The Lord of the Rings as [Greenlandian] Fantasy in The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien [edited title]

[briggart]

I'm not sure what "cultural, societal, and technological levels" you're talking about. Tolkien, as an author, describes very little about these things, so I'd appreciate more specificity about what you think is being represented. This is complicated by the fact that Tolkien's fantasy depicts different peoples at different "levels". The Elves, especially those who came from Valinor, have a very high level of culture influenced by divine tutelage. The men of Gondor have knowledge of engineering and other mental abilities that far exceed those of common men. The activities of these more advanced people's were mainly taking place in areas which are now underwater. Tolkien says very little about the cultural realities of the common folk of Middle-earth with which a valid apples-to-apples comparison could be made with the archaeological record. Then there's the problem that what's "attested" can't possibly be the sum total of everything that has ever existed. There has to be some room for imagination, especially in a fantasy where that's kind of the point.

What little he describes is enough to establish that his stories cannot be set during the Neolithic.

As it has been repeatedly pointed out, metal tools and weapons are common in the stories. The titular rings, Narsil, Frodo's mithril shirt, the Red Arrow, gold and silver in Smaug's horde just to name a few. By definition, this makes the story not-Neolithic, because, again Neolithic is defined as that stage of civilization in which metalworking has yet to be developed.

Writing. Earliest forms of writing emerged during the Bronze Age, at least in Europe and Asia. Technically, in the Hobbit JRRT stiles himself as the editor of Bilbo's diary (There and back again), which was expanded by Frodo and Sam into the Red Book of the Westmarch. Not to mention that books did not assume a form similar to Bilbo's diary (red-leather bound volume) for several thousand years after invention of writing. We could even make the point that Neolithic being a part of prehistory, and history being defined by the invention of writing, this too makes LotR by definition not-Neolithic.

Horses. Current evidence points to horse domestication happening around 3000 BCE (at least as mounts, likely earlier as livestock), so again Bronze Age. Stirrups came much later.

Fireworks!!

Also, note that in the passage you quoted, Tolkien doesn't say that LotR is Neolithic fantasy, it says that he imagined it to be set around 6000-4000 BCE (I agree that "our day" is open to interpretation). There is a subtle difference here, because, again the Neolithic time range in a given area is defined by the technological and cultural advances of the people living there.

I'm not familiar with that letter, but based on that fragment, IMO Tolkien is simply stating a timeframe for when these events happened in his fantasy version of Earth's history, but he is not making any inference on the living conditions of the common folks of Middle-Earth.

 

[Hriston]

I think you are stretching. I don't think there is any evidence to suggest that the material culture of any of the peoples of Middle Earth approximated that of the neolithic.

JRR Tolkien for the most part didn't describe much in the way of material culture, so I don't think there's a lot of evidence either way, but I have to disagree with you when it comes to megalithic architecture. I think there was a deliberate effort on the author's part to tie the Númenóreans and Men of Gondor to legends about megalithic structures throughout Europe and the Near East, dating from the Neolithic, having been built by "Giants" (read Biblical Nephilim) and relating it all back to the legend of Atlantis.

 

[Hriston]

The structures described in LotR are far beyond the high medieval and perhaps renaissance eras in terms of construction,

So are the Great Pyramids, so is a lot of megalithic architecture. And they're built by literal Atlanteans who've been gifted by the gods with superiority of mind, body, and longevity. That's the fantastical element.

If anything, all of that stuff about barrows and so on, which are clearly a thing of the deep past in LotR, suggests LotR is a thousands of years after its own neolithic/bronze age, which would necessarily be a whole other separate archaeological thing.

The Neolithic lasted for thousands of years, so it's quite possible for it to be thousands of years after some event in the Neolithic and for it to still be the Neolithic.

I don't think Tolkien would have agreed, and it's nonsensical.

Those are his own words you've quoted.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

So are the Great Pyramids, so is a lot of megalithic architecture. And they're built by literal Atlanteans who've been gifted by the gods with superiority of mind, body, and longevity. That's the fantastical element.


The Neolithic lasted for thousands of years, so it's quite possible for it to be thousands of years after some event in the Neolithic and for it to still be the Neolithic.


Those are his own words you've quoted.

Whilst Tolkien would have known the classical Atlantean myth (Solon) I’m sure he didn’t believe crackpot conspiracy theories (clue: he died before the internet).

 

[Parmandur]

Whilst Tolkien would have known the classical Atlantean myth (Solon) I’m sure he didn’t believe crackpot conspiracy theories (clue: he died before the internet).

Wweeeeeeeeeeell...

One of the Inklings, and one of Tolkien amd Lewis' closest mutual friends that people don't usually know about anymore, was Owen Barfield...and he wad an Anthroophist following the ideas of Rudolf Steiner.

 

[Reynard]

JRR Tolkien for the most part didn't describe much in the way of material culture,

That is blatantly wrong.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Oh, Minas Tirith? Been to Edinburgh? Because it’s layout and construction is quite clearly based on Edinburgh Castle (just made a bit bigger).

 

[Hriston]

I don't think anybody here is disputing that Tolkien, at least in the beginning, presented his stories as set in Earth's actual past, and in the passage you quoted he clearly considered the possibility of LotR taking place in the Neolithic time-period.

But the point is that, while real world Neolithic spans a somewhat defined range of years (at least in Eurasia and North Africa), that range of years is defined by the typical technological and cultural aspects of the various societies of the time, which does not match those of the people of Middle Earth as shown in the LotR. More so because its "exact" duration varies locally, depending on when and how the various societies adopted/discovered metalworking. The whole stone -> copper -> bronze -> iron age division is not universal, with some cultures transitioning directly from stone tools to iron forging, and others never leaving stone age technological levels until contemporary times.

One notable example would be the people of Baliem valley in central New Guinea, which were a Stone Age society of several tens of thousand of individuals who had limited contacts with the outside world until they were spotted during airplane exploration of New Guinea highlands in the 1930's. Given that New Guinea was part of the British Empire in the late 1800s, technically you could have a Victorian D&D campaign with characters living in small villages in the jungle, going around basically naked, no literacy, no metals and so on, but that would not be what people typically refer to with "Victorian setting".

You could make a case for LotR being set during the European/North Africa Neolithic, but it is not a Neolithic setting. If those events actually happened in our world, most likely the archeological consensus would be that that part of the world transitioned out of Neolithic several thousand of years earlier than most everywhere else.

I mean, the literal casus belli of the whole LotR saga is the forging of several sets of metal rings which by definition makes it not-Neolithic.

This is all a semantic distinction. I think it's clear in my OP I'm using Neolithic to refer to the time-period of the Neolithic period, not any particular stratum of material culture. I even used scare quotes around the word Neolithic.

 

[Hriston]

No, he loved Welsh, that's why he put so much of it into Sindarin.

Ah, yes, I was misremembering this passage from Letter #19 (p. 26):

Your reader's comment affords me delight. I am sorry the names split his eyes -- personally I believe (and here believe I am a good judge) they are good, and a large part of the effect. They are coherent and consistent and made upon two related linguistic formulae, so that they achieve a reality not fully achieved to my feeling by other name-inventors (say Swift or Dunsany!). Needless to say they are not Celtic! Neither are the tales. I do know Celtic things (many in their original languages Irish and Welsh), and feel for them a certain distaste: largely for their fundamental unreason.​

The distaste he expressed was for Celtic "things" (i.e. tales) and not languages, my mistake. It's strange though that he says the names aren't Celtic when one of the linguistic formulae they were made from is based on Welsh!

 

[Parmandur]

Ah, yes, I was misremembering this passage from Letter #19 (p. 26):

Your reader's comment affords me delight. I am sorry the names split his eyes -- personally I believe (and here believe I am a good judge) they are good, and a large part of the effect. They are coherent and consistent and made upon two related linguistic formulae, so that they achieve a reality not fully achieved to my feeling by other name-inventors (say Swift or Dunsany!). Needless to say they are not Celtic! Neither are the tales. I do know Celtic things (many in their original languages Irish and Welsh), and feel for them a certain distaste: largely for their fundamental unreason.​

The distaste he expressed was for Celtic "things" (i.e. tales) and not languages, my mistake. It's strange though that he says the names aren't Celtic when one of the linguistic formulae they were made from is based on Welsh!

Welsh and Irish myth and legend are really quite surreal, which I find delightful, but was not Tolkien's jam. The Mabinogion is a wild fever dream.