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Message: <blockquote data-quote="briggart" data-source="post: 9437304" data-attributes="member: 6805135">With "supposed to be ... factually correct" I meant within the context of the fiction. In other word, as you said, that Tolkien description matched what he imagined the events, places, items, ... to be. My statement is that his description of the book is an example of things that are incompatible with the historical record for the 10000-4000BC in Europe. Do you agree with this?I've seen "in universe" used several times on these boards to refer to the internal 'truth' and/or consistency of fictional work, so I assumed it was clear  that by "in universe" I meant within the fiction of the story, not within our actual world.This was my first post in this thread, I've bolded the last part:This is your reply to that post. I've bolded the first part, but it all seems relevant to me:From the beginning, our discussion has been centered on whether LotR descriptions match the historical record. I said I believed they didn't in my first post, and you asked clarification on that in your reply, while also pointing out while a direct comparison with archeological record would be complicated. And you repeatedly kept engaging with me on this aspect, specifically on whether the examples from the book I and others mentioned conformed with what we know of real cultures from the time.But to be clear, I was just referring to the exchanges between you and me, not necessarily to your OP or the thread as a whole.With the possible exception of mathematics and logic, all human knowledge of our world is empirical. We observe a finite number of events, we notice some patterns in these events, and extrapolate these patterns to some "truths" about our reality. Periodically we find new evidence that leads us to revising these "truths", but until we do our best option is considering our current understanding as the best description of reality, while being open to the possibility that description could change in the future.So my position would be better defined as: "couldn't have taken place at that time" means "are not compatible with the archaeological record".  I agree that we cannot prove that writing was invented few thousand years before what's currently believed. Or the wheel. Or copper smelting. Or horse domestication. And so on. But we are not talking about only one of these things in isolation: all of these things need to have happened way before what's currently attested for the events of LotR to have happened during the time frame Tolkien posited in his letter.That is clearly not "impossible" in the same way that it is impossible that a prime number also be a square of an integer, it's just that the archeological community doesn't have any remote evidence of something like that happening. You are the one making a pretty bold statement, and your only argument in its support is: "well, we cannot prove that it didn't happen". Which is the same argument in favor of Dragon, Elves and Dwarves having existed, or Neanderthal having landed on the Moon. To be clear, I consider these to be far less likely than (basically) European Neolithic having ended a couple thousand years earlier than we currently think, but this just show that argument by itself is not a very informing.</blockquote>

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