It strikes me as something more profound and the a'dam is only a thousand years old. People seldom call that "ancient." The 11th Century AD is rarely referred to as ancient times, which generally connotes things that happened before the fall of the Roman Empire.

It could be their bringing order out of chaos, or perhaps their contribution to the victory, such as by stopping a Trolloc invasion as Hawkwing did, or taking down a false dragon as he did or something like that.