Prehistory and Protohistory in India and Pakistan c4.s23: Three Ages

Prehistory and Protohistory in India and Pakistan c4.s23

Language: English

Three Ages

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In spite of several fundamental changes, in the Three Age conception, the basic idea has remained, viz. that originally man did not know copper or iron, and used implements of stone alone. Then came the knowledge of copper and still later of iron.

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However, it was never maintained by THOMSEN or his pupil WORSAAE that the concept of the Three Ages implied a straight forward evolution or development from one technological stage to another. They were aware of the breaks in development, as well as of the causes, such as invasion, diffusion of new ideas and migration of people which might have brought about new knowledge of copper and iron. It was NILSSON who declared the exact role of prehistoric archaeology. "It demonstrated that " he said, "notwithstanding apparent or partial retrogression the human race was constantly undergoing a gradual and progressive development."

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Prehistory thus is a study of man's material (as well as moral and spiritual) progress. And these Scandinavian scholars were not merely content with the formulation of the Three Age theory: they stressed the need for accurate description and classification of antiquities and the value of tradition and comparative methods in the interpretation of the use of antiquities.

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This enabled NILSSON to distinguish four stages in the development of man: (1) The Savage Stage (2) Huntsman or Nomad (3) Agriculturist (4) Civilization (on the basis of coined money, writing and the division of labour). Herein we find the seeds of the later development in the conception of the Three Ages by anthropologists and archaeologists and students of human geography. NILSSON did not equate the subsistence classification of man with the ages of stone, bronze and iron.

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Enough was done by THOMSEN, WORSAAE and NILSSON to chalk out the road on which prehistoric archaeology was to proceed. Subsequent scholars by splitting up the Stone Age into Palaeolithic, Mesolithic and Neolithic, and dividing still further the first into two or three periods, as knowledge grew, or redefining the Three Age concept as technological stages and associating with each stage the economic and social status of man, have merely incorporated the new ideas which have dominated the world since the Russian Revolution. Even the great interest in Denmark's past, WORSAAE attributed to the French Revolution, for, "with a greater respect for the political rights of the people, there awakened in the nations themselves a deeper interest in their own history, language and nationality."

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First the prehistorians had to expand the Three Ages into Four: Palaeolithic, Neolithic, Copper and Iron. Later, as discovery followed discovery, the first was split up into three sub-divisions: Lower Palaeolithic, Middle Palaeolithic and Upper Palaeolithic and so also others. The initiator was Lord AVEBURY (formerly Sir JOHN LUBBOCK). His lead was followed by LARTET, de MORTILLET and MONTELIUS and the various chronological frameworks of prehistory so developed were adopted by the leading writers, until drastic changes were proposed by the Abbe BREUIL. LARTET for the first time put forward a classification of archaeological material from the various French caves on the palaeontological data. He thus respectively distinguished four periods according to the occurrence of such animals as the Bison, the Reindeer, the Wooly Mammoth and the Cave Bear.