Editing Three-age system (section)

=== Unsound epochalism ===
In some cases criticism resulted in other, parallel three-age systems, such as the concepts expressed by [[Lewis Henry Morgan]] in ''[[Ancient Society]]'', based on [[ethnology]]. These disagreed with the metallic basis of epochization. The critic generally substituted his own definitions of epochs. [[Vere Gordon Childe]] said of the early cultural anthropologists:<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Childe |first1=V. Gordon |title=Foundations of social archaeology: selected writings of V. Gordon Childe |last2=Patterson |first2=Thomas Carl |last3=Orser |first3=Charles E. |publisher=AltaMira Press |year=2004 |location=Walnut Creek, California |page=173}}</ref><blockquote>Last century [[Herbert Spencer]], [[Lewis H. Morgan]] and [[Edward Tylor|Tylor]] propounded divergent schemes ... they arranged these in a logical order .... They assumed that the logical order was a temporal one.... The competing systems of Morgan and Tylor remained equally unverified – and incompatible – theories.</blockquote>
More recently, many archaeologists have questioned the validity of dividing time into epochs at all. For example, one recent critic, Graham Connah, describes the three-age system as "epochalism" and asserts:<ref name="Graham 2010 p.63">{{harvnb|Connah|2010|pp=62–63}}</ref><blockquote>So many archaeological writers have used this model for so long that for many readers it has taken on a reality of its own. In spite of the theoretical agonizing of the last half-century, epochalism is still alive and well ... Even in parts of the world where the model is still in common use, it needs to be accepted that, for example, there never was actually such a thing as 'the Bronze Age.'</blockquote>