Bombadil's brooch

[Alcuin]

I don’t doubt that any of this would be correct if the forces of Angmar were given time to pursue those goals. I just don’t think that the sparse information that we are given concerning these events indicates that Angmar occupied Cardolan for any length of time: it looks more as if the army invaded, destroyed, and slaughtered everyone they found; in that case, the tombs were secure hiding places rather than long-term defensive works: if a few invaders entered a tomb to loot it, the people inside could kill them, and it is unlikely that the entire army fell to looting tombs: that could wait until later.

The material that we have been working with (Return of the King, “Appendix A”) says that Angmar also attacked Fornost (in post #30 in this thread, I erred by writing that “there is no mention of destruction in Arthedain”: it helps to reread everything thoroughly rather than glance over it). That indicates that the war-aim of Angmar was the complete destruction of all the Northern Dúnedain kingdoms; it was successful in destroying Rhudaur and crippling Cardolan, but not in the destruction of Arthedain.

As another argument for the destruction of the fortifications of Cardolan so that the barrows were hide-outs for some of the survivors, consider that in the penultimate northern war in the winter of III 1974-1975, most of the population of Arthedain was annihilated, so that Arthedain became a kingdom with a king but no people: the only way in which this plausibly could have been accomplished is if the inhabitants were caught and killed in a few places, which implies that the Dúnedain fortifications, especially Fornost Erain, fell during siege and the inhabitants and refuges inside were killed by invaders. In fact we know that Fornost was captured and the only surviving Dúnedain fled to Lindon in that last war of 1974-75.

Finally, the major battle in the war of 1409 before the defeat of Angmar at Fornost with the assistance of the Elves of Lindon and Lórien was the fall of Amon Sûl. We often think of Amon Sûl as a single tower, but Aragorn’s approach to the main ruins leading Frodo and his companions traveled along ruined works and partially concealed roads, indicating that Amon Sûl consisted not of a single tower but also of considerable defensive works around it. If Cardolan and Arthedain committed a significant part of their forces to this battle and lost, then the speed and ferocity of the advance of Angmar into Cardolan and then to Fornost can be explained: the only people who survived in Cardolan were those who hid in the tombs or fled into the forests. The text says that “a remnant” of the Dúnedain of Cardolan survived, indicating that the majority of them were killed.

[Raynor]

I am not sure how good are the tombs even for hiding. For one thing, how much food can you store in one and how safely? How many people do you put in one? The more you put in one, the more risked get caught at once; the more barrows you use, the more the risk of not properly deleting your prints around them. How do you move inside a barrow with so many metal objects around you, that can give you away in a second? And how safely can you use light to counter that? How well can you conceal the presence of humans, with all the food and other scents giving them away? Let us remember that orcs have very good trackers among them, who can literally sniff their opponents around, as we see in The land of shadow, RotK. Are the barrow doors sealed shut? And if they are, how much air is in them? How do you safely communicate that danger has passed or that it is still around? The ones inside are basically sitting ducks, waiting to be found, while they have little if any idea of what is going on in their surroundings. All in all, the using, in and of itself, of a tomb to hid in from enemies has a _lot_ of downsides; not to mention that it implies a profanation of what is, arguably the most sacred place in Middle-Earth for them (perhaps only the gondorians would consider the hallow of Mindoluin to be of similar importance). Hiding in the forest, if that is the only purpose, provides better means of cloaking, it also allows for mobility, communication, gathering of food, attack and retreat, etc.

Concerning the possible fortifications in the barrows, there are also many possibilities: they already existed, they were reinforced in the original manner or with palisades, trenches or whatever other more or less primitive means or these means were just made there. [IIRC, the saying that more wars have been won with the shovel than with the sword has been attributed to Caesar.]