 Because they awoke at the start of the Years of the Sun, long after the Elves, the elves called them the "afterborn", or in Quenya the "Atani", the "Second People".Like Elves, Men first awoke in the East of Middle-earth, spread all over the continent and developing a variety of cultures and ethnicities.Unlike Tolkien's elves, Men are mortal; when they die, they are released from Arda (Middle-earth) and depart to a world unknown even to the Valar (the gods).