4th Age and beyond

[alhaQQ]

Another "speculation" question (don't be horrified...)

Since the end of the 3rd Age/beginning of the 4th Age was reckoned to be (depending on where in ME you are, I believe) the first anniversary of the Battle at the Black Gate/Destruction of the Ring and/or the sailing of the elvish rings into the west...where would one put "the end", etc. of the subsequent ages?

My own (humble) opinion:

Fourth Age: begins after destruction of ring or sailing into the west; ends with the "flood" (Noah as a distant descendant of the Dunedain?).

Fifth Age: Flood to the "Destruction" of Troy (VI) in the "Trojan War"

Sixth Age: Trojan War to End of WWII.

So we (as Tolkien guessed) are in the beginning (possibily) of the Seventh Age...

Any ideas?

[jammi567]

That works out to roughly 3000 years for each one.

[alhaQQ]

Hmmm. I think that the 4th "age" may have been "very long" (to make up for the first age?) almost twice (or so) the average age length to provide enough time for Tolkien to "hide the bones", so to speak, so that there'd be no trace of any of his "prehistory" left, other than the "shadowy" memories that he comes up with. To break the "spell" for a moment--it's a nice, convienent literary gap that he can exploit.

Back to the enchantment--it would be interesting to tie some of this "long age" with other stories--I believe that this was done with Conan (tha' Politician...) and others (that I am not familiar with). Also interesting would be to link (as mentioned before) Noah and his ancestors to the Dunedain, in a post-Dunedain dominated timeline--Minas Tirith is dust (not even rubble), as is all the other Dunedainic Cities/Sites. Maybe the claim that the Easterlings were "growing" was no idle comment by Denethor--breeding like "rabbits", fighting over seemingly limited resources, moving like nomads and eventually "squatting" on the outlying territories of the western realms. In time, this encroachment would increase, pushing back the old realms further west--draining them of resources (including fighting men), until there was no trace of them (other than a "shadowy" memory in the minds of the "squatters") except for the occasional family group or clan, that has somehow escaped the "bitter end"--and cling onto their ancient traditions as a "blanket" against the cold and dark eastern wind blowing through their existence.

Actually, there are a huge series of events that may take longer than 6000+ years (solar years) to adequately explain. Some things come to mind--what happened to all the other sentient beings (Elves, Ents, Dwarves, Drugs, Hobbits, Beornings, Orcs and their ilk, and anyone else not Genus Homo)? Did the Elves flee west to Valinor--or were some too stubborn and fought for their "homes" to the bitter end? The rest, didn't have the "out" that the Elves had--presumably they diminished with the influx of migration or were "run over" by it. I can see the Ents, Drugs and Hobbits "butchered" for their land or resources by maurauding hordes looking for those very resources to survive themselves. The Dwarves may have held out longer--moving further west till they finally "die out". Maybe this is the cause of the "flood"--Eru has had enough--and, boom, the flood arrives--with Eru sparing only those who still remain faithful to Him. I take the "multiple" Noah approach, myself; one needs more than 8 people to repopulate the earth...how many cultures have "flood" stories with their own survivor group? Extrapolate the numbers and see where it leads.

Needless to say, the Fourth Age looks very grim indeed.

[ecthelion]

I would think that the fall of Numenor is the flood.
And that the mythical creatures began simply hiding more and more. Initially, they would have contact with humans, which would account for our legends of them.
And more, I think that the ages were counted really by Elves, so the counting really stops at the fourth. After that we have our own ages count... (all IMO alone)

[alhaQQ]

Tolkien turned history on it's head a bit with Numenor. He dated the "Atlantis" story much earlier than the "universal" flood, I believe. I know that he didn't reference the "flood" directly (maybe in his letters, not 100% sure about that). I think, as above, he could use the flood (if he continued the timeline to today) to cover up the "evidence" (convienently) of the "hidden" past.

I like trying to fit Tolkien's sub history into the "actual" timeline of pre-history. Unfortunately, genetics is pushing this date further into the past--at least 150,000 years--thanks to Mitochondrial Eve...our most recent common female ancestor. Working from memory about Hildorien, Tolkien states that there were many "humans" in the Vale of Murmenalda (forgive the spelling) that awoke--with no common ancestor (I assume); so it's difficult to reconcile these two events without some type of natural or man-made disaster to shrink human-kind down to a small number of survivors occupying a small piece of land in East Africa; this would push the date for Tolkien's world into the remote past. A possible reconstruction (off the top of my head):

Eru creates universe: 13-15 B. Yrs ago. (=Great Music?)

Eru causes our Solar System to condense from interstellar cloud of gas/dust. (~5 b. yrs ago.)

Solar System forms--coming of Valar (?) + Melkor (causes havoc, like Earth mk 1 colliding with large "mars" sized object--called Orpheus--creating Earth mk 2--btw, no flat earth. Earth/Arda rotates on axis with large moon, and very fast days, d=4hrs. Slowing gradually.)

Earth (Arda) evolves over 4.5 b. yrs. Spring of Arda (evolution of life) interspersed with more Melkor chaos (tectonic movement, volcanic activity, stellar collisions with comets and asteroids, etc.) causes Valar to flee to Valinor.

Hard to explain here--coming of the elves in twilight. Cannot stop Earth's rotation. (Have to ditch the flat Arda idea from the beginning, sorry.) Natural disaster (eg. Nuclear Winter, no good, too cold.) Weak link.

According to some sources doing the math of Valar years--solar years, the inverval between the creation of the two trees and the first sunrise was ~15000 solar years, and within that time--the elves and dwarves arose at some point.

"First sunrise" (hard to fathom or explain, but ok), Men awake.

Three ages: around 6400 years or so. Fourth age: unknown length. (for fun, say 3000 years or so) So, 4 ages=10,000 years.

M.Eve--c. 140000 BC (lower estimate)+unknown time frame for decay (let's give it 3000 yrs) +4 ages (10000 years)+15000 years (2 trees)= close to 170,000 BC for all this noise to begin (with the two trees). That means we have to find a suitable disaster around 145,000 BC to reduce men and kill off all the rest and one before 170,000 BC to explain the necessity of the two trees--one that doesn't violate nature (eg. earth's roundness or orbit or clouding up the sky.)

There's a bunch left off here--archaeological evidence, mainly.

Anyone care to embellish?

[ecthelion]

I don't know how to comment on all, but definitely the earth was not always round. You cannot fully connect the mythos with scientific so called knowledge. Some things you have to take on faith. Some things (like early human bones) cannot be fit into JRR's world.
I think history can be fit into it, however.

[Olmer]

Very interesting! Thanks for posting.
You can't write out the probability of another civilization that has existed on the earth millions years ago. Considering that if we will count our planet existence as 365 days, then the development of a contemporary Homo sapiens took only 4 minutes before the end of the year.
I wouldn't be so presumtious on insistence that nothing similar, like birth and death of human race, has not happened before.
Our science is too young to assume that we know everything about Earth's past.
Very probably we are not the descendants of monkey (thank you, Darvin, for a stupidiest and never proved, but widely accepted idea), but a remnants of more higher civilization, and if you'll look around, you will find another singposts of the diminished Arda.
How real is Tolkien's world?

About your attempt to fit the history of ME into the history of the Earth...On some site about global warming has been mentioned that 8200 years ago has been an unusual splash of epidemics, famine and change of climate.
8200 it's approximately 6200 b.c.
So by Tolkien's calendar it's 1700 г. 3 .A. (+/-100 years)
And in the "Tales of the Years" we see:
1636 г.: The Great Plague devastates Gondor and Arnor.

[nokom]

I always thought the fourth age would have lasted 'til the signing of the American constitution (Read it in Mallorn I think)

[Gwaimir Windgem]

Mallorn, sorry, what? I very, VERY highly doubt that the American system government would usher in a new Age.

[nokom]

Mallorn is the magazine of the Tolkien society. However, I think it could be true, since the signing was one of the most important events in history (Even for other countries). We are supposed to be in the sixth age if I am correct, the fith ending at the end of WWII