When did the hobbit (book, j.r.r. tolkien) take place? (BC/AD?)?

Question

When did the hobbit (book, j.r.r. tolkien) take place? (BC/AD?)?

Answer 1

Well, you could argue that it didn't take place in either era, because Middle-earth was a separate world, and therefore their society could be far more or less advanced than ours is today. Therefore, you can't place a time on it.

However, Tolkien implied that Middle-Earth was Earth, or at least a metaphor of some sort for Earth, in one of his books (I don't know if it was LOTR, The Silmarillion, or what) near the end, when discussing how the elves sailed off into the west, but the men sailed around to the east and eventually came back to where they started. So, if you're going on the Middle-Earth is Earth theory, you'd have to put it before recorded history, or before 10,000 BC, to be safe. If you try to get scientific, you'd want to go millions of years back, all the way back to Pangea, as no landforms like mentioned in the book have existed on earth during recorded history.

However, if you're looking for the level of technology and all, it's hard. Middle-Earth is like a mishmash of medieval cultures - Elves were based strongly on Welsh and Celtic cultures, Rohan was like feudal England, Gondor was more like the Roman empire, or various fragment thereof at times, Hobbiton was like a rural, germanic society that hadn't been absorbed into a larger empire of sorts yet, and so on. In any case, the technology and cultures are roughly around 1000-1200 AD.  

Answer 2

Middle-earth is supposed to be our world thousands and thousands of years ago,long before the events in the Bible for example,so it is impossible to give an actual date.

Answer 3

it doesn't take place in our world so you cannot give it a date on our calendar....

Answer 4

Neither - it took place "between the dawn of Færie and the Dominion of Men".  Its a piece of fiction in a fictional world during a fictional time.....