People in the Earthsea are not like standard people from fantasy worlds. Le Guin believes society and setting resembling the Middle Ages Europe are cliche. Thus, people of the Earthsea are mostly of red-brown skin color (they resemble Natie Americans), some of them have dark skin and straight black hair, some look like Europeans, but almost all of them have dark hair. Only Kargs look like people from northern Europe, with their blond hair and light skin.
People in Earthsea live in an era resembling early iron age. Bronze is still a common material for tools and weapons, iron is used rarely. The society of the Earthsea is in most part literate, they use a writing system based on "Hardic runes", which consists of at least hundreds of symbols.