It's in the anuad that man is descended from the "wandering ehlnofey" who settled and became the men of yokuda, atmora and akavir. So they are distinct and not originally from tamriel.

It also says that Nirn was originally one large continent with interspersed seas. It was only after the Ehlnofey wars that the land fell into the ocean, creating the separate continents.

also if nords where from akavir they most probaly would have some weapon/architecture influences from them?

#Notsureandnotveryloreknowledgable

Which can not be proven true or false, the Nords have a distinct culture, architecture, armor and god knows what else. Was this taken from Atmora? Did they just expand or did they invent something completely new? Logically speaking the earlier Nord settlements/weapons/armor should heavily resemble what people had on Atmora, perhaps with differences based on available material.

Its the RETURN because he came back after the night of tears with his companions too kick Falmer ass.

That doesn't mean that their from tamriel, but the newest Guide too the Empire says the beast men were the original inhabitants and no one else look at the Elsweyr segment.

The Pocket Guide(s) should be taken with a grain of salt. Much Imperial bias and all that. . . (I really want a 4/5th edition though at some point).

Mostly true. It's more complicated than that thought.



Actually, that's completely untrue. The ingame books, chiefly the Anuad, the Songs of the Return, Yngol and the Sea Ghosts, and the various books about the dragon cult all paint a pretty clear picture of Nordic history. To review, lets go all the way to the Dawn Era and the Ehlnofey. Of the progenitor Ehlnofey, there were two groups, the Old (or the ancestors of the Mer, living the high life on what would later be known as Aldmeris) and the Wandering Ehlnofey, who would later become the races of Men. The myths speak of the Wandering Ehlnofey being overjoyed to find their kindred still living in Aldmeris. Unfortunately, the Old Ehlnofey considered the wanderers corrupt, and told them to get the hell out. The wanderers then dispersed over various areas, becoming the Redguards of Yokuda, the Atmorans or proto-Nords (remember, the Nordic national identity didn't start to coalesce until around king Haralds time, about 13 generations after Ysgramor), the Cyrodiilic native groups, and the Tsaesci of Akavir. The relevent elven legends that this time speak of "Aldmora" or the "Ancient Wood" being " lost" to the Wandering Ehlnofey, or men. At this point, Aldmora of the Elves becomes Atmora of Men.

Despite this, The Atmorans/Proto-Nords always maintained that the Throat of the World was the Genesis point of their Creation. This is attested to by several ingame books. One of them specifically mentions this fact as being why Ysgramor's original pre-Night of Tears Journey was thought of as a "Return" as well. Since the Atmorans believed the ToTW was their creation point, they had ancestral claim to the land. I can't remember the exact text that appeared in, but I'll look it up when I get home.


Fastforward to the Merethic Era. Atmora is wracked by civil war, which is probably also compounded by dramatic climate shifts, which Ysgramor was fleeing on his first journey. After Saarthal was sacked and Ysgramor returned to Atmora, he found the civil war ended and a realm of peace, but apparently the climate shifts were still well underway. Instead of staying in Atmora, Ysgramor made his second journey (which technically, would be be the "return of the return") with his 500 companions (minus one son and his ship and crew before they even hit shore). After they *mostly* cleared Skyrim out of the Mer, large scale immigration from Atmora to Skyrim began, which probably was still continuing until the Second Era. We know that the official Imperial biography of Tiber Septim is BS, but his scribes wouldn't have included that he was an immigrant from Atmora unless it was still a feasible proposition. We also know that the climate changes in Atmora would eventually have rendered it mostly uninhabitable. After all, in the ingame histories, Ysgramor orders his tomb placed on the shore, facing Atmora so that he may contemplate it's beauties "before the freezing took it". I suspect now that most of Atmora is a frozen, depopulated wasteland.

In short:
1) Nords believe they were created in Skyrim
2) for a variety of reasons, they relocated to Atmora. They probably displaced a pre-existing elven civilization there. An interesting theory is that the Snow Elves were the original inhabitants of Aldmora/Atmora ,being displaced to Skyrim by the early Atmoran humans, and then being displaced/eradicated again after humans returned to Skyrim.
3) After civil war breaks out in Atmora and the weather goes to crap, a process of migration from Atmora back to Skyrim again
4) The immigrant Atmorans form a new national identity as Nords.




EDIT:

From the Imperial Geographic Society:


I'm still sticking to my asserition that the immigration continued into the SE, however. The Geographic society has been proven to have a spotty record.

Atmora: a land frozen by neglect, man's exegesis from the body Lorkhan, or a future memory, distorted in retrieval?