Board Thread:Suggestions forum/@comment-26149161-20160212211558/@comment-26149161-20160214211428

I agree, there probably were various hamlets in Eriador. However, in the days of Arnor, there were not many locals besides Bree and the Shire between Eryn Vorn and the Coldfells. Arnor was unlike Gondor, and was composed of mainly Dunedain, no middle men involved. The death of the 300 soldiers at Gladden Fields severely lessened the population of Arnor, simply because the small population was all Numenorean. My thought is that there were some tiny, hidden Dunedain villages dotted around. They would be far from roads and with a small ranger force in the area to defend it. The Ranger government was in the Angle, but of course they held on ot the other lands as well, keeping a legal claim to Arnor by continuing to defend it. The Rangers were the only fighters really to maintain a presence, and because of their vigilance Bree was kept safe. The Breelanders, however, were content with their small farmlands (though doubtless they had expanded to more than just the four town over time) as were the Hobbits. Beyond the Shire was an empty land until Lindon was reached. The reasons the Breelanders and Hobbits did not expand was because

A: They were content with what they had,

B: Moving would have put them in unfamiliar lands, which they were afraid of,

C: They would have been in the lands where the Rangers patrolled, and therefore in the way of danger.

Therefore, we can assume they did not expand, because otherwise we are within the realm of the Uzi rule, which states Orcs could have used Uzi submachine guns simply because Tolkien didn't say they didn't. And also, the book mentions a place called the Forsaken Inn, a mile east of Bree. This seems to hint that this is the last vestige of civilisation before untamed wilderness, meaning there are no non-Dunedain settlements to the east.

And there were no other people that we know of in Eriador, excluding the Rangers, the woodsmen of Eryn Vorn, the fishers of Enedwaith, Elves, and Dunlendings. If there had been human villages west of the Shire (which I find unlikely, both because of  the proximity to the Elves and fact that various characters said the Rangers dwelt to the East, North, and South, but not west), they would have been mentioned due to the fact that they were near to the Shire and the Hobbits passed through the lands on the way to Mithlond.

Therefore, I think that to the north, east, and south (in decending order of frequency) of the Shire there should be rare Dunedain hamlets. Here would spawn Dunedain civilians and rangers to protect them. This would be both canon and realistic way to give the Dunedain homes to sustain their existance. Also, an Angle biome with a high Ranger spawnrate (ie. what the normal spawn rate in the Lone-Lands is right now) and many villages would fit as a Ranger homeland.