come on, really? the historical record is clear that at the very least people at the time believed that rivendell was populated by elves, and the few surviving skeletons we can trace to its people are unique enough in uniform enough ways that it's at the very least possible they were elves. what, are you gonna tell me dwarves don't exist either? my roommate in my freshman year was from mickleburg and he was as dwarvish as they come.
and there's no evidence suggesting those family trees were tampered with, so we know for sure that if they weren't elves who were, if not immortal at least unusually long-lived, someone thought it was important for the people to believe they were.
we have surviving artifacts from the time, including some texts i haven't seen anyone claim were faked. admittedly, i'm not an expert, and i know translation attempts aren't necessarily 100% accurate right now, but they seem to indicate that at the time the people of gondor believed rivendell was full of elves.
i looked up the skeleton stuff, and apparently some people who i repsect think it might be a hoax, so i'll drop that bit. i'm not personally convinced elves exist or anything, i just don't think it's as ridiculous as you seem to
wait, are you claiming that we don't have anything surviving from the time period? because if that's the level of crank you are i think we should just drop the conversation. we have weapons and tools, we have surviving architecture (including some remarkably intact buildings in rivendell), we have clothes, there are plenty of corpses buried from the time, at my local museum you can see some carvings from a local village meant to ward off "orcs" and "goblins" (which were almost certainly racial slurs from the time, but given their ubiquity in use i'm using them here).
i'm not telling you where i live, but i will point out that you can visit the rivendell site yourself if you really want to (and you have the time and the money). it isn't closed to the public, and they have plenty of cool stuff there. i went on a trip there with my school in my junior year of high school, and it was a really cool experience.
come on, really? the historical record is clear that at the very least people at the time believed that rivendell was populated by elves, and the few surviving skeletons we can trace to its people are unique enough in uniform enough ways that it's at the very least possible they were elves. what, are you gonna tell me dwarves don't exist either? my roommate in my freshman year was from mickleburg and he was as dwarvish as they come.
and there's no evidence suggesting those family trees were tampered with, so we know for sure that if they weren't elves who were, if not immortal at least unusually long-lived, someone thought it was important for the people to believe they were.
there is no historical record beyond the obviously untrustworthy red book of westmarch. in translation, even!
they were just normal humans in rivendell, they pretended to be elves.
we have surviving artifacts from the time, including some texts i haven't seen anyone claim were faked. admittedly, i'm not an expert, and i know translation attempts aren't necessarily 100% accurate right now, but they seem to indicate that at the time the people of gondor believed rivendell was full of elves.
i looked up the skeleton stuff, and apparently some people who i repsect think it might be a hoax, so i'll drop that bit. i'm not personally convinced elves exist or anything, i just don't think it's as ridiculous as you seem to
what artifacts, lmao, is this a bit? be serious now.
wait, are you claiming that we don't have anything surviving from the time period? because if that's the level of crank you are i think we should just drop the conversation. we have weapons and tools, we have surviving architecture (including some remarkably intact buildings in rivendell), we have clothes, there are plenty of corpses buried from the time, at my local museum you can see some carvings from a local village meant to ward off "orcs" and "goblins" (which were almost certainly racial slurs from the time, but given their ubiquity in use i'm using them here).
the absolute delusion... pseudoscience at its finest.
where's this museum then, bielefeld?
i'm not telling you where i live, but i will point out that you can visit the rivendell site yourself if you really want to (and you have the time and the money). it isn't closed to the public, and they have plenty of cool stuff there. i went on a trip there with my school in my junior year of high school, and it was a really cool experience.