Editing Chalcolithic (section)

==Terminology==
{{see also|List of archaeological periods}}
The multiple names result from multiple definitions of the period. Originally, the term [[Bronze Age]] meant that either copper or bronze was being used as the chief hard substance for the manufacture of tools and weapons. Ancient writers, who provided the essential cultural references for educated people during the 19th&nbsp;century, used the same name for both copper- and bronze-using ages.<ref name=Pearce-2019>{{cite journal |last=Pearce |first=Mark |date=2019-09-01 |title=The 'Copper Age' – a history of the concept |journal=Journal of World Prehistory |language=en |volume=32 |issue=3 |pages=229–250 |issn=1573-7802 |doi=10.1007/s10963-019-09134-z |doi-access=free}}</ref>

The concept of the Copper Age was put forward by Hungarian scientist [[Ferenc Pulszky]] in the 1870s, when, on the basis of the significant number of large copper objects unearthed within the [[Carpathian Basin]], he suggested that the previous threefold division of the [[Prehistory|Prehistoric Age]] – the [[Stone Age|Stone]], Bronze and [[Iron Age]]s – should be further divided with the introduction of the Copper Age.

In 1881, [[John Evans (archaeologist)|John Evans]] recognized that use of copper often preceded the use of bronze, and distinguished between a ''transitional Copper Age'' and the ''Bronze Age proper''. He did not include the transitional period in the Bronze Age, but described it separately from the customary stone / bronze / iron system, at the Bronze Age's beginning. He did not, however, present it as a fourth age but chose to retain the [[three-age system|tripartite system]].<ref name=Pearce-2019/>

In 1884, [[Gaetano Chierici]], perhaps following the lead of Evans, renamed it in Italian as the ''eneo-litica'', or "bronze–stone" transition. The phrase was never intended to mean that the period was the only one in which both bronze and stone were used. The Copper Age features the use of copper, excluding bronze; moreover, stone continued to be used throughout both the Bronze Age and the [[Iron Age]]. The part ''-litica'' simply names the Stone Age as the point from which the transition began and is not another ''-lithic'' age.<ref name=Pearce-2019/>

Subsequently, British scholars used either Evans's "Copper Age" or the term "Eneolithic" (or Æneolithic), a translation of Chierici's ''eneo-litica''. After several years, a number of complaints appeared in the literature that "Eneolithic" seemed to the untrained eye to be produced from ''e-neolithic'', "outside the Neolithic", clearly not a definitive characterization of the Copper Age. Around 1900, many writers began to substitute ''Chalcolithic'' for Eneolithic, to avoid the false segmentation. The term chalcolithic is a combination of two words- Chalco+Lithic, derived from the Greek words "khalkos" meaning "copper", and "líthos" meaning "stone".

But "chalcolithic" could also mislead: For readers unfamiliar with the Italian language, ''chalcolithic'' seemed to suggest another ''-lithic'' age, paradoxically part of the [[Stone Age]] despite the use of copper. Today, ''Copper Age'', ''Eneolithic'', and ''Chalcolithic'' are used synonymously{{efn|
Middle Eastern archaeologists use "Chalcolithic" regularly, whereas the literature of European archaeology generally avoids the use of "Chalcolithic": The term "Copper Age" is preferred for Western Europe, "Eneolithic" for Eastern Europe. "Chalcolithic" is not generally used by British prehistorians, who disagree as to whether it is appropriate in the British context.<ref>{{cite book |editor-first1=Michael&nbsp;J. |editor-last1=Allen |editor-first2=Julie |editor-last2=Gardiner |editor-first3=Alison |editor-last3=Sheridan |year=2012 |title=Is There a British Chalcolithic?: People, place, and polity in the later third millennium |publisher=Oxbow books |series=Prehistoric Society Research Papers |volume=4 |isbn=9781842174968}} — {{cite web |title=Abstracted |website=Oxbow books website |url=http://www.oxbowbooks.com/oxbow/is-there-a-british-chalcolithic.html |url-status=dead <!-- presumed --> |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130521140950/http://www.oxbowbooks.com/oxbow/is-there-a-british-chalcolithic.html |archive-date=2013-05-21}}</ref> }} to mean Evans's original definition of Copper Age.{{citation needed|date=June 2015}}