the Dawn Age.

The First Men arrived in Westeros approximately seven thousand years before the Coming of the Andals, crossing the Arm of Dorne and gradually spreading through the new continent. Everywhere but in Dorne and on remote islands, they encountered the Children of the Forest - with whom initial cordial relations fell into conflict. Men cut down and burned weirwoods wherever they found them, and claimed the lands for themselves.