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.
I don't think it's semantics. Neolithic period is by definition tied to a particular stratum of material culture, which is exactly why the time-range we call Neolithic changes depending which area of the World we are discussing.
All this thread started due to your reply to
@Reynard 's request of suggestions for Neolithic settings, which was clearly a request for suggestions for settings whose inhabitants had a cultural and technological level mirroring what we believe characterized Neolithic people on Earth.
You pointed out Tolkien's letter, to which several people replied that while that could be interpreted as LotR taking place around 6000-4000 BCE, that would not fit what the OP was looking for, because the cultures depicted in the Hobbit and LotR do not match what we know of real world Neolithic cultures.
If you simply used Neolithic as the range 10000-4000 BCE but not tied to specific technology levels, why in your reply to one of my previous posts you asked me to clarify which cultural and technological aspects of Tolkien's stories I didn't think matched what is attested for Neolithic people, and pointed out that we don't really know a lot about common folk lifestyle in Middle-Earth, and also that archeological record is incomplete? To me that sounded like you were implying that outside of the main cultures depicted in the books, Tolkien imagined most people living a Stone Age life.
But if your point is simply that Tolkien imagined LotR having taken place around 6000BCE despite the fact that the cultures depicted in the book were significantly more advanced than actual Earth societies of the time, we are in total agreement.
