Editing Three-age system (section)

== Bronze Age subdivisions ==
Danish archaeology took the lead in defining the Bronze Age, with little of the controversy surrounding the Stone Age. British archaeologists patterned their own excavations after those of the Danish, which they followed avidly in the media. References to the Bronze Age in British excavation reports began in the 1820s contemporaneously with the new system being promulgated by C. J. Thomsen. Mention of the Early and Late Bronze Age began in the 1860s following the bipartite definitions of Worsaae.

=== The tripartite system of Sir John Evans ===
In 1874 at the [[Stockholm]] meeting of the [[International Congress of Anthropology and Prehistoric Archaeology]], a suggestion was made by A. Bertrand that no distinct age of bronze had existed, that the bronze artifacts discovered were really part of the Iron Age. [[Hans Hildebrand]] in refutation pointed to two Bronze Ages and a transitional period in Scandinavia. [[John Evans (archaeologist)|John Evans]] denied any defect of continuity between the two and asserted there were three Bronze Ages, "the early, middle and late Bronze Age".<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Howorth |first=H. H. |year=1875 |title=Report of the Stockholm Meeting of the International Congress of Anthropology and Prehistoric Archaeology |journal=Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland |location=London |publisher=AIGBI |volume=IV |pages=354–355}}</ref>

His view for the Stone Age, following Lubbock, was quite different, denying, in ''The Ancient Stone Implements'', any concept of a Middle Stone Age. In his 1881 parallel work, ''The Ancient Bronze Implements'', he affirmed and further defined the three periods, strangely enough recusing himself from his previous terminology, Early, Middle and Late Bronze Age (the current forms) in favor of "an earlier and later stage"<ref>{{harvnb|Evans|1881|p=456}}</ref> and "middle".<ref>{{harvnb|Evans|1881|p=410}}</ref> He uses Bronze Age, Bronze Period, Bronze-using Period and Bronze Civilization interchangeably. Apparently Evans was sensitive of what had gone before, retaining the terminology of the bipartite system while proposing a tripartite one. After stating a catalogue of types of bronze implements he defines his system:<ref>{{harvnb|Evans|1881|p=474}}</ref><blockquote>The Bronze Age of Britain may, therefore, be regarded as an aggregate of three stages: the first, that characterized by the flat or slightly flanged celts, and the knife-daggers ... the second, that characterized by the more heavy dagger-blades and the flanged celts and tanged spear-heads or daggers, ... and the third, by palstaves and socketed celts and the many forms of tools and weapons, ... It is in this third stage that the bronze sword and the true socketed spear-head first make their advent.</blockquote>

=== Copper Age or Chalcolithic ===
In chapter 1 of his work, Evans proposes for the first time a transitional [[Copper Age]] between the [[Neolithic]] and the [[Bronze Age]]. He adduces evidence from far-flung places such as China and the Americas to show that the smelting of copper universally preceded alloying with [[tin]] to make bronze. He does not know how to classify this fourth age. On the one hand he distinguishes it from the Bronze Age. On the other hand, he includes it:<ref>{{harvnb|Evans|1881|p=2}}</ref><blockquote>In thus speaking of a bronze-using period I by no means wish to exclude the possible use of copper unalloyed with tin.</blockquote>

Evans goes into considerable detail tracing references to the metals in classical literature: Latin ''aer, aeris'' and Greek ''{{lang|grc-Latn|chalkós}}'' first for "copper" and then for "bronze". He does not mention the adjective of ''aes'', which is ''aēneus'', nor is he interested in formulating New Latin words for the Copper Age, which is good enough for him and many English authors from then on. He offers literary proof that bronze had been in use before iron and copper before bronze.<ref>{{harvnb|Evans|1881|loc=Chapter 1}}</ref>

In 1884 the center of archaeological interest shifted to Italy with the excavation of Remedello and the discovery of the [[Remedello culture]] by Gaetano Chierici. According to his 1886 biographers, [[Luigi Pigorini]] and Pellegrino Strobel, Chierici devised the term Età Eneo-litica to describe the archaeological context of his findings, which he believed were the remains of [[Pelasgians]], or people that preceded Greek and Latin speakers in the Mediterranean. The age (Età) was:<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Pigorini |first1=Luigi |title=Gaetano Chierici e la paletnologia italiana |last2=Strobel |first2=Pellegrino |publisher=Luigi Battei |year=1886 |location=Parma |page=84 |language=it}}</ref><blockquote>A period of transition from the age of stone to that of bronze (periodo di transizione dall'età della pietra a quella del bronzo)</blockquote>
Whether intentional or not, the definition was the same as Evans', except that Chierici was adding a term to New Latin. He describes the transition by stating the beginning (litica, or Stone Age) and the ending (eneo-, or Bronze Age); in English, "the stone-to-bronze period". Shortly after, "Eneolithic" or "Aeneolithic" began turning up in scholarly English as a synonym for "Copper Age". Sir John's own son, [[Arthur Evans]], beginning to come into his own as an archaeologist and already studying Cretan civilization, refers in 1895 to some clay figures of "aeneolithic date" (quotes his).