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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Hriston" data-source="post: 9428036" data-attributes="member: 6787503">The negative connotation comes from that type of conversation being undesirable, but the disagreement was about the form. You told me the form I used was incorrect for the meaning I wanted to convey, and I conceded, both to make my intended meaning more clear and because I'm not interested in having a conversation about the meaning of the word neolithic because, to me, it's not the "issue of substance".You seem to be implying the nonexistence of forges capable of melting gold before 4,000 BC. According to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_extraction" target="_blank">this wikipedia article</a>, gold may have been smelted as early as 6,000 BC in Mesopotamia or Syria. Furnaces capable of melting gold would have, of course, been available earlier than that.Are you saying you believe if writing systems were being used in Western Europe around 6,500 BC there’s no way you wouldn't have evidence of it? This seems like a claim of omniscience, but maybe you have some other point which isn't apparent to me.Well, in this narrative, we are thousands of years after the invention of writing, but I take your meaning. I think this speaks to the device of "translation" used in the books. There's a couple of points related to this. As a medievalist, the author/"translator" is "translating" the story into (i.e. writing things into the story which express) a medieval idiom. The Red Book of Westmarch is a nod to the Red Book of Hergest, so because the model is a red-leather bound book, so too is Bilbo's diary. Another point relates to the form of the book. According to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book" target="_blank">wikipedia</a>, a "book is a medium for recording information in the form of writing or images" and can take a variety of forms, so the Red Book could be a collection of wax tablets or scrolls and serve the same narrative purpose. The description itself is little more than flavor.This is a statement about the attitudes of hobbits and relates to the novel's theme of modernization. It doesn't say these particular technologies or anything more advanced were actually in use. The author could have chosen any similarly antique (to the reader) technologies and expressed pretty much the same thing about hobbits.This is similar to the claim about writing. Just because we haven't found any firmly established evidence of equestrianism from a given time-period doesn't necessarily mean people weren't doing it. Modern horses have existed for five million years. People could have ridden them.The wheel is a late Neolithic invention, so I don't see this as problematic for the chronology I'm proposing, but even if it was, a sledge or travois could serve the same narrative purpose, so use of the word cart could, again, be seen as a choice made by the "translator" for better coherence with the medievalistic setting.Of course you don't think the author's drawing is an exact reproduction of a picture found in the Red Book, do you? The illustration and descriptions of the contents of Bag End, like the statement about hobbits' aversion to advanced technology, are there to give an impression of familiarity and comfort. Just as the author embellishes the tale with his knowledge as a medievalist, so too does he imbue it with his own character and sense of place as a man of the early 20th century West Midlands. That's just good writing.</blockquote>

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