Editing Three-age system (section)

=== 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).