Three Age System

The division of prehistory into the Stone Age, Bronze Age, and Iron Age, first proposed by the Danish archaeologist Christian Thomsen 1816–19. Subsequently, the Stone Age was subdivided into the Old (Palaeolithic) and the New (Neolithic). The Middle (Mesolithic) Stone Age was added even later, and the Copper (Chalcolithic) Age inserted between the New Stone Age and the Bronze Age.

The system was first published as a classification of Danish antiquities 1836. Thomsen's pupil Jens Worsaae pioneered the adoption of the system in Europe and added further subdivisions within each age. Although a valuable and valid classification system for prehistoric material, the Three Age System did not provide dates but a relative sequence of developmental stages, which were not necessarily followed in that order by different societies.

An evolutionary view of cultural development was first formulated by the Roman poet and philosopher Lucretius in his poem On the Nature of Things, in which he drew on classical writings for a theory on the increasing complexity of matter, with implements changing from those of stone and wood to bronze and iron.