Religions > Atheism > Stone, Bronze & Iron - The Three Age System (helped store things in the museum & by chance fit the historical reality)
| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"Immortalist" |
| Date: |
19 Nov 2006 11:59:48 AM |
| Object: |
Stone, Bronze & Iron - The Three Age System (helped store things in the museum & by chance fit the historical reality) |
Christian J=FCrgensen Thomsen (1788-1865) was a Danish archaeologist.
Although he lacked academic training, in 1816 he was appointed head of
'antiquarian' collections which later developed into the National
Museum of Denmark in Copenhagen. It was while classifying the
antiquities that he proposed the three-age system, for which he is
remembered internationally.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_J%C3%BCrgensen_Thomsen
..=2E.Thomsen wrestled with the problem of trying to order the museum's
collection of artifacts, gathered on expeditions throughout the world.
His passion, fueled by his predecessor Rasmus Nyerup, led to the
creation of the three-age system of chronology which continues to
plague graduate students to this day.
Thomsen sorted out the artifacts
by class of material--Stone,
Bronze, and Iron--and believed
(rightly) that they were in
chronological order.
His belief was tested in the ground by archaeologist J.A.A. Worsaae.
http://archaeology.about.com/od/archaeologistst/g/thomsencj.htm
His tripartite scheme brought the first semblance of order to
prehistory and formed the basis for chronological schemes...
http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9072198/Christian-Jurgensen-Thomsen
The three-age system refers to the periodization of 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.
Its formal introduction is attributed to the Dane Christian J=FCrgensen
Thomsen in the 1820s in order to classify artifacts in the collection
which later became the National Museum of Denmark.
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.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-age_system
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