How Hobbits and Company Might really have existed

This is the first part of an article written by Michael Healy.
The rest of the article which discusses what is written in the Bible in conjunction with the existence of the beings of Middle Earth can be found Here

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Late in 1996, Justine Schmiesing and Dr. Holmes brought up some interesting points connected with the possibility of EXTRATERRESTRIAL LIFE IN THE CONCOURSE. In her article, Mrs. Schmiesing remarked in a footnote: "I regret to note that my theory rules out the possibility of the real existence of the inhabitants of Tolkien's Middle-Earth--elves, dwarves, hob-bits, and the like--but I see no way around it."

I am an avid Tolkien fan, with a knowledge of his works somewhat too intimate for my own good, so I knew that I would eventually have to reply to those words.

First of all, we must reject the idea that Tolkien conceived of Middle-Earth as another planet or as an inhabitable region at the core of this planet. The term "Middle-Earth" is a direct translation into English of Old Norse "Midgard." In Norse myth, which highly influenced Tolkien's writing, "Midgard" is the name given to this planet. Middle-Earth, therefore, is Earth in the distant past. This may or may not be apparent in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings but it becomes more and more obvious in Tolkien's lesser known works, such as The Silmarillion and The Book of Lost Tales. In fact, in The Book of Lost Tales Tolkien makes this plain as day by referring to England, Rome, Babylon--and even states that the fall of the Elvish city of Gondolin was more disastrous than the fall of Rome or Babylon! And, of course, the sinking of Numenor is comparable to all the myths of lost continents that we see even today--but particularly to the sinking of Atlantis. The Akallabeth could even be rewritten as Plato's account of the sinking of Atlantis if the names were changed and its first four pages cut and all references to the events of those pages cut or altered.

One may naturally ask, "If this is so, when did the events in Tolkien's books supposedly occur?" The answer can be deduced from Plato's dating of the sinking of Atlantis and Appendix B to The Return of the King." According to Plato, Solon learned on a visit to Egypt that Atlantis had sunk 9,000 years before their time. Solon lived in the late sixth century before Christ, so it seems that Atlantis is said to have sunk in roughly 9,500 B.C. This means that the year that Tolkien gives for the sinking of Numenor in Appendix B, S.A. 3319, is equivalent to the year 9,500 B.C. Using this as a starting point, one can accurately determine the equivalent year on the Gregorian calendar for any date in the Second and Third ages of Middle-Earth and can come to approximately equivalent years for the First Age of Middle-Earth. The War of the Ring can be dated, by this method, to 6,360-6,359 B.C.

Middle-Earth, therefore, exists. We're living on it. Therefore, the possibility of the existence of Tolkien's human characters is equal to the possibility of the existence of the non-historical characters in historical fiction or the heroes of mythology. But there is no reason why hobbits could not have existed either. How can I claim this? In the first part of the prologue to The Fellowship of the Ring Tolkien writes, "It is plain indeed that in spite of later estrangement Hobbits are relatives of ours: far nearer to us than Elves, or even than Dwarves." It seems to me that there can be only one interpretation of these words: whether he would state it directly or not, Tolkien conceived of the Hobbits as a race of pygmy human beings who happened to have hairy feet and live long lives--not as a distinct race like the Elves.

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