Races of men and real world counterparts?

[doug*platypus]

Southrons and Easterlings were roughly (emphasis on roughly) based on Africans and Asians (Middle-eastern, etc.) respectively.

Finwe is right geographically speaking, but I don't see much evidence that any races of men in Middle-Earth had real world counterparts. Reading the descriptions of the Haradrim, they seem to be part Carthaginian, part Roman and part sub-Saharan African (maybe from one of the formerly great African kingdoms like Ethiopia). Their advanced armour, made of overlapping plates, would mean (in my uneducated opinion) that they couldn't be described only as African.

Similarly, the appearance of the Easterlings was, I thought, of rough, hairy blokes possibly like the Dunlendings. Although that might just be the impression I got. At any rate, if they were supposed to represent an Asiatic force like the Mongols, surely they would have had more cavalry and archers, rather than chariots and wains (whatever those are).

It seems to me that Tolkien took several ideas from existing cultures and used them to create the races of Middle-Earth, often relying more on his imagination than anything else. For one, I don't think there is a race in our world that has historically been taller than everybody else, as the Dúnedain were. The Dúnedain were a race of intelligent, fair and powerful men that had no parallel in our own world, especially since they adopted some of the characteristics of the Eldar.