when humans arrived in thedas, they didn't come in one cultural group but as a variety of tribes. it's going to take a long post but let's try to just talk our way through them here
the dragon-worshipping neromenians settled on the coast of the nocen sea, the heart of modern day tevinter. in abt 1700 ancient they would split into four distinct kingdoms: neromenian, tevinter (seems to have been based in minrathous), qarinus, and barindur. less than a hundred years later, barindur would disappear under mysterious circumstances. yeah, the whole place. the story goes that barindur was a wondrous city containing fountains that granted eternal youth, but one day the high priest of dumat asked his god that the high king of barindur be punished for a slight, and dumat eradicated the entire city, turning it into a plain of barren rock overnight. solas talks about the lost city of barindur as if it were actually destroyed by a volcanic eruption, implying the above is merely a mythical explanation for a natural disaster
the west and centre of thedas was settled by tribes including the ciriane, the inghirsh, and the planasene. "ciriane" is a broad, loosely defined category for people who lived prosperously in the fertile lands we now recognise as central orlais. (we're told that ciriane culture has 'mostly disappeared', but also that they're the primary ancestors of modern orlesians, so my assumption is that the founding of orlais involved efforts to sort of consolidate them and stamp out diversity of culture as well as whatever their pre-chantry religious practices were.)
the inghirsh lived further north within modern orlais. they seem to have been nomadic and to have ultimately been on the losing end of multiple conflicts with the neromenians, with those that survived either taken into slavery or absorbed into the ciriane and planasene. (there's an account in the chant of light that the neromenians turned away from the maker and towards the old gods, under the orders of a king antoridus and on the advice of our old pal thalsian, specifically in order to gain victory over the inghirsh.)
the planasene were an agricultural people, settled in modern day nevarra and the free marches, with "a surprisingly long written history and a strong culture of animist worship", an insane thing to throw into world of thedas and then never elaborate on. where is the written history. i want it. anyway the aforementioned chant of light story goes on to say that having defeated the inghirsh, king antoridus of neromenian set his sights on the planasene. in desperation, the planasene's leader, king damertes, turned to "pagan soothsayers" looking for a demon as strong as neromenian's new old god. they found one, a demon with she/her pronouns who would turn the tide in exchange for damertes and his people forsaking the maker. they did so, and the neromenians were struck by some kind of plague of boils and forced to turn back.
(in regard to this story from the chant of light: well, it doesn't quite make sense, does it, because we were told the neromenians didn't worship the maker in the first place, they were always into some kind of dragons. but maybe the planasene could have? on top of the "animist worship"? when i get to andraste i'll try to find some hard information on whether worship of the maker even predates her because i've often been confused by that, but clearly at least the chantry is claiming it did.)
on the topic of andraste: the alamarri were a loose coalition of tribes that settled in modern day ferelden. theoretically they arrived there in 2415 ancient, some 800 years after the neromenians first settled in the north. according to their legends, they needed to find a new home because they were fleeing from a "shadow goddess". scholars claim this was probably a natural disaster. solas, because he is solas, claims to have actually met this spirit and that she still exists and really did all that. it's claimed that it was in about 1815 ancient that the avvar broke away from the alamarri and in 1415 ancient that the chasind broke away. why they all only did things in the fifteenth year of a century i simply cannot tell you.
it’s possible that tyrdda bright-axe was the one in 1815 to lead the avvar away and in so doing found them and this is the story described in her hinterlands saga, because she is theoretically the founder of the avvar, but there’s a lot i find iffy about that. like, if the avvar were only “founded” when tyrdda brought her clan away into the frostbacks, then why are there avvar fortresses on lake calenhad and as far east as amaranthine, suggesting the avvar existed as a major power throughout ferelden? and how was she around in 1815 ancient when she’s supposedly also the mother of morrighan’nan who was around in the 300s ancient? and why are the avvar only being “founded” when they leave if they are already their own one of what is clearly described as a coalition of tribes? and what about how world of thedas says it was actually calenhad’s united ferelden that pushed the avvar into the frostbacks? possibly the avvar moved west with tyrdda and then in later better times spread eastwards again, to be forced back much later by calenhad. and there were multiple women named morrighan’nan or the legends were simply tied together incorrectly by later storytellers
we don’t know as much about the human tribes in this era within other parts of thedas, such as rivain, the anderfels, and antiva. there’s some mention of the “orth” people as an existing anderfels culture in the tabletop rpg, with “orthland” having been the original name for the anderfels in early development, so you could make an argument for them as at least one group, but there’s nothing hard canon about that at all that i can find
