Talk:Three-age system

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[edit] Pre-history

It doesn't seem quite correct to say that these three ages divide human pre-history, given that part of the bronze age and all of the iron age took place in historical times.

Ordinary Person (talk) 09:36, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] End date

I wonder, should we put an end date to the iron age in different cultures, and add things like "Industrial age" and "Information age", and possibly others? It feels weird to think that we are still living in the iron age. Although iron is obviously the most widely used metal, metalworks just isn't that important anymore. Maybe "Plastics age" would be even more descriptive. UnHoly 17:17, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)

This article is about the archaeological three age system so adding a fourth and fifth age wouldn't make sense. It was developed as a system for putting prehistoric artefacts in chronological sequence and isn't necessary for the historical period where we already have descriptive names and matching articles on them. The end dates for the iron age in different regions are being covered in Iron Age. adamsan 21:02, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)
That makes sense! Thanks. UnHoly 20:46, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Some Dates Please

I am a casual reader, not a historian. I would like to see specific dates ranges. If they vary from culture to culture then at least give the date ranges for quite a few of the cultures: Mesopotamian, European, Mesoamerican, etc. If necessary give various ranges suggested by various authorities.


207.195.254.46 16:46, 3 December 2006 (UTC)Curious ==

[edit] more on dates please

The given URL "List of archaeological periods" is the kind of thing I have in mind--but confined to the three age system.

[edit] Jade Age

The discovery of thousands of carved jades in the Liangzhu region of Ancient China lends support for a "Jade Age" previous to the Bronze Age [1]).

I have problems with this for the following reasons:

  • The article linked talks only about high status items items being made from jade, suggesting it was not the "predominant tool making technology"
  • Jade is a type of stone, so are flint, chert and the other stones used during the Stone Age, so why are we making a distinction for China?
  • The three age system falls apart more and more the further away you get from Europe and I imagine Chinese archaeology has a different system of dividing up prehistory anyway.

adamsan 15:33, 4 September 2005 (UTC)

You make some valid points. I would say that since "jade age" is a term used by some, it is just as valid to include as "copper age" as an example of exceptions or variations on the 3 age system. When do we get a new age, anyhow? Is this the oil age, or the silicon age? Nuclear age perhaps? Sam Spade 22:02, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

Sure, it is used by some and gets a healthy 11,000 Google hits. I suppose I am concerned that its use is more down to journalistic exuberance than being based on sound archaeology. I still don't think it conforms to the definition of the other prehistoric ages, copper age included, as jade does not seem to have been a predominant tool-making material in China and is really just another type of polished stone. I am aware of Jadeite axes being traded in Neolithic Europe for example as just one mineral in use in the time. In response to your other question, as I responded to another user above, the three age system was about bringing order to the nascent study of prehistory, archaeologists are able to use historic terms for later periods and so it is not necessary for them to extrapolate and use the predominate tool-making material to name recent periods in this way. Uses of terms like Jet Age or Silicon Age do get Google hits but archaeologists tend to use more prosaic terms like post-medieval, industrial or the even duller "modern". adamsan 22:20, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

I don't dispute that the term is more used by the media and less by western archaeologists. If you want to say its not used often amongst western archaeologists, I wouldn't disagree, but I think the mention should stay, its on topic, verifiable, and as you point out, its rather easy to find instances of its use. Sam Spade 02:46, 17 September 2005 (UTC)

Would you accept putting it in a separate section detailing the various other Ages discussed in the media (and possibly elsewhere) but which archaeologists wouldn't include in the three age system? Eg Jet Age, Oil Age etc? adamsan 10:04, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

That sounds like a rather good idea. Sam Spade 23:30, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

Isnt the whole point to developing a three-age system to make it easier to understand human history? If so, then wouldnt the inclusion of other ages make it less transparent for casual readers, and harder to understand? The reason why people read articles here is to get a better sense of things they want to know, not to debate symantics. It stands to reason then, in all parts of science, that using the lowest common denominator as an explanation yields much more understanding than creating some vast, complicated system to compartmentalize every minute detail. As far as jade goes, it stands to reason, that since it is a stone, the stone age would already cover the manipulation of jade into tools. It serves very little purpose to argue over whether it gets its own age or not. copper doesnt really need an age in itself either, since it is a relatively soft metal that can be manipulated by crude fires, unlike iron which needs forges, bellows and coal. bronze was the first discovered, and given that bronze and copper are similar, just call it the bronze age and understand that other metals were also used. It is less about the stones, or metals themselves, but more about what level of technology was needed to fashion them into useable instruments. bryanwales 16:48, June 10 2007.

I don't think the Jade Age, or the Copper Age, are meant as alternatives to the Stone Age. I think they're subdivisions of the Stone Age. So they aren't exceptions to, or variations of, the 3 age system. And I don't think the oil age, silicon age, and nuclear age are as legitimate as the older ages. Our view of our own time period will probably be very different than the view of our time period that people will have thousands of years from now. But it doesn't matter, since the oil age, silicon age, and nuclear age don't apply to this article, since this is only about prehistory. - Shaheenjim 16:32, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Christian_Jürgensen_Thomsen actually concieved his Three-Age System (or rather his Three-Period System) as a Four-Age System in which the fourth age was historical time. But as Shaheenjim rightly points out, this is not relevant, as this article is only concerned with prehistory. Archaeotronic 13:54, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Slaves

When were slaves first used?Sleigh 18:54, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Why do you ask? - Shaheenjim 02:35, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] This classification ignores that we speak about different people

It should be made clear in the article that this classification does not describe the evolution of a society, but several societies, that have replace others. Paleolithic could mean neanderthals, while neolithic could mean homo-sapiens, Most of the prehistory is not our history, but the history of our 'cousins'.

  • For clarification sake, according to science as it is generally recognized, "neolithic" ONLY refers to homo-sapien sapiens... Prehistory refers to our ancestors, not our "cousins." Prehistory (which is a debunked term at this point) refers to your and my predecessor lineage... Stevenmitchell 07:15, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Missing information

The more generalized "three-age system" (savagery, barbarism, civilization) developed by Lewis H. Morgan. This was very important in the history of anthropology, and is still of some (though reduced) relevance today.--Pharos 17:37, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

That sounds like it should be a separate page, and there can be a disambiguation page with links to this page and that other page. I nominate you to write the other page. - Shaheenjim 02:32, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Which one are we in now, BTW?Tildesaur 16:38, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

  • In answer to the above question about which time period we are in now, the Three-Age system is not applicable - hence its archaic quality... It provided an understanding 150 years ago, but times have changed and much information has been accumulated that renders this usage inapplicable. Stevenmitchell 09:56, 8 October 2007 (UTC)
Well folks I have not been over this in detail yet but I can tell you right now that if you are going to argue that the three ages- stone, bronze, iron - are archaic, passe, unsuitable, what have you - you might as well go howl on the steppes with whatever wolves are available still. This system here replaced Morgan, who was never very popular to start with, and is so worked into the scholarship it would require a major dark age to get it out and all the books to be burned and all the scholars executed. I can't even imagine what you might say would replace it. That reminds me, I left Morgan hanging a while back. First of all, I have not seen anyone for a very long time attempt to find modern names for modern times that would continue this system. It is generally agreed the growth of technology is accelerating at an increasing rate so by the time you found a proper name for some of it both would be obsolete. We can pretty much figure the iron age ended with the fall of Rome unless there might be some isolated cultures in remote parts of the earth who followed the traditional development for a while. Usually that development is abrogated by intrusions, a popular topic. What are we in now? What indeed, wouldn't most of us like to know! Now, if you take a substantial look at Morgan, you will find that his understanding of the past, like that of Hegel, suffers from a deficit of all the study done on those topics from then until now. In fact I was laughing so hard reading Hegel that I just threw the book down as of no interest any longer. You might just as well read a comic book. These people are only of interest for their general approach and philosophy then pioneering. Morgan was still taken seriously by socialist anthropologists prior to WWII but subsequently got dropped totally except for such reverent lip service as yours just now. Take a look at his language - you couldn't use that racist stuff today. So if you please, no more here about Morgan. This is the appropriate topic and it is generally appropriately written although needing some clean-up.Dave (talk) 18:34, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Notice of deletion of some information

FYI, I deleted part of this article about Thomsen, the guy who came up with the Three-age system. The part of the article I deleted said:

"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."

I'm not sure, but I think his argument was not entirely true, and is misleading, and that's why I deleted it. Some iron tools (specifically, steel ones) are superior to bronze tools. But I think most of the iron tools in the iron age were made from wrought iron, which is inferior to bronze. Most people think they switched just because iron was more common, and therefore cheaper, than bronze. See the Iron Age page, which I also recently updated, for more information. - Shaheenjim 22:41, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

But we are here to cover the history of the theory, as well as its current state (if it has indeed evolved on this point). We shouldn't omit this historical aspect just because it may be incorrect, just like we don't omit Pluto#Incorrect_prediction. By the way, if you have a definite source that goes against Thomsen's theory, that should definitely be added to the article.--Pharos 17:26, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Three-Age System is Archaic

Aside from the archaic nature of dating using this system originating from the early 19th century, there are also discrepancies of its meaning within Wikipedia itself. The article, List of time periods lists it as the Paleolithic, Neolithic and Bronze-Age, while this article refers to it as subdivisions of the Holocene. None of those transitions are very useful to students of linear time as it is an obsolete reference lacking cohesion. Although, this article is of historical importance and relevance to modern categorization of human chronology, there should be a reference here to it's obsolescence as I have been taught collegiately in the disciplines of both history and archeology. Stevenmitchell 07:22, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

I changed Wikipedia's article List of time periods to make it consistent with this article. Thanks for pointing out that it was inconsistent.
I'm not sure what you mean when you say that the transitions in this article lack cohesion. Shaheenjim 20:18, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Three-Age System Has become a Four Age system

The Information Age has arrived: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_age - 138.180.194.3

The Three-Age System is for classifying human pre-history. It doesn't apply to the historical period, and the Information Age is part of the historical period. - Shaheenjim (talk) 00:40, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Belief Systems and Archeological Evidence

I have edited out the statement "belief in the afterlife starts forming in the Upper Palaeolithic" that appeared in the table. We really don't know when belief in the afterlife began -- only that evidence for this belief first appears in this period. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ross Fraser (talk • contribs) 02:14, 12 November 2007 (UTC)