Almost certainly the really ancient one. The more recent First Epoch Mandalorians built some exquisitely powerful and elegant weapons, but they weren't much for making then decorative or self-directing; that kind of "artistic" approach was more a hallmark of the ancients. (It's odd to speak of a civilization believed to have fallen 12,000 to 17,000 years ago as "more recent", I know, but there it is.)

>And, if they were so seperated from each other chronologically and (I
>presume) in culture, what makes them both 'Mandalorian'? In other
>words, just what is a mandalore, anyway?

Mandalor (no "e") was a planet. Actually, there appear to have been several planets by that name; Jango Fett was born on Third Mandalor, for instance. The First Epoch Mandalorian Empire claimed a number of cultural and historic ties to the pre-epochal Mandalorians, who are remembered today mostly in myth, but no one is really sure how true those claims were.

What is certain is that both civilizations were technologically advanced, militaristic, and highly renowned for the quality of their weapons and their soldiers. Both supported armies referred to collectively as "the Death Watch" which worked as state-sponsored mercenaries when not actively employed pursuing the goals of the Mandalorian governments of their times, and both inhabited worlds named Mandalor. How much of this is because the later Mandalorians were carrying on historical traditions established by the ancient ones, and how much because the later Mandalorians were imitating what they'd heard of in legends in order to make their claim of descent from the ancients seem more plausible to their contemporaries, is open for debate in modern historical circles.

--G.
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Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Admin
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/