Fourth Age - Later Centuries

Later Centuries

Tolkien's writing does not provide information on more than the first few centuries of this age, so it is not known when it ended. It is stated that the Fourth Age was when Men became dominant and powerful in Middle-earth, and the Fading of the Elves began. As such, the Fourth Age marks the bridge from the fantastic fictional prehistory of earth to the real history. He notes elsewhere in The Silmarillion, however, that the Elves count their own dwindling from the time of the first rise of the Sun, and some epithets for the Sun by the Elves refer to it in that context.