Posted by pabbott on May 13, 2000 at 21:26:46
In Reply to: Population of M-e posted by Ban on May 13, 2000 at 15:04:26:
I suspect that a really good demographer could give you a pretty good answer, accurate say to within plus or minus 10 or 20 percent. To start the analysis we would have to assume that M-E approximates Western Europe in the Middle Ages as to size, climate, productive capacity and food growing technology. Assuming that most of the population of middle earth consumed an average 2000 calorie per day diet we could probably arrive at a figure for maximum population. We would then have to make allowances for the amount of land that was waste (uninhabited). Using the maps provided by Pauline Barnes that would be possible. There isn't much mention of animal husbandry in LOTR, so we could probably assume that most people ate a mostly vegetable diet. This is not to say that everybody was vegetarians or that Tolkien had any objections to eating meat, just that meat would appear to have been less common a part of the Middle Earth diet than is common in modern North America or Western Europe today. Adjustments might be made for size. Dwarves could probably get by on a smaller calorie intake than trolls for instance. One fly in the ointment would be the existance of exotic plants like the potato, which did not exist in pre-1500 Europe but is mentioned at least once by Tolkien I believe. I think that is what the Gaffer means by taters. Still, all in all, a plausible figure could probably be arrived at. Not that I am going to attempt to do so.
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