Three-age system
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The three-age system is a system of classifying human prehistory into three consecutive time periods, named for their respective predominant tool-making technologies:
- The Stone Age
- The Bronze Age
- The Iron Age
The system is most apt in describing the progression of European society, although it has been used to describe other histories as well. The system has been criticised for being too technologically determinist.
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Origin
Its formal introduction is attributed to the Dane Christian Jürgensen Thomsen in the 1820s in order to classify artefacts in the collection which later became the National Museum of Denmark. Thomsen was not the first to use tool-making materials as a basis for classifying prehistoric societies; the Frenchman Nicholas Mahudel had proposed a similar system in the early eighteenth century and the idea gathered supporters in the intervening hundred years.
Thomsen and his predecessors argued that nobody would have used stone tools if bronze ones had been available and that similarly, no one would have wanted to use bronze tools if there had been iron ones around instead. Reasoning that the advances must therefore have come in chronological sequence, he suggested this as a workable basis for dating artefacts and sites. Such a system was revolutionary and a vast improvement on the disorganised nature of previous prehistoric archaeology.
Divisions
In 1865 the Stone Age in Eurasia was first divided into the Palaeolithic and the Neolithic after John Lubbock's use of the terms in his book, Prehistoric Times and further subdivisions were introduced to divide all the ages into early, mid or late (or lower, middle and upper in the case of the Palaeolithic) sections. Amongst African archaeologists, the terms Early Stone Age, Middle Stone Age and Late Stone Age are preferred. There are also the Mesolithic and Epipaleolithic periods between the Palaeolithic and Neolithic in some regions although these were not widely recognised until the 1930s.
In some cultures, archaeological evidence has made it necessary to add a Copper Age period between the Neolithic and the Bronze Age. The term Megalithic does not refer to a period of time and merely describes the use of large stones by ancient peoples from any period.
Dating
Advances made in the fields of seriation, typology, stratification and the associative dating of artefacts and features permitted even greater refinement of the system. However, because no precise numerical date could be given to finds using the three age system, they could only be placed in a relative sequence. Elaborate efforts were often made to align European and Near Eastern sequences with the datable chronology of Ancient Egypt; but more direct and convincing scientific dating methods such as carbon dating were not invented until the mid twentieth century.
Difficulties
The three age system has been difficult to apply fully outside Europe where it was devised. Some societies skipped some of the stages or never developed them when their societies didn't need them. Amazonian tribes in South America remain in the Neolithic for example, while there was no Bronze Age south of the Sahara; technological innovation progressed from stone to iron working.
It also soon became apparent that the switches from one age to another did not happen quickly or decisively. Flint tools remained in use in a limited fashion into the Iron Age in Europe and early metal items often appear in what should technically be the Neolithic.
Using the three-age system to measure the advancement of societies is often quite inaccurate, as some developments have appeared in different societies at vastly differing stages of their development. For example, Classic Period Mayan society had mathematics and astronomy that rivaled early renaissance Europe, but were still technically a stone age culture. The Inca had no system of writing as we know it, but had metalworking starting in 1500 BC. The Japanese had pottery as early as 10,000 BC but did not begin bronze work or rice farming until 1000 to 500 BC.
Although the three age system has been rendered less and less accurate by modern archaeological discoveries, it still remains the bedrock of prehistoric archaeology as the terms have become ingrained in people's minds, including those of archaeologists. Their clarity and explicability mean that the field and the long periods of time involved in prehistoric archaeology can also be more easily conveyed to the public.
Derivative ages
The practice of using a single material or product to characterise a period in human history has also been applied outside of the field of archaeology. The expression oil age has been used to describe the twentieth and early twenty first centuries, the development of mass air travel heralded the arrival of the jet age whilst the term silicon age has been used to refer to the recent dominance of computers in people's lives. The discovery of thousands of carved jades in the Liangzhu region of Ancient China was described at the time as representing a "Jade Age" previous to the Bronze Age [1]). The material in question was a high-status one rather than being common currency and stone age would be a more generally descriptive term for the period.
See also
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Three-age system: Stone Age | Bronze Age | Iron Age |
el:Σύστημα τριών εποχών fr:Âges préhistoriques he:מערכת שלוש התקופות no:treperiodesystemet sv:Treperiodsystem