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> This implies that metal objects were the principal features of these times, when they are simply often the most visible and long-lasting remnants. I'm not an

by janpot 7y ago

> This implies that metal objects were the principal features of these times, when they are simply often the most visible and long-lasting remnants. I'm not an archeologist so I probably lack a lot of context, but I assume metal requires more advanced technology to acquire. It seems kind of logical to me to name a period after its most advanced technology.

mrob 7y ago
I don't think metals technology was significantly more advanced than textiles technology. Turning plants into good quality fabrics is a complicated process with non-obvious steps. E.g. retting (controlled partial rotting of plants to aid removal of the bast fibers) is IMO something non-intuitive, just like smelting of metals. But textiles technology gave only small incremental improvements with each step. Plant-based fabrics were more convenient than animal skins, but they weren't something fundamentally new. Metals however could be used to make things completely impossible with older technologies, so they're a better candidate for naming time periods.
- bluGill 7y ago
  I don't think so. Retting isn't obvious, but it isn't hard to imagine that someone encountered some material that wasn't preserved and it rotted in the right way. This could be accidentally finding it, or storing some for latter processing and then dieing - only latter was the cache discovered and used.
  - ncmncm 7y ago
    It is one thing for somebody to notice and use such fibers, and completely another for the practice to become part of the material culture. Archaeology is concerned with the latter. How a practice entered the material culture is an interesting detail.
jcranmer 7y ago
How do you define "advanced"? It's not always clear. For example, bronze metallurgy is easier to achieve (it requires lower temperatures) than iron metallurgy. But bronze is, for many use cases, a superior technology to iron. So is iron or bronze "more advanced technology"? It's also easy to underestimate the difficulty in mundane technologies. Take bread for instance; this is how you make bread: Grow a grass (cereal crop). Separate the seeds, dry them, and then shell them to get your grains. Now grind it into flour, and then mix it with water, fat, and salt. Let it sit out to grow a yeast infection. Stick it in a fire, and then you get bread. Compare this to typical metalworking: Find the appropriate ore. Stick it in a fire. Depending on the metal, let it melt completely and pour it into a sand cast, or get it red-hot and then bang on it with a hammer. The popular conception of technology often hews towards a Civilization-style technology tree model, but the consensus of historians and anthropologists in modern times is that this model is quite far from the truth, and that trying to impose that model on what we know of history unnecessarily limits our understanding.
- whatshisface 7y ago
  >So is iron or bronze "more advanced technology"? Iron. Advancement doesn't mean "overall quality," it means difficulty and sophistication, including the sophistication and difficulty of the necessary supply chain. A computer is a more advanced technology than a shovel, even though if you need to dig a hole the computer would be useless. That's the definition of advanced. Bronze is not easy to make, but iron is more difficult, requiring better furnaces. Given access to the right raw materials, any civilization that can make iron can make bronze but not the other way around. >Find the appropriate ore. Stick it in a fire. Open fires aren't hot enough to melt any but the softest metals, like tin. Building fires required to reach metallurgical temperatures is a very difficult task whose know-how evolved slowly over millennia.
  - Sharlin 7y ago
    > Given access to the right raw materials, any civilization that can make iron can make bronze but not the other way around. However, in a sense the spread of bronzemaking required a more advanced society and intercultural trade because rich deposits of copper and tin ore can be located thousands of kilometers from each other. Most of the tin used by the Mediterraneans was imported from Britain. > Open fires aren't hot enough to melt any but the softest metals, like tin. Extracting metal from an ore (smelting) does not in general involve melting temperatures, and neither does working the metal into tools.
goto11 7y ago
The periods are named after the characteristic material of the finds. It is not really about "most advanced", it is about what have been preserved. Lots of iron tools/weapons are preserved from the iron age, lots of bronze tools/weapons have been preserved from the bronze age. The division is from the 1820's and based on the finds available at the time. Of course today we have much better tools (like carbon dating) but the basic division is still valid. There is no "pottery age" because pottery is known through the ages, but specific characteristics of pottery is indeed used to subdivide the periods and cultures - Funnelbeaker culture, Linear Pottery culture etc. To suggest that pottery have been ignored by archeologists is absurdly ignorant.
chewz 7y ago
> but I assume metal requires more advanced technology to acquir Anyone can make a crude knife. Try making a cotton scarf. We are taking textiles for granted (as in t-shirts and fast fashion) but until XIX century for hundreds of years nothing could match Indian cotton fabrics which were used as mean of exchange in all over Asia. https://artsandculture.google.com/exhibit/indian-textiles-nature-making-victoria-and-albert-museum/4wISOUQuPAXOJw?hl=en https://artsandculture.google.com/exhibit/indian-textiles-na... https://medium.com/@noopurshalini/textiles-of-india-d9f5e5310dc6 https://medium.com/@noopurshalini/textiles-of-india-d9f5e531...

by janpot 7y ago

mrob 7y ago

I don't think metals technology was significantly more advanced than textiles technology. Turning plants into good quality fabrics is a complicated process with non-obvious steps. E.g. retting (controlled partial rotting of plants to aid removal of the bast fibers) is IMO something non-intuitive, just like smelting of metals. But textiles technology gave only small incremental improvements with each step. Plant-based fabrics were more convenient than animal skins, but they weren't something fundamentally new. Metals however could be used to make things completely impossible with older technologies, so they're a better candidate for naming time periods.

bluGill 7y ago
I don't think so. Retting isn't obvious, but it isn't hard to imagine that someone encountered some material that wasn't preserved and it rotted in the right way. This could be accidentally finding it, or storing some for latter processing and then dieing - only latter was the cache discovered and used.
- ncmncm 7y ago
  It is one thing for somebody to notice and use such fibers, and completely another for the practice to become part of the material culture. Archaeology is concerned with the latter. How a practice entered the material culture is an interesting detail.

jcranmer 7y ago

How do you define "advanced"? It's not always clear. For example, bronze metallurgy is easier to achieve (it requires lower temperatures) than iron metallurgy. But bronze is, for many use cases, a superior technology to iron. So is iron or bronze "more advanced technology"? It's also easy to underestimate the difficulty in mundane technologies. Take bread for instance; this is how you make bread: Grow a grass (cereal crop). Separate the seeds, dry them, and then shell them to get your grains. Now grind it into flour, and then mix it with water, fat, and salt. Let it sit out to grow a yeast infection. Stick it in a fire, and then you get bread. Compare this to typical metalworking: Find the appropriate ore. Stick it in a fire. Depending on the metal, let it melt completely and pour it into a sand cast, or get it red-hot and then bang on it with a hammer. The popular conception of technology often hews towards a Civilization-style technology tree model, but the consensus of historians and anthropologists in modern times is that this model is quite far from the truth, and that trying to impose that model on what we know of history unnecessarily limits our understanding.

whatshisface 7y ago
>So is iron or bronze "more advanced technology"? Iron. Advancement doesn't mean "overall quality," it means difficulty and sophistication, including the sophistication and difficulty of the necessary supply chain. A computer is a more advanced technology than a shovel, even though if you need to dig a hole the computer would be useless. That's the definition of advanced. Bronze is not easy to make, but iron is more difficult, requiring better furnaces. Given access to the right raw materials, any civilization that can make iron can make bronze but not the other way around. >Find the appropriate ore. Stick it in a fire. Open fires aren't hot enough to melt any but the softest metals, like tin. Building fires required to reach metallurgical temperatures is a very difficult task whose know-how evolved slowly over millennia.
- Sharlin 7y ago
  > Given access to the right raw materials, any civilization that can make iron can make bronze but not the other way around. However, in a sense the spread of bronzemaking required a more advanced society and intercultural trade because rich deposits of copper and tin ore can be located thousands of kilometers from each other. Most of the tin used by the Mediterraneans was imported from Britain. > Open fires aren't hot enough to melt any but the softest metals, like tin. Extracting metal from an ore (smelting) does not in general involve melting temperatures, and neither does working the metal into tools.

goto11 7y ago

The periods are named after the characteristic material of the finds. It is not really about "most advanced", it is about what have been preserved. Lots of iron tools/weapons are preserved from the iron age, lots of bronze tools/weapons have been preserved from the bronze age. The division is from the 1820's and based on the finds available at the time. Of course today we have much better tools (like carbon dating) but the basic division is still valid. There is no "pottery age" because pottery is known through the ages, but specific characteristics of pottery is indeed used to subdivide the periods and cultures - Funnelbeaker culture, Linear Pottery culture etc. To suggest that pottery have been ignored by archeologists is absurdly ignorant.

chewz 7y ago

> but I assume metal requires more advanced technology to acquir Anyone can make a crude knife. Try making a cotton scarf. We are taking textiles for granted (as in t-shirts and fast fashion) but until XIX century for hundreds of years nothing could match Indian cotton fabrics which were used as mean of exchange in all over Asia. https://artsandculture.google.com/exhibit/indian-textiles-nature-making-victoria-and-albert-museum/4wISOUQuPAXOJw?hl=en https://artsandculture.google.com/exhibit/indian-textiles-na... https://medium.com/@noopurshalini/textiles-of-india-d9f5e5310dc6 https://medium.com/@noopurshalini/textiles-of-india-d9f5e531...