The descent of the Middle Peoples was rather more involved than this simple diagram can show. For more on this subject, see the entry for Northmen.
In the great battle at the end of the First Age, most of the land west of the Blue Mountains was covered by the Sea. Most of the Edain who remained at that time set sail into the West, where they founded the island kingdom of Númenor, but some remained behind and passed back eastwards over the mountains. These people - mainly those of the golden-haired People of Hador - would give rise to a branch of Men known as the Middle Men or Middle Peoples. Though they came from the same original stock as the Dúnedain, they never travelled to Númenor or gained the special gifts of the Númenóreans. Their main descendants in later Ages were the Northmen and their kin, including the Rohirrim.
Notes
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I 310 was the date that Bëor crossed the Blue Mountains into Beleriand, and thus sowed the seeds that would bring the Edain into existence. As the Middle Peoples were Men defined by their relation to the Edain, so Bëor's action also defined their beginnings as a group. Of course, this distinction only really makes sense from a historical perspective. At the time, there would have been no specific group that could be identified as 'Middle Peoples', and indeed that term represents a disparate category covering numerous peoples with various different lines of descent.
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- Updated 28 July 2021
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