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This shows a lack of familiarity with archaeology. There was indeed working of gold, silver, copper, meteoric iron, and perhaps other native metals in the Stone Age. What marks the end of the Stone Age is the smelting of copper ore, but metals had been worked and beaten into beautiful and useful...

My question is what is he actually describing that makes the story incompatible with being set on planet Earth (specifically in Western Europe, the Mediterranean, and Northwest Africa) sometime between 6,500 and 4,000 BC? How does he describe the things you mentioned in a way that conflicts with...

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...

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.

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...

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...

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...

Well, the dating he gives in his letter, as I've pointed out, means the Third Age is imagined to transpire during the Neolithic. I think that counts for something! The Third Age also has some features I'd associate with the Neolithic, namely a sparse "points of light" pattern of isolated...

Okay, to avoid derailing your thread any further, I've started a new thread here. Any further replies to the ideas I've posted in this thread can be posted there.

[Edit. The term Neolithic in this post has been replaced with terms relating to the geologic time scale to clarify its emphasis on time-period rather than measures of cultural development.] This came up in another thread, and I've branched it off here to avoid further derailing that discussion...

JRR Tolkien wasn't writing about Mars or Alpha Centauri. He wasn't writing about other worlds. He was writing about our world, and the LotR is full of megalithic structures like Göbekli Tepe, places like the Barrow Downs, Isengard, and the Argonath, built by the Númenóreans or their descendants...

I don't know what you mean by "in any meaningful sense." I'm talking about the author's stated intent. From The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien (1981), Letter #211 (p. 283 in my copy): ... I hope the, evidently long but undefined, gap* in time between the Fall of Barad-dûr and our Days is...

Well, clearly, I didn't understand what the OP wanted. By the bolded, I thought the OP meant the literal span of time in which the Neolithic period occurred, roughly 10,000 BC until about 4,500 BC or later. If someone asks me about fantasy set in that range of time, the first thing that comes...

Bible nods as Quinn speaks, her chin propped between thumb and forefinger. "The kitchen it is then," she says. "Better to go the way we know than waske our efforks in poinkless fightin'." "Also agree about scoutin' the chimney," she adds

I'm not sure what part of the legendarium you're referring to here as "Tolkien" considering the relatively detailed portion alone covers a period of about 6,500 years from the first sunrise to the final downfall of Sauron, a longer period of time than the historical Iron Age itself, but more to...

No, but it's an interesting question. Are you implying modern society knows for a fact all armor and weapons used in the Neolithic were made of stone, and do you think fantasy fiction about the period needs to conform to that notion?

I'm sorry you feel that way.

If you equate the Downfall of Númenor with the drowning of Atlantis c. 9,600 BC according to Plato, that puts it near the beginning of the Neolithic with the subsequent events of the LotR happening more towards the middle about 3,000 years later. Tolkien is on record as saying his stories are...

The Third and Fourth Ages (and the end of the Second Age) of JRR Tolkien’s legendarium correspond to a fantastical Neolithic. There's even a fantasy Atlantis to explain where all the megalithic building is coming from. It probably helps to have a lower magic level than default 5E, so you might...

Why? I don't recall 5E having any prerequisites higher than 15. Maybe, and yet prerequisites in 5E are odd numbers. When I designed this, I tried to create something that meshed with the existing design of 5E.