Archaeological Ages as Technological Stages Author(s): V.

Gordon Childe Source: The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, Vol. 74, No. 1/2 (1944), pp. 7-24 Published by: Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2844291 . Accessed: 10/03/2014 09:08
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ARCHAROLOGICAL AGES AS TECHNOLOGICAL Huxley lUemorialLecturefor 1944

STAGES

By PROFESSORV. GORDONCHILDE, D.LITT., D.Sc., F.B.A., F.S.A., F.R.A.I.

SYNCHRONY AND HoMOTAXIS

In his PresidentialAddress of 1862 Huxley' warned the Geological Society against a facile assumption that the several epochs, defined by palkeontological species and genera,were necessarilycontemporary all over the world when measured against a time scale provided by extra-terrestrial phenomena. The same assemblages of fossils did demonstrably follow one another in the same order all over the globe. It did not follow that they must everywhere occupy the same positions if aligned according to the series of solar years. To express their mutual relations he suggested some term like ' homotaxis ' instead of 'synchrony.' His warningmighteven more appositely have been addressed to the anthropologistsof his generation, and his adjective, homotaxial, will be helpfultoday. 'On the corner-stone laid by Thomsen, archeologists have been engaged in building up a series "f Ages, definedlike geological eras, by assemblages of fossils. But theirfossilsare tools, those extra-corporeal organs by the improvementof which human societies have progressivelyenlarged their capacities for survival. The distinctiveassemblages of tools have been shown stratigraphicallyto follow one another in the same order whereverthey occur. But the archaeologist is fortunatein having to hand independent time scales with which to compare each local sequence. So he has come reluctantlyout of dire confusionto realise that his Ages are in fact not everywhere contemporary; they are just homotaxial and mighttherefore more legitimatelybe called Stages. Nevertheless,historical time as opposed to mere succession does enter into the archseologist's conception. Suppose a tool or group of tools, traditionally assigned to one Stage while not being the 'ttype that Stage, turn up at a point fossil' differentiating in historical(cosmic) time earlierthan the first appearance of the type fossil anywhere. Then the tool or to the pregroup will be automatically transferred vious Stage, howeverlong it may persistin succeeding Stages. Thus the polished stone celt, appearing in Boreal Europe before the firsthint of plant-cultivais perceptible in the archseotion or stock-breeding logical record from that or any other region, must ipso facto surrenderits privileged place in the Neolithic Stage if that be definedby " Food Production."
Essays, Vol. VIII. 1 Collected

Secondly, the several Stages were Ages too in the sense that there were periods of cosmic time in which each Stage did represent the highest technological level hithertoattained by any human society. If, for instance,the BritishNeolithic be only a Stage because contemporarywith the Bronze Stage of the Orient, the Neolithic of Fayum-Merimdeor Tell Hassuna is more, being absolutely older than any Bronze Age. It is, I take it, just this that gives the archaeological by Ages or Stages sonie claim to anthroclassification pological value and scientificsignificance. It is to elaborathis claim I wish to turntoday, since a further tion of Huxley's warningis by now superfluous. For the classification of his museum specimens Thomsen fastened upon precise 'and easily recognizable criteriawhich thus satisfiedone requirementfor classification.The Ages definedthereby any scientific withinwhich a more coherent did give a scaffolding structure could be, and has been, reared. In the has been enlargedand patched process the scaffolding up, but the main outlines of the frameremain. As a chronologicalframeworkit is admittedly shaky and no longer indispensable. But has this classification value for the science of man ? no further purportsto sustain,a series of conOur scaffolding secutive stages in technological development,in the classievolutionofforcesofproduction. Archaeological ficationhas in fact isolated this one factorin human progress. Here I venture not so much an appraisal of the factor thus isolated, as a critical evaluation of the traditionaldivisions; forthese have been assailed no less than the chronologicaluse of the scheme. To illustrate the argument I choose the Bronze of just this Stage advisedly, for it is the,significance stage that has been specially,challenged in the last couple of years by Dr. Daniel2 and T. A. Rickard3. contends,mainlyI suspect on the strength, The former diviof the British material, that a more significant sion would dissolve the 'Bronze Age,' relegating its earlier subdivisions to the New Stone Age as an ' eochalcic episode' and bracketingLate Bronze and Early Iron togetheras the Full Metallic Age. Rickard, would fuse Bronze and Iron together on the contrary, into one MetallurgicAge. Fortunately,too, the Bronze Stage is so well known that it is apt also to illustrate the relations of
2

3 A.J.A., Vol. XLVIII

The ThreeAges, Cambridge,1942. (1944), pp. 10-16.

A

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V. GORDON CHILDE

technologyto other aspects of culture. Moreoverit approximates more closely to a true Age than any earlierStage. Its upper and lower limitsare approximately definable in calendar dates. Nowhere did a Bronze Stage begin much before 3500 B.C., in no relevant area did it outlast A.D. 500, and only during the last 1500 years of those four millenniawere advanced societies in the Iron Stage contemporary with belated Bronze Stage communities.
THE TECHNICAL ACHIEVEMENTS OF THE STONE AGES

For an evaluation of the Bronze Age as a stage in human progressa recapitulation ofthe level of control over the environmentattained in previous Stages is indispensable. This control was of course achieved by the standardization of tools and the progressive differentiation of generalized all-purpose tools to fulfil more perfectly an ever-narrowingrange of specialized functions. Standardization of lithic types and of, techniques for their production is already conspicuousin the Lower Palaeolithic,but even in the Mousterian the differentiation of standard formsfor specificfunctionshad not proceeded far. But early in the Upper -Palaeolithic Homo sapiens had created specialized secondary and tertiarytools. With theiraid, supplementedby the inventionof new processes like, grinding and sawing, he acquired masteryover bone; antler and ivory. Before the end of the Pleistocene some societies at least were using single-edged knives, gravers, saws, spoke-shaves, borers, wedges,4mallets with handles,5awls, needles and naturally a paraphernalia of sinews, thongs, plaits and knots allowing of construction. By the same time the productivity of. the food-quest had been enhanced by light but efficient missiles, by the spear-throwerand the bow6 and by harpoons and gorgesforfishing. During the Mesolithicthe carpenter'skit was completed by the addition of the ground stone celt7 and other formsof axe, adze, gouge and chisel, mounted in suitable hafts.8 With their aid navigation may have been acceleratedby paddles, whileland transport was certainly simplifed in suitable areas by the invention of skis and sledges9 that may have been drawnby dogs. The food supply was further enlarged by the domesticationof dogs to help in the chase and

by the invention of the fish-hookand the net and, among the Natufians,of the straightsickle or reaping knife. Quite possibly the manufacture of pottery10 had begun. Finally, the Neolithic farmer,in cultivatingplants and breeding stock, ' harnessed powerful forces of Nature' and made 'biochemical mechanisms work has recentlyinsisted. To for him,' as Leslie White11 exploit this revolution the dibble and a hoe, sometimes stone-bladed, sickles and saddle querns were devised and gradually standardized. New techniques applied to stone-sawing and drillingwith abrasives'2 and improvedthe form of -lightened the manufacture celts and gave some societies rather fragileshaft-hole hoes or adzes and still less reliable axes. With such appliances Neolithic carpenters could make even and constructquite joints13 rough mortise-and-fenon complicated looms for weaving. There was no technical reason why they could not put together a wooden plough or set up a mast in a sailing-boat,but there is no positive evidence that they ever did.'4 Such were the accumulated technical resources, directlyrevealed in the archaeological record as being at the disposal of the most advanced societies before any of them acquired the controlof a new industrial material-copper and its alloys. The extent to which these resourceswere exploited varied widely between the several homotaxial societies. Only, as they occur in stratigraphicalsequences, such variations cannot be used fora stadial subdivision of the Neolithic, nor

10 If Westerby'sclaim to have found potteryin a Magle. mosean deposit in Zealand (Acta Arch., Vol. VIII, pp. 298-300) be sustained, as seems likely (Mathiassen, Sten1943, as i Aamosen, Nord. Fortidnsminder, aldersbopladser summarizedin J.S.G. U., Vol. XXXIII, 1942,p. 28), pottery will be absolutely older than any known Neolithic and in any case too old to have been borrowedfromany immigrant Neolithic farmers locally. Moreover it would be convenient to give stadial recognitionto the fact that pottery Europe and polishedstone celtsweremade widelyin northern of local food in contextsanteriorto the firstmanifestations production. Krichevski's view ('Mezolit i Neolit Evropy,' Kratkie Soobshcheniya, No. IV, pp. 1-12) that simple hoe to the sedentary -alternative cultivationwas a contenmporary thoughethnographically collectingof the known Mesolithic, documentation. plausible,still lacks archaeological 11 Amer.Anthr., Vol. XLV (1943), p. 341. 12 Drilling was of course used even in Upper Palaolithic, but thick blocks were perforatedby percussionstill in the Mesolithic. In the Danube valley and elsewherea hollow 4Antiquity, Vol. XVI (1942), Ipp. 259-261. 5 Of reindeerantler,fromMezin. drill was being used beforemetal was available, and in any 6 Pericot's discoveries at Parpallo (La Gueva del P., cf. case metal was so prized in the early Bronze Age that it would not have been used and consumedin making certainly Vol. XVIII, p. 31) have settled the Upper PaleAntiquity, enough, only stone tools. olithic age of this device, albeit, significantly p. 79. 13 E.g., at Niederwyl: Keller, Lake Dwellings, south of the Pyreneesand Alps. 14 Hatt (Landbrug i Danmarks Oldtid,p. 56) has effectSettlement 7 Clark, Mesolithic of NorthemEurope, p. 105; ively criticized the pollen-analystic dating of the Walle morefromKunda. 8 J.R.A.I., Vol. LXI. p. 325; Antiquity, Vol. XVI, plough. Vouga's ploughshares from the Lower Neolithic of L. Neuchatel (La Neolith. lacustreancienne, p. 28) are pp. 258ff, doubtful. S.M., Vol. XLI (1934), p. 11; Vol. XLII, p. 21.

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ArchcoloyicalAyes as Technological Stage8 forthat matter of previous Stages. Theoretically,for example, the Neolithic should have begun with a ' mixed economy,' in which plant-cultivation or animal husbandrywere subsidiaryto hunting,fishing and collecting. And this is just what the earliest Neolithic settlements in the Near East-Sialk I, Merimde, Fayum A-disclose. But Danubian I or the Lower Neolithic of Western Switzerland notoriously reveal just the opposite, whereas in Danubian III or Upper Neolithicwe seem to have a reversionto the 'mixed economy.'
MODAL DIFFERENCES IN THE UTILIZATION OF METAL

In the Bronze Stage such discrepancies cannot be ignored,if our purpose be to establish the general line of progress. Nor need they be. For the Stage's the industrial use of copper or bronze, differentia, entailed so much intercoursebetween distinct societies all over the known world, that chronological comparisons between the several local sequences can be established with far greater confidenceand precision than in preceding Stages. Throughout seveneighths of the time involved, some societies were keeping writtenrecords fromwhich a chronologyin terms of our reckoningcan be deduced. Intercourse between barbarian and literatesocieties permits,even for the former,approximations to calendar dates a good deal sharperthan anythinggeology,meteorology can yet offer. and palkeobotany As a material for tools, metal offers two kinds of advantages over stone, bone or wood. In the first place it is in some respects intrinsicallysuperior: tougher, susceptible of a finer edge, more durable. Secondly, as malleable and fusible,it can yield new kinds or genera of tools, and handier translationsof older forms-new species. It is 'hard to estimate, even for the output of an individual craftsman,how much energywas saved or how much accuracy added by replacing, say, a stone celt by a copper chisel. Yet Steensberg's'5experiments suggestthat the saving effected sickle into bronze by merelytranslatinga flint is considerablyless than mighthave been anticipated. From the standpoint of social productivityit would be still harder to evaluate any incrementof society's total output, having regardto the cost in social labour of extraction,manufactureand distribution. Against this would have to be set any economies, say in transportation by wheeled carts, that metal tools might indirectlyeffect. Doubtless part of the increase in social productivity made possible by improvementsin the instruments is due to the fact that, with such instruments,
Steensberg (Anci'ent Harvesting Implements, 1942, p. 23) has shown experimentallythat bronze sickles of Danish types could reap in 60-66 minuteswhat took 68-73 minuteswith theirflintprecursors.
15

amateurs can do jobs that only highlytrained experts could execute with inferiorequipment: 'Superior tools have partially done away with the tyrannyof the master-craftsman' of pre-European, Neolithic Samoa.16 In practice, however,this will hold good only if the superior tools be reasonably cheap; Margaret Mead is actually speaking of factory-made iron tools. In so far as bronze was fantastically costly,the superiority of metal crafttools mightjust as well have intensifiedthe ' tyranny' of the few craftsmenwho possessed them or, in class societies, of the priestlycorporations, landownersor merchants who alone had the capital to acquire metal at all. On the other hand, the formalimprovements-the new genera and species of tools-are tangible and can be enumerated. I might mention in the first categorycarpenters'saws, nails, clamps, and tweezers capable of growinginto small tongs; in "thesecond, reliable'7 shaft-hole axes, adzes and hammers, socketed chisels, adzes, gouges, axes, hammers and hoe blades, saddlers' knives, and so on. Looked at fromthe latter standpoint,the archaeological recorddiscloses that the extent to which metal was utilized at all in industryand the degree to which its advantages were exploited productively differed between various provinces and periods. surprisingly It is partly these differencesof mode that have promptedDaniel's proposal to dissolve the old Bronze Age. It will, however,appear that the several modes need be neither synchronousnor homotaxial in all provinces. For this reason I have rejected any term like ' phase ' in favour of the word ' mode.' We can, I suggest,profitably and legitimatelydistinguishfour modes in the use of copper and bronze, though we shall be able to relegate one to the 'Neolithic Stage,' When in 1876 Pulszky'8 proposed to introduce a Copper Age between the Neolithic and Bronze Ages, he had in mind the use of native copper as a curious sort of stone that could be shaped by bending and hammering as well as by chipping and grinding. Such a use of copper did not universally precede ' metallurgy' in RPckard'sl9 sense and was not demonstrably a necessary prelude thereto. In so far as its products were only small ornaments,or slavish copies of Neolithic forms,as in Badarian and Amratian or as Sialk I and II, the Copper Age has no significance a progressiveStage in technologicalevolution; it can be treated as a mere facies of the Neolithic. But in the Balkans and Hungary, and possibly also in Iran, even the cold hammeringof copper seems to have led
have been found broken across the shaft-holethat we must inferthey were extravagantlyfragile. 18 Congresinter. d'arch.etanthr., Buda-Pest, 1876,pp. 220ff. 19 Cf. Rickard,A.J.A., Vol. XLVIII, p. 15.
16 MargaretMead, ComingofAge in Samoa. 17 So many 'Neolithic' perforated axe-heads

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10

V. GORDON

CHILDE

to the creation of shaft-holeadzes or hoes, if not as mutant types, at least as the first translations of Neolithic or Mesolithic forms that could be used for choppingwood or breakingup soil and effectively rock.20 I propose therefore to retain Pulszky's 'Copper Stage,' but to emphasize its hmited significance and doubtful relevance to the main sequence by givingit zero numeration: Mode 0. Mode 1 will accordingly denote the sort of thing familiar from the 'Early Bronze Age' of Europe. Weapons and ornamentsare made from copper and its alloys, but no mutant tools and hardly any implements adapted exclusively to industrial use. On the otherhand, stone tools including celts are still made, and generally with as much care as in the Neolithic. In Mode 2, on the contrary,copper and bronze are regularlyused in handicraft,but not in husbandry, nor forrough work. The metal types include knives, saws, and specialized axes, adzes and chisels. On domestic sites, ground stone celts, flint blades and similarimplementsare still abundant. Mode 3 is distinguishedby the use of metal also in agricultureand for rough work. It is symbolized in the archaeologicalrecord positively by the production of metal sickles, hoe blades or even hammer heads and negativelyby a certaindecline in the lithic industry,but not by its complete suppression. To justify and clarifythis division, let me sketch the sequences stratigraphicallyestablished in three provinces. well documentedarchaoological

of needles: Annales du service,Vol. XXXIX (1939), pp. 428-434. 23 Petrie, TW, p. 40. 24 For what followssee esp. Klebs, " Die Reliefs des alten Reiches," Abh. Heidelberg.Akad., phil.-hist. KI., No. 3. Man, 1944,No. 75. But cf. Wainwright, 25 Cf. Lucas (Anc. Egyptian Materials, p. 166): " Egypt was an agriculturalcountry where the greater proportion of the people did not use copper" till the New Kingdom. I FIG. I.-COPrEPn SAWWITHWOODENHANDLE: IST DYNASTY, don't know why Emery calls some of the largeradzes (n. 22) MASTABA, SAQQAA. 1/7. "hoe-blades." 26 Somers Clark and Engelbach,Ancient (afterAnnales du Service) EgyptianMasonry (1930). Cf. Caton-Thompson,The Desert Fayum, Vol. I, in Sinai, p. 161. defineMode 0. By Gerzean times cast copper celts21 p. 104; Petrie,Researches 27 Wainwright, Vol. XVII (1943), p. 96; Vol. Antiquity, with a wide range of and midrib daggers,-coexisting XVIII, p. 100 ; Lucas, pp. 66, 209. 20 Cf. the axe and adze from Gabarevo, Childe Dawn ) 28 Klebs, " Die Reliefs des neuen Reiches " (Abh. HeidelNo. 9), p. 10. berg., ofEuropean Civilisation(1939), p. 124. 21 Frankfort, 29 Petrie, TW, p. 18, M39, reignof Rameses II; but cf. Studies,Vol. II, pp. 8 f.; Nature,Vol. CXXX Vol. I, p. 8-Dynasty IX! (1932), p. 625. Sedment,

superbly flaked flint artifacts, are symptomatic of attached Mode 1. But by Dynasty I22 the craftsmen to great estates were equipped with copper axe and adze blades, bare chisels, saws (see Fig. 1), bits, several kinds of knife, tweezers and needles. But wooden mallets23and stones held in the bare palm still served as hammerseven among metal-workers.24 Indeed the latter's equipmentwas rudimentary. His anvil was a stone cushioned on wood; cruciblesand hot metal he must hold between two stones, or with green withies in place of tongs (as in Fig. 2); in lieu of bellows, hapless assistants had to blow down reeds tipped with clay nozzles. No wonder ' the skin was like a crocodile's' ! As for metal-worker's the husbandman, his equipment was Neolithic: wooden plough, wooden hoe, curved wooden sickles armed with flint teeth (see Plate II, A), wooden rakes, and wooden mallets to break up the clods.25 While stout copper chisels and wedges were undoubtedly supplied to the employees of the royal the bulk of their labour was quarries and mines,26 tediously accomplished with stone mauls and flint of which is demonstratedby the picks, the fragility broken pieces lying about the sites in thousands. After the acquisition of an Asiatic empire under the New Kingdom metal was used more freely,and tin-bronzebegan to be employed at the same time as unalloyed copper.27 Even farmers sometimes had metal sickles28and perhaps metal blades for their hoes.29 The smith's labour was lightenedby a primioftweezers tive sortofbellows and by the enlargement into tongs capable of holdingsmall objects (see Fig. 4). THE MODAL SEQUENCE IN EGYPT But for liftingcruciblesa pair of pliant rods, presumEgypt illustrates all four modes. There we have ably of green wood, handled by two persons, were a long and exceptionally complete record of the use still required, while the stone hammer was held in of metal. It is enlivened by graphic pictures of the the naked palm as under the Old Kingdom. Indeed coppersmith at work and of other workers using, as late as 400 B.C. a coppersmithis depicted in the or not using, his products to prove the negative 22 In a mastaba of thisage Emeryrecently found68 knives, (see Fig. 2). In the Badarian and Amratian a few pins or harpoons hammered or cut out of copper 7 saws, 32 tweezers,79 chisels, 149 adze blades and.hundreds

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Archa3ological Ages as Technological Stalges

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31 Note that the West European daggers were cast, as at I ast one mould is known: Childe,Dawn, p. 213; Cas. V.S. Mus. Olomouci, Vol. XLI (1929), pl. xi.

tomb of Petosiris30still using this wrist-shattering In the formerarea alone did the Copper Stage procedure and the same inefficient tweezer-tongs (see bring forth the significantinnovations mentioned P1. II, B), almost two centuriesafterthe Attic smith above: axe-adzes, axe-hammersand the like. They had acquired the modern equipment familiar from have been stratigraphically assigned to their proper black-figured vases (see Fig. 12). horizon,the Bodrogkeresztur culture,beforethe Early Bronze Age of Toszeg and Perjamos, by Banner, THE MODAL SEQUENCE IN CIS-ALPINE EUROPE AND Csalgovics,Hillebrand, Roska and Tompa duringthe UPPER ITALY last decade.32 Round the copEper lodes of Slovakia, Affectionate study of the relics leftby our illiterate Transylvania and the Balkans such tools are surancestorshas yielded a record of the use of metal this prisingly numerous; away from the sourcesonlya few side of the Alps that is almost as complete as the have turnedup, in the westernUkraine, Silesia, SaxoEgyptian. But the pattern is different: Mode 2 is Thuringiaand Austria.33 Nowheredid theysupersede Mode 0 only in Hungary and a Neolithic equipment. nowheredistinguishable, perhaps Ireland; for the daggers of the Beaker folk In the succeedingEarly Bronze Age, metal-generare cast products of intelligentmetallurgy.31 ally tin-bronze-was worked,and workedintelligently, throughoutCentral Europe and in the British Isles. 30 Lefebvre,Le Tombeaude P&tosiris, p. 51, pls. vii, ix.
32 Hillebrand, Arch. Hung., Vol. IV, p. 49; B.R.G.K., Vol. XXIV-V, pp. 51-9. 33 Childe,Danube, p. 204.

Tompa.

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12

V. GORDON CHILDE

W.

'-S

Fi:G. 3.-CARPENTERS AND METAL-WORKERS: ToMB OF (after Newberry)

REKHMAJIE

But the only common industrial tools of metal are fayencebeads importedfromthe East Mediterranean, celts that could also serve as weapons; the only which are associated with its products.36 The Late Bronze Age presents a radical contrast. knives are knife-daggers.A fewhoards and stillfewer graves include, in addition, small and simple craft From hoards, and settlementstoo, come single- (or, tools like chisels (see Fig. 5) and tracers34, probably in the British Isles, double-) bladed knives unsuitable used primarilyby the metal-workers themselves. On for warlike use, sickles, new and mutant industrial celts and otherNeolithictypes are so tools, socketed gouges,37chisels,37 adzes,37axes, and domestic sites,35 tanged chisels, bits and rimers,39 and common that the "Age " of theiroccupation was mis- hammers,38 taken till the ceramic evidence was studied. Even the bronze-smithhimself continued to use largely 36 A.J.A., Vol. XLIV, pp. 23f. stone tools, the grooved hammer being perhaps his 37 These are foundalready in Reinecke D. invention. Whenever it began, this mode lasted at 38 Probably onlyfor metal-workers and best represented in least till 1400 B.C., on the evidence of the segmeented late (Larnaudian) hoards and foundaries: Carlton Rode,
24 Mar.yon, Ant. J., Vol. XVIII (1938), pp. 243-9.
25

Childe,ibid., pp. 273, 288; Schrainil, UBM, p. 107.

Evans, p. 181; Velem St. Vid (von Miske,pl. xxix, 1-4), etc. 39 Velem St. Vid (ibid.,no. 13; Bologna fondarie, Petrie, TW, p. 39.

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Archweological Ages as Technological Stages

13

FIG. 4.-METAL-WORKER

(after Newberry)

TTsrNGToNGs: ToMB oF REKiHMARE

saws.40 Many of these specialized tools seem to have been used only,or primarily, by smiths,and the latter were furtherequipped with small embossing anvils, and tweezersenlarged up to 28 cm. in lengthto files,41 serve as tongs.42 Minersin the Eastern Alps used gads with socketed bronze points, and sledge-hammers

48 M1ining, W.A.M., Vol. XLVII ( 1936),p. 482; ibid.,p. 650 (technique); Childe,P.C.B.I., p. 193. 40 Sophus Mullerthought 49 Velk'aDobra barrow,Schrainil, such woreused forcuttingaway p. 134. 50 In the Norththey may belonghere chronologically the jets frombronze castings: cf. Ebert, Real, s.v. Sage; and Grimes, Gtuide, p. 72; Chantre,Age du Bronze, pls. xxv, typologically: Kersten, 7ur alter. nord. Bronzezeit,p. 71, Vol. III, pl. cxxxii, etc. xliii; Hampel, Bronzkcor, formis inspiredby the Taf. VI, 6. Of coursethis Northern 41 Velem St. Vid (von Miske,pl. xxix); Larnaud (Chantre, socketedchiselsofbone which, in the Maglemosean, beginning pI. xliii) , Hallstatt; Bologna (Evans, p. 184), ete. were stillused in Passage Grave times in Denmark (Aarboger, 42 Heathery Burn Cave, Evans, p. 185. 1939, p. 26), and in Shetland in the Late Bronze Age (PS, 43 Kyrle, (Osterr. Vol. XVII, p. 1 (1918); p. 183). Kunsttopographie,

the less copy the shape of contemporarywooden mallets with a palheolithic pedigree. On domestic sites a comparative scarcity of stone celts and a certain decline of the flintwork must be connected with a more general replacement of stone by metal even for comparatively rough work. In Denmark, "' the Late Bronze Age dwelling-places show indeed that the old flint techniques surviveed in a simplified formand were applied to the production of certain common articles of daily use. The thick-buttedflintaxe itself persisted, but the metal celt was widely used, the most democratic product 45 Kiekebusch,Das bronzezeitl. Dorf,p. 76. of the Bronze Age."144 Nor was it onlyin the distant 46 Childe, Danube, p. 379; cf. p. 360: Rhenish urnfield North that the bronze celt failed to replace alto- culture. 47 Philippe, Fort Harrouard, pp. 47, 58, 70, 88, 104; gether the type fossil of the Neolithic Stage. The continued use of polished stone celts even in the L'Anthr.,Vol. XLVI (1936), p. 566.

with heavy bronzeheads (see Fig.

6),43

whichnone

Late Bronze Age has been emphasized by recent excavations on habitation sites: the Lausitz village of BIuch near Berlin,45east Hungarian tells,46Fort Harrouard in Normandy,47 and others. And Stone48 has revealed the continuance of flint-mining,and the wealth of that industry, in Late Bronze Age England. Such survivals in themselves weaken Daniel's contrast of the Late Bronze Age as a 'Full Metal Age ' with the ' eochalcic episode ' of Early Bronze; and this contrastitselfis much less sharp in Central Europe than in Britain. A real Middle Bronze Age, however brief and transitional, is discernible in the basins of the Po, Danube, Oder, Elbe, Rhine and Rhone. It witnessed a veritable extension of the industrial use of metal, but in the direction of Mode 3, not of Mode 2. If saws,49 socketed chisels,5 and embossing anvils,51appropriate to Mode 2, do

Andree,,Bergbau in der Vorzeit, 1922.

44

Brondsted,Danmarks Oldtid,Vol. II, p. 258.

Porcieu-Amblagnieu (Isere), Dechelette,Vol. II, p. 173.

51 Nova

VeS, Velim, Schranil, p. 145;

Stocky, BAB, pl. xl;

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14

V. GORDON CHILDE nails,53 and clamps,54 from Kish, Lagash, Shuruppak

and Ur are obvious symptomsof Mode 2 at least. On the other hand, while stone celts were quite common in Gawra VI in Assyria55,and composite flint sickles, possibly merely ritual, were found in the Temple Oval at Khafaje,56 metal sickles were freelyused even in rural Gawra.57 There, too, the smith had perhaps already elongated tweezers into as efficient as, but of a tongs, 42 cm. in length,58 different form from, thoseused byNew Kingdomsmiths in Egypt a millenniumlater. Moreover, the celebrated 'transverse axe ' appears firstin Uruk times with a broad blade, more suitable for a hoe than an adze,59and reappears in the same formabout 1000 B.C. among barbarian mountaineersin Transcaucasia (see Fig. 7).6' Indeed, Deimel claimsthat a " spade or hoe, mentioned in texts of Urukagina's time, may well have had a metal blade,"61but his statementis not supported by the determinativesused in other texts. Still, it does look as if the use of metal approximated to Mode 3 in Sumer by the middle of the third millennium. In any case, in the sequel the archaeological record discloses no such multiplicationof metal tools and CHISELS: RADOTIN AND FIG. 5.-AuNJETITZ novel types as serve to distinguish Mode 3 from (after Schr6nil) KAM ?K, BOHEMIA. 1 or 2, elsewhere. No doubt the unilaterallywinged adze (see Fig. 8), traceable as far back as 1800 B.C. grewafter1500 B.C. intoa veritablesocketed emerge in this Middle Bronlze Age, sickles are still at least,62 while a hoe blade constructedon the celt (or chisel)63, more prominent,and they are taken as distinctive of Mode 3. Indeed, in Upper Italy Terremare II same principle is attested about the same time.64 But in view of the superior shaft-holetools current seems to use bronze fullyin the latter Mode. Moreover,the Late Bronze Age itselfcovers a long already in the previous millennium,we need not be in period of time, beginning and ending differently 13 E.g. forattachingthe tyresto chariotwheels: Langdon the several provinces and nowhere easy to date with and Watelin, Kish, Vol. IV, p. 33. any precision. As defined by the cut-and-thrust 54 Cf. Woolley, Ur Excavations,Vol. II, p. 64. 55 Speiser,pp. 85-6; no less than 29 from sword and the socketed axe, it should begin in this small level! "I OfP, Vol. LIII (Delougaz, The Temple Oval), pp. 30f. Central Europe soon after 1300 B.C., and deep mining 57 Speiser, pl. xlviii; cf. also Andrae,Die archd. Ischtarin the Eastern Alps cannot start much later. But Fig. 63 (Assur, G.); de Genouillac, Foouilles de tempel, the big hoards and 'foundaries ' that best illustrate Telloh, Vol. I (1934), p. 89; Vol. II, p. 92. Christian industrial equipment were mostly deposited in Hall- suggeststhat some of Woolley's " wroughtaxes " fromTUr, statt times nearer 700 B.C., while the Danish dwelling types S. 17-18, and one fromChagar Bazar, 5 (Iraq, Vol. III, whence came p. 27, Fig. 8, 3) should also be regardedas sickles. places and the Heathery Burn smithy,52 58 Speiser, p. 109, pl. li, a; Vol. XXV, p. 231. of. MDP., the sole European tongs of the Bronze Stage, may 59 At Susa, MDIP, Vol. XX, p. 104; Vol. XXV, p. 195, come down to as late as 400 B.C. illustrated Childe, NLMAE, Fig. 90. Cf. also the stone
.

copy from Gawra IX, Speiser, pl. xlii, 5, and the " herVol. 1, pl. xxiii, 8). minette" fromSialk III, 4 (Ghirshman, 60 Infra, App. B. 61 "Sumerische Tempelwirtschaft," Analecta Orientalia, A third pattern seems to be disclosed in MesoVol. II, p. 82; Gadd doubts his assertion: the only potamia, in so far as any sequence can be deduced determinative is that for wood, found with the instrument from the terribly incomplete record there. Till not formetal. Early Dynastic III, indeed, no inventoryof Sumerian 62 At Susa inseribed,Rev. d'Assyr., Vol. XXVII (1930), metal types can be attempted. But by 2500 B.C. pp. 187f. 63 Starr, Nuzi, p. 472,pl. cxxiv,H. The same development the many specialized chisels and saws, as well as of a socket is noticeable at Alishar; Gezer (Macalister, Vol. II, p. 85, Fig. 276); Gerar (Petrie, pl. xxiii, 14), etc., 52 Brondsted, Vol II, p. 152 ; iencken in P.R.I.A., and again South Russia (E.S.A., Vol. iii, p. 123). 64 Vol. XLVII (1942), C, pp. 26-7. Tell Sifr; of.Petrie, TW, p. 18.
EVIDENCE FROM MESOPOTAMIA

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Ages as Technological Stages Archoaological

FIG.

6.-WOODEN

MALLET,

;13BRONZE GAD POINTS AND HAMMElR HEAD MITTEBERG, AUSTRIA

,7;

GROOVED

STONE HAMMER,

misled by the formal parallelism with a type fossil I-V, Thermi,but also in the Hittite layers at Alishar and Boghaz-keui itself; and Schmidt66found more of Late Bronze Age Europe. celts in Hissar III, which is typologically 'Late LOCAL AND MODAL VARIETIES Bronze Age,' than in earliersettlements. Our method of approach inevitablymakes abstracAdditional sequences are tabulated in the appendix, of form which are nevertheless to illustrate the application of my scheme to other tion of differences regions from which data are available. Only a few historically significant. Notoriously even the reladeductions need be noted here. The copper saws tively simple artifactsproduced in Modes 1 and 2(see Fig. 9) and chisels, appearing rather surprisingly axes, chisels, daggers, tweezers, saws-assume easily That is equally true and among the crudely cast metal weapons and superbly recognizable local types.67 to Mode 3. of the new tools confined worked stone arms and implementsfromLos Millares, just as significant Carmona and Alcal'a65proclaimthe so-called ' Copper For example, a cursorysurvey would disclose eight Age' of Almeria, Andalusia and Algarve as truly or nine quite distinct types of sickle corresponding, has shown, to different methods of 'Bronze.' ,Hence the modal sequence in the Iberian, as Steensberg68 mounting and handling. Besides the four fundaas in the Balkan, peninsula would be Modes 0, 2, 3. On the other hand, in Asia Minor and probably mental types with local variants long recognized in northernIran Mode 3 followsdirectlyupon Mode 1; Europe69-Type 1, the south-west Alpine grooved as in cis-AlpineEurope and Upper Italy. In parti- sickle; Type II, the north Alpine button sickle; Type III, the Transylvanian hooked sickle; and cular, if Imperial Hittite metallurgybe homotaxialand almost synchronous-with the 'purer' facies of Type IV, the British and West Mediterranean Europe's Late Bronze Age (Reinecke D), the post- socketed sickle--, we could distinguishalso Type V, Hittite 'chalcosiderian' hoards and cemeteries of the Northern serrated crescenticsickle70; Type VI, Transcaucasia and Sialk present a strikingparallel the Aegean gentlycurved tanged sickle (see Fig. 14)71; to our 'Larnaudian' hoards and the Villanovan 66 Excavations at Tepe Hissar, 1931-3, p. 220. fondarie. Age, p. 24; NLMIAE, p. 295. 67 Childe,Bronze Everywhere the persistenceof a lithic technology, 68 Cf. also Antiquity, Vol. XVII, p. 197. 69 by Schmidt,ZfE., Vol. XXXVI, pp. 416 if; As classified side by side with the metallurgic,is as clear as in Egypt and cis-AlpineEurope. Thus, not to mention all70illustratedin my BronzeAge. pp. 74, 162. Steensberg, flint blades and sickle teeth, even polished stone 71 Differentiated by the very modest curvature of the celts survive not only in Early Helladic Greece, Troy blade: examples, Palaikastro (pl. xxv, G, H); Gournia
(Montelius,GP, pl. xvi); Acropolishoard (ibid., Fig. 491); All the daggersfromLos Millaresand at least one from Zygouries (p. 203);aTroy VI (Schliemann,Ilios, p. 604); Aleala' have been cast in one-piece (open-hearth) moulds; Enkomi foundary(with folded socket'to the tang), (Murray, notchestake the place of rivet holes. etc., Excavs. in Cyprus,no. 1483).
65

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16

V. GORDON CHILDE non-metallicprototypesare actually known. Type I may go back to the 'jaw-bone' form of wood and flint,as representedat Solferinoand in Egypt from Dynasty V onwards76; Type II perhaps to the Stenildtype. Type V is a translationofthe crescentie reaping flint sickle70 and Type VI of flint-armed knivessuch as are knownfromKaranovo, in Bulgaria,, and from Cueva de los Murcielagos, in southern Spain.77 The reversedcurveand bent tang ofType VII can alike be explained from the earliest dynastic wooden sickle-mounts(see Plate II, A) as recently found in the tomb of Hemaka,78 while the forward curve of Type VIII is no less clearly foreshadowed in the clay sickles of al'Ubaid age. Conversely, formal agreements between the new metal types may result from parallel translation of ,commonnon-metallictools, since such were current even in Bronze 3, or frompure convergence. Thus the formal pedigree of the bronze sledge-hammers,. (see Fig. 6) used by.Alpine minersand Cypriotesmiths can be traced back through a series of Egyptian wooden malletsto the Palaeolithic hammerofreindeer antler found at Mezin. On the other hand, theNorthern socketed chisel of bronze 'looks like a metallic version of the socketed chisel of bone which persisted from Maglemosean times in Denmark to the Passage Grave period, at least, and in Shetland right down to the Late Bronze Age itself.50 But the late Anatolian and Mesopotamian socketed chisels, almost certainlydeveloped fromunilaterallywinged implements, like that shown in Fig. 8, for their sockets are normally formed by folding, while, sockets Sumerian dart heads had been provided with, in this way duringthe IIIrd millennium.
E kisi dint-ma(?), Sf(it>f 1ITTTT

3~~~~~~~~~

FiG. 7.-i, 4, AXES; 3, 5, SICKLES; 6, 7, TRANSVERSE AxES . or HOES: HOARD FROM ZENITI (TRANSCAIUCASIA). (afterYessen)

Type VII, the Asiatic sickle with bent-overtang72; sickle73; Type VIII, the Mesopotamian narrow-tanged and perhaps Type IX, the tangless riveted sickle.74 Few, if any, of these can be derived from one another75;for some distinct,and presumiably earlier,

; +:

Pi:

72 The really distinctive feature is the, way the blade curves back from the tang rather than the latter's loop. The reliable specimens,in so far as dated, i.e., Tell Sifr; Nuzi (Starr,pl. cxxiv,E); Alalakh (J.H.S., Vol. LVI, 1936,p. 130); Ugarit (B.S.P.F., 1931, pp. 75 and 473; Syria, Vol. XVI, p. 143); Alishar (OIP, Vol. XXIX, Fig. 289); Boghaz-keui phil-hist. Abh.preuss.A.kad., KI., 1935,pl. xxi, 11); Troy VI; Vol. II, p. 19), seem later Sialk cemeteryA (CGhirshman, than 1500 B.c. The interpretationas sickles of earlier FIG. 8-UNILATERALLY SUSA. WINGED ADZE oR HOE objects fromUr and Chagar Bazar (note 57) is doubtful,as Revue d'As8yriologie) (after is an alleged specimenfromGournia. p. 83. 73 Andrae,Die Archdischen Ischtartempel, 74 Speiser, Gawra, pl. xlviii, 1. If the hole be really *designed to take a rivet the much later Siberian and east 76 L'Anthr.,Vol. XXIX (1918-19), pp. 395, 408. Russian sickles could be derived from it, as Steensberg 77 Antiquity,Vol. XIII (1939), p. 345; L'Anthr., Vol. suggests (p. 148), but Tallgren (E.S.A., Vol. XI, p. 115) XXIX, p. 412. regardsthese as prii ing knives. (Excavationsat Saqqara), 78 Emery, " Tomb of Ilemaka" 76 In particular I agree with Ghirshman(Sialk, Vol. II of p. 82) that Type III cannotbe derivedfrom p1. xv; the same form is representedin hieroglyphics VII; at Sialk III B. replaces VII in cemetery Dyn. III, but the " jawbone " type is depictedby Dyn. V.

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Stages Ages as Technological Archweological

17

FIG. 9.-COPPER

13LADES AND SAW: CHISEL, DAG#GE-R

ALCALA, iNO. III.

CHRONOLOGICALX ANILESOCIOLOGICAL

MIODES

IMPLICATIONS

OF

ores, must have been a decisive factor. But the available analyses imply that copper from sulphide ores was being used over a thousand years earlier,in In Egypt, on the contrary, ThermiV and Troy 1-I1.82 copper and tin were fruitsof Asiatic empire; and in Mesopotamia it remainsto be shown that the supplies and employmentof metal were appreciably extended at the crucial date. So the search has led to no result so far. definite do not of using metal here distinguished The mnodes follow one another in the same order everywhere. They are thereforenot homotaxial; nor are they systadial, in the economic-sociologicalhierarchy of Morgan and Engels. North of the Alps, Europeans were just as much illiterate barbarians in the Late Bronze Age (Mode 3) as in the Early Bronze Age (Mode 1). Using metal in Mode 2, the Egyptians were fully civilized and literate, the townsfolk of Troy or Early Helladic Greece illiterate, and the villagers of Portugal seem complete barbarians. Nevertheless the multiplication of craftsmen'stools Mode 2 is presumablythe archaeological distinguishing of an increased specializationin industry, counterpart from ' separationofhandicraft husbandry.' ofa further If so, the Bronze Stage communities of the west from Mediterranean,as of the east, would be further of the Stone Age, the hypothetical self-sufficiency on the road to economic articulationand and further urbanization,than the dispersed groups of temperate Europe. In fact the-cemeteriesof Los Millares and Alcala do point in the same direction.
ACHIEVEMENTS AND LIMITATIONS STAGE OF THE BRONZE

any Analyses, distinguishing uinalloyed. copper fromn bronze, are no help in eitlher chronological or modal Some Sumerian tools already conclassification. taiined tin before2500 B.C., but bronze was relatively than rarer in Sargonid times. There was m-orecop?peir bronze in Tutankhamen's tomb,79and in Boghaz-keui under the Hittite Empire.80 1InSouth Russia socketed celts and the rest of the ' Late Bronze Age ' industry were still made of unalloyed copper.81 The term 'Bronze Age ' is a misnomner,as Rickard says, but misleading, and his 'Copper Age ' would be stilI mwore alternative, ' Metallurgic Age,' fails to do justice to the significance of iron, which I hope to establish. The first manifest;ations of Mode 3 in Egypt, Aniatolia, the Aegean and even Central Europe began so nearly at the same time (within the large units of archa,,oloorical time) that it would be tempting to seek some historical event, or complex of events, to account for the general reductioni in the cost of mnetal that its populari'zation implies. In cis-Alpine Europe deep mining, involving also tbe. reduction of sulpbide
80 Przeworski,
81

Archaeology has detected wheeled vehicles onlywhere and when tools (and particularly saws) confinedto Modes 2 or 3 were available. 'Copper Age;' Spain83 and Middle Minoan Crete84 are decisive instancesof the firstcase; early Mesopotamia,Shang China and the Late Bronze Age of Sweden, Central Europe and Britain,of the second. Anotherpregnant application of the wheel idea, the windlass,is attested in the East Alpine copper mines,43 still in a pure BronizeStage context,albeit absolutelylate. Egypt already had the shaduf for raisinig water. These quite stubstantialextensions of man's control over external nature, may confidently be regarded as conditioned by Bronze technology. That is not
82 Przeworski, p. 92; cf. Schaeffer, Mission en Chypre, p. 101. 83 Represented on the schematic rock paintings assigned to the ' Copper Age ' by Breuil (Rock Paintings of Sotthern Andalusia, p. 86). 84 Evans (P. of M., iv, 2, p. 797) stresses the significant juxtaposition of the symbols for wheel and saw in tablets of Linear B at Knossos; see Fig. 10 here. B

79 Lucas, p. 178. p. 1J01.

Yessen, IGAIMK,

Vol. CX (1935), Tab. III, nos. 8, 13.

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18

V. GORDON CHILDE

-4'e FA/?1 1g
FIG.

I 0.-SAW

AND WHEEL

SIGNS JUXTAPOSED ON MINOAN TABLET:

KNOSSOS

(after Evans)

certainlytrue of the plough, nor of the sailing boat, yet neither is reliably attested before the Bronze Age, and till the nineteenthcenturythe plough was used only where Bronze technologyhad been established in the past.85 Contrasted with these very real advances are no less striking deficiencies. As far as we know, for 'instance,no society in the Bronze Stage disposed of cranes, nor of block-and-tackle, nor even of such indispensable tools as ,commonplace but seemingly, hinged tongs and shears.86 To evaluate the Bronze Stage's claim to retention as a category in archaeological classification, its must be compared equipmentwithall its shortcomings with that of the Iron Stage, with which it should be contrasted.
THE IRON STAGE

Technical equipment wrought of iron is less well known than that cast in earlier industrial metals. Iron is far more susceptible to corrosionthan copper, or bronze. There is nothingin a rusty iron tool to attract a collector, whereas a bronze one.is always
Vol. X, (1936). pp. 261 ff. WhitingBishop, Antiquity, While sheep were plucked, goats were shorn even in Sumerian times, and. shearing seems to have been applied to sheep in the Nuzi tablets (G. 1500). The instrument, termed in Akkadian maqassu, while-doubtlessof metal, can hardly have been a clipperwith paired blades, since then it should have appeared as a grammatical dual; it was prekindly supplied sumably just a sort of knife. (Information by Messrs. Gadd and Sidney Smith.)
85 86

romantic and, if nicely patinated, quite handsome. Till very recentlyexcavators in the most important centresof the Iron Age world have concentratedtheir attentionon the recoveryof architectural monuments, art objects and inscribed documents, and have treated ugly and banausic tools with loftycontempt. Even had they been less eclectic,the iron tools would probably have perished, as installations capable of treatingthem are recent additions to such museums as have any at all. At the same time, the industrialuse of iron began in the Dark Age between the collapse of the Minoan and Hi'ttite civilizations and the eclipse of Egypt, on the one hand, and the Egyptian revival and the dawn of Greek history, on the other. As a result there are very few completelyreliable historicaldates in the east Mediterraneanbetween 1100 and 700 B.C., and naturallystill less in cis-AlpineEurope. None the less I suggestthat we mightconveniently distinguish two modes in the use of iron, in the enlargementof human control over brute nature by the use of iron tools. Let me exclude fromthe Iron both the use of iron as a precious Stage, as irrelevant, metal forornamentsor ceremonialweapons (Tutankhamen's iron dagger no more symbolized an Iron Age than Shubad's saw symbolized a Gold Age) and also its occasional use forsmall objects, like knives, while bronze was still the normal material for implements as for weapons. I should have no hesitation in classing the Villanovan cemeteries and those of Sialk A and B as Late Bronze Age, just as much as

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Ages as Technological Archceological Stages in Heathery Burn Larnaudian hoards or the foundary cave, were I but sure that the settlementswould display an equal povertyin substantial iron tools. The Iron Age reallydawns only when the new metal is used forlarge and heavy tools, in otherwords,when it begins to replace bronze, and also stone, in huswill bandry and forheavy work. Its commencement with accordinglybe signalized by the Tiryns hoard,87 its big iron sickle (perhaps as early as 1200 B.c.), by the heavy axe-adze, ploughshare and chisels from Golzii Kule, Tarsus,88and by the sickles, hoes and ploughshares fromGerar (see Fig. 11),89 Tell el Mutand other Palestinian sites.91 In Assyria we sellim90
THE FIRST MODE OF TILE INDUSTRIAL USE OF IRON

19

find iron used not only for agricultural implements and entrenchingtools, but also for grappling irons and other novel military devices, by 850 B.C. In Egypt92 the use of iron in this mode begins after 663 B.C., while still earlier,in Hallstatt Europe, iron stone as bronze had never donewas replacingf use tools of iron In this firstmode of its effective are mainly copies, often slavish copies, of stone or bronze ones. In Palestine, where the bronze sickle was almost unknown, the blacksmith imitated the wooden sickle, just serrated edge of the flint-armed as in Hallstatt Britain he laboriously forged imitations of the socketed celt which the bronze-smith could cast so easily. Few, if any, new industrial genera or species emerge. But metal was evidently available and used on an in any case, is now unprecedentedscale. The farmer, equipped with cheap but efficientmetal tools for clearing the land and breaking up the soil. Miners, quarrymenand similar workersmust have benefited no less. The use of iron picks in road building is about $50 B.a.9 expresslymentionedby Assurnasirpal, Such works as Sennacherib's aqueduct, the subterranean tunnels that brought water to Samos, and Etruscan drainage works in Italy are scarcely conceivable without iron tools.
THE SECOND MODE OF THE INDUSTRIAL USE OF IRON

Then, among the vastly augmentedarmyofworkers now accustomed to the use of metal tools, some were clever enough to devise new species and even new and some societiesaccepted and genera ofimplements, standardized their inventions. Thus began a second mode of using iron. In Greece it is proclaimedalready in the 6th century by hinged tongs, frame saws, several specialized varieties of hammer (see Fig. 12),9 and beforethe end of the 4th century, and the lathe,95 by hinged compasses96and true paired shears.97 Its culminationin Hellenistic and Imperial Roman times brings forth metal-bladed spades, seythes and a bewilderingvariety of other specialized agricultural and a still greatermultiplicityof craftsmen's tools,98
92

FIG. 11.-HoE

GERAR.

BLADES 1C,2,

AND PLOUGHSHARE OF IRON: A;3, W.(after Petrie)

94 Illustrated on black-figured vases, Darembourg and Saglio, s.v. Fornax; Cloche, Les Classes, les Metiers et le pp. 29 ff. Troffique,

93 Quoted by Wainwright, Vol. X (1936), p. 20. Antiquity,

Lucas, p. 197.

p. 72; actual specimens, Wiegand and Schrader, Priene, A.J.A., Vol. XLI, p. 277. pp. 387 ff,Fig. 514. Maiuri, 89 Petrie, Gerar,pls. xxvi, 1-8; xxvii, 8-20. 98 E.g., Wiegand and Sebrader, Figs. 495-594; 90 Schumacher,Tell el Mutsellim, Casa del Menandro,p. 463 ; Petrie, T W, pls. lvii, lix, lxvii, p. 130. Vol. I (1917), nat. de St. Germain, 91 E.g., Bliss, Mound ofMany Cities, pp. 105-8; Macalister, lxix; Reinach, Cat. Mu8see Figs. 273, 277-9. Excavs. at Gezer, Vol. II, pp. 34, 32, n. 2.
87 88

Ath. Mitt., Vol. LV, p. 136.

Cloche,I.c. .5thcentury, .9 Used by a barber on a Tanagra figurine, Cloche,op. cit.,

96

95 Cloche, op. cit., p. 59.

B2

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20

V. GoRDoN CHILDE

FIG.

12.-G:R:EEK

SMITHY

FROM

A BLACK-FIGURDED

VASE

the auger,100 nail-heading tools, includingthe plane,99 and draw-blocksfor wire.102 anvils,101 Moreover,firstin Iron Stage 2, and thereforepresumably as a result of the new metallic equipment, emerge other productive implementsof no less pregnant import. Somewhere about 500 B.c. rotary querns103 began to replace the saddle quern that had the Bronze Stage, while cranes took served throughout the place of the ramps that had alone been available to Bronze Stage buildersforraising weights.104The using rotary motion and cornmilland the trapetum, animal motive power, should belong to much the same chronologicalhorizon. Moreover, in Hellenistic times water wheels and gearing already herald the dawn of a new technological stage, the Stage of Power Production. But, though not for purely technological reasons, its effective expansion was delayed for over a thousand years. Thus, the Iron Stage is also historicallyan Age; forit was nowheresupersededfortwo thousand years after its commencement. To this extent it is comparable in absolute durationwith the Bronze Age.
COMPARISON BETWEEN THE BRONZE AND IRON STAGES

In comparisonwith the Bronze Stage, even Bronze Stage 3, the universal availability of cheap and efficient iron tools must have involved an incrementto social productivity quite comparablein scale withwhat followedthe reductionin the cost of metal in Bronze 3.
99 Petrie, TW, p. 39. Ibid. 101Reinach, Cat. Mus. nat. de St. Germain, Fig. 275, 8630; Mercer, Ancient Carpenters'Tools (Bucks. Co. Hist. Soc., Doylestown,Pa, 1929). de l'Industrie 102 Fre6mont, M6m. Soc. pour I'Encouragement nat. 103 Childe,Antiquity, Vol. XVII (1943), pp. 1.9-26. 104 Cloche,Les Classes, p. 62; Darembourg and Saglio, s.v. Machina.
100

If so, it would deserve recognitionover against the classification. If it be objected latter in any scientific that my estimate of this incrementis subjective, let me again invoke as criteriathe new species and genera of tools and contrastIron Stage 2 withBronze Stage 3 from that angle. To appreciate the gulf it would sufficeto compare the 6th century Greek smithies depicted on black-figuredvases (see Fig. 12) with those representedin New Kingdom tomb paintings (see Fig. 13), withoutattemptinga numericalevaluation by settingside by side the fairlyexhaustive lists of Bronze Age tools given in the section on Modal in the Utilization of Metal (above) with Differences in the the very incomplete list of iron tools offered last section. By the beginning of our era all the main species of manual tools employed in handicraft or husbandry today were already in vogue; only scissorsremained to be added in Byzantine times,105 and the screw complex with the brace in the Middle Ages. As for the technological inventions that may be regarded as indirectly evoked by the contrasted industrial metals, even the few I have listed under the novel bythe Iron Age alone exceed numnerically products of bronze technology-essentially the wheel and the windlass. Accordingly the direct and indirect advances in achieved through human controloverthe environment the use of iron, at least according to Mode 2, are equal and more than equal to those of Bronze Modes 2 and 3. On the other hand, Bronze Modes 2 and 3 do denote such a degree of technical advance beyond the highest achievements of the Neolithic as to stage in progress. constitutea distinctand significant If Bronze I, like the Copper Age, mighttheoretically in be eliminated,there are grave practical difficulties
105

Wiegand and Schrader,Priene, Fig. 513.

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Agesas Technological Archcaological Stages

21

-~

C.

sa

/e>

/12-

3CC;-

FIG.

13.-METAL-WORKERS FROM THE ToMB OF PETOSIRIS (after Lefebvre)

it fromother modes. Hence no modal distinguishing aspect nor chronological subdivision of the Bronze Stage can convenientlyor properlybe bracketed with the Iron Stage, on the one hand, nor yet relegated to the Neolithic, on the other. Still less can Bronze and Iron be fused togetherin a 'Metallurgical Age '; for it was only with Iron Stage 1 that a metallic replaced the Neolithic. Hence equipment effectively the Bronze Stage or Age should be retained in the

traditional position, if the classificationon a technological basis be accepted as scientifically profitable. CRITIQUEOF THE BASIS OF ARCHAzOLOGICAL CLASSIFICATION But the veryfactsI have adduced have incidentally exposed the limitations of a classificationbased on isolating a single factor. The mere knowledge of bronze, the smith's presence alone, did not of itself
B 3

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22

V. GORDON CHILDE

..-.....

491 a b. Va.

FIG. 14.-SWORD,

DOUBLE AXES, KNIFE, SICKLE, FnLE, NARROW CHISEL, SPEARHEAD,.CHISELS, Brr (?), HAMMER, HOE BLADES: HOARD FROM THE ACROPOLIS, ATHENS (after Montelius)

SMALL HAmmwt,

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Stages Ages as Technologtcal Archaeological produce even new tool types, nor enlarge social productivity by saws, wheeled vehicles or metal sickles. Iron of itselfdoes not draw men on to fresh devices, as the contrastbetween Greek and Egyptian smithies of the Iron Age (see Figs. 12 and 13) graphicallyshows. In otherwords,as Stalin106 puts it, "the relations of production constitute just as essential an element in production as the productive forcesof society"-its tools and the traditional skill of the operatives. It is hardly an accident of excavation that the full fruitsof iron technologyhave come to light firstin the republics of Greece and Italy and not in the despotic states of the Orient. It looks as if relations of production,adequate to a Bronze technology,had there turnedinto " fetterson the developmentof the " represented new forces107 by iron,leaving forinstance Petosiris' wretchedserfto shatterhis wristswith the miserable equipment of Bronze 2 two centuriesafter Iron 1 had dawned in Egypt. For thisreason a classification based on the property relationswithinwhich tools were used mightbe more significant. Soviet archaoologists have in fact tried to build up a system on this basis, speaking of a ' pre-clan stage,' a 'stage of the matriarchal clan,' and so on. However sound this may be in theory, the trouble is that the archweological record is, to put it mildly, vague as to the social organization of pre-

23

literate communities. The scheme would therefore classificalack one essentialqualification fora scientific tion. Indeed it might be claimed as a justification for the traditional system that it does permit us to between the material detect just those contradictions forces of production and the relations of production on which Marxismlays such stress. One might venture further along this line. Of to course neither bronze nor iron tools alone suffice civilize barbarians; judged by the accepted criteria, the Celts and Germans were as much barbarians in the Early Iron Age as their ancestors or forerunners of the Bronze Stage, while the Bronze Age Sumerians were by the same token as civilized as the Iron Age Assyrians. Nevertheless it remains true that the firstcivilizations of the Old World did in fact arise in the Bronze Age. And it is plausibly arguable that the peculiaritiesof the industrialmetal-the necessity of importingit from a considerable distance and its consequent high cost-have left a stamp on the characterof those civilizations. During the Iron Age a new type of civilizationwas first firmly established. I should not dream of contendingthat iron of itselfevoked the poli's. I am prepared to argue that the Mediterraneancity-state was impossible without the transport facilities iron tools could alone provide. Hence, though the older type was not superseded in China, Mesopotamia and Egypt, the Bronze and Iron Stages are both associated historically with distinct types of civilization. To " (reprinted 106 4"4Dialecticaland HistoricalMaterialism from the this extent by retainingthe tradiarchaeologist, Chap. IV of the Historyof ite Communist Party oJtheSoviet the historianof is enabled to offer tional framework, Union (B) ), p. 20. for his a of data classified culture significantly body 107 Marx, A Contribution to theCritiqueofPolitical Economy, interpretation. Preface(Selected Works, 1942, p. 356).

APPENDIX
OT MODAL SEQUENCES SUMMARIZED

glyphic script (e), at the same time as wheeled vehicles. Actual saws, double adzes and other craft tools survive from M.M. IIIb (J). Though hammers from Praisos and Hagia Triada are attributed to M.M. II, Mode 3 is represented by

sicklesfirst in L.M.-L.H. (b, g, h, i), but most are late, L.M. A.-Greece and theAegean containingalso hoes (h,i), In E.H., while stone celts (a, b, c) are common on settle- IIIb, as are hoards and foundaries objects of iron (i) too. mentsites,knives (c), chisels(c), an axe-adze (c) and tweezers hammers(h, i) and tongs (i), but smnall (a, b, c) denote already Bronze 2. In M.H., stone celts are (a) Asine, Fr6din and Persson, pp. 242, 244. confined to rural settlements (c), while the saw (d) and pp. 182, 199. (b) Zygouries,B3legen, gouge (d) are first attested. In Crete, ETM. seems analogous (c) Eutresis.,Goldman, pp. 202, 207, 215. to E.11., with the double-axe added and fewerstone celts.. (d) Levkas grave 84; Dorpfeld,Alt-Ithaka, Beilage, p. 69. In M.M., saws are attestedfirst by a sign in the earlierhiero(e) Evans, P. oj M., Vol. IV, 2, p. 797. (f) Ibid., Vol. II, p. 629. (g) Palaikastro, Gournia, Kilindir, cf. note 71, and Heurtley,P.M., p. 231. (h) Acropolis hoard, Montelius, OP, pp. 153-5. (i) Enkomi foundary, Murray, Smith, etc., Excavs. in FIG. 15.-SAW SIGN OF MINOAN HIEROGLYPHIC SERIES Cyprus, pp. 15f. 25. B.-Anatolia During. III s.C., stone blades are universal on settlement sites and stone celts more (4 n) or less (in) common, but
B 4

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24

V. GORDON CHILDE (s) Dunand, Fouilles de Byblos; Petrie,AncientGaza, Vol. II, p. 2. (t) Montet,Bybloset l'Egypte,pp. 147, 151'; Dunand, op. cit., p. 183. (u) Petrie, Ancient Gaza, Vol. IV, p. 10; cf. Tell Beit Mersin,Ann. Am. S.O.R., Vol. XVII, p. 53. (v) B.S.P.F., 1930, p. 475; cf. also note 72.

D.-The Iberian Peninsula Mode 1 if BoschThe Bell-Beaker culturemightrepresent Gimpera (w) be rightin making it anteriorto Alcala and its homologues,in which side by side with stone celts and finely worked flinttools and weapons, metal saws (x) and narrow flat celts that are obviously tools occur in the tombs. In the El Argar phase of Almeria, stone celts persist, the type site yielding30 (y), but metal was used more freely for saws (z) and a few othercrafttools and exclusively for weapons. These are typologically' Early Bronze Age,' but there is no Middle Bronze Age at all and Late Bronze Age types (aa), obviously belated and localized in the west and with an Iron Age north,are probably already contemporary in the south-east. C.-Palestine-Syria Despite an absence of stone celts (save amulets) and Vol. II, p. 198. (w) Prehistoire, 'Copper Age ' graveswell furnished withweapons (s), I know (x) Los Millares,t. 37; Alcala, No. 3, and near Carmona, no crafttools before2000 B.C., but the evidenceis insufficient Dechelette, Manuel, Vol. II, p. 273. to exclude Mode 2. That is signalized at Byblos by saws, p. 114; so Zapata, Ages des Metacux, (y) Siret,Les preniiers chisels and gouges (t) in the great hoard of the (?) 18th cen- p. 102, Ifra, p. 92, etc. tury,and a hammer, and in Palestine (u) in the 16th. By the (z) Ifra, ibid., p. 94. 14th centuryin Syria, plenty of sickles, winged and shaft(aa) Bosch-Gimpera in Real; s.v. PyrendenHalbirnsel hole adzes, etc. (v), denote Mode 3, but in Palestine bronze Two Celtic Waves in Spain (Proc. Brit. Acad., Vol. XXVI, sickles seem unknown. 1939). References: Unusual Abbreviations
AJA ... ... ... ... Ann. Am. SOR ... ... ... ... BRGK ... BSPF ... ... ... Childe, NLMAE ... ... . ESA .. ... . ... ... Ghirshman ... ... IGAIMK ... ... ... JSGU ... ... ... ... Lucas ... ... ... ... MDP .. ... ... ... ... Montelius, GP OIP . ... ... ... ... Petrie, TW .. ... PRIA ... ... ... ... Przeworski ... ... ... ... ... Schranil, UBM ... ... ... Speiser .. Stock.f, BAB SM ... ... ... ... ... WAM ... ... ... ... ... ... ...
...

axes (I), chisels (1, m, n), and even knives (1) were made of metal too. In Troy VI-VIJa there firstappear sickles and saws, and in the Hittite period of CentralAnatolia lug-adzes and winged and socketed chisels too (n). But even in late Hittite times stone chisels and blades were still common (o). From post-Hittite timesTranscaucasian hoards containshafthole hoes (p, q, r), socketed axes (p), bow fibulm (q), Koban battle-axes (q, r, w) and hooked sickles (r, w). (1) Troy I-V and ThermiI-V. ((m) Kusura A-B, Arch.,Vol. LXXXVI (1936), p. 45; Vol. LXXXVII, p. 260. (n) Alishar, "Chalcolithic-Early Bronze," OIP, Vol. XXIX. (o) At Alishar and Boghaz-keui, Przeworski,p. 168. (p) Artvin,TiirkTarih,Arch.Etnog., Dergisi, Vol. I (1933), pp. 150-6. (q) Dzhvari, Yessen, IGAIMK, Vol. CXX, p. 125. (r) Ibid., p. 119 (Zeniti). (w) Agur (Tebarda), ib., p. 132.

... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ...

American Journal 6f Archceology,Bryn Mawr. Annual, American Schools of Oriential Research, New Haven. Berichte der r6mischgermanischenKommission, Frankfort a/M. Bulletin de la Societe prehistoriquefrangaise. New Light on the Most Ancient East, 1935.. Eurasia Septentrionalis Antiqua, Helsinki. Fouilles de Sialk. Izvestiya Gos. Akademii Istorii material. Kultury. Jahresberichteder schweizerishen Gesellschaftfur Urgeschichte,Fravenfeld. Ancient Egyptian Materials, 1934. Memoires de la Delegation en Perse. La Grece preclassique, 1928. Publications of the Oriental Institute, University of Chicago. Tools and Weapons, 1918. Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy, Dublin. Die Metallindustrie Ancttoliens(Internat. Arch. f. Ethnog.), 1939. UrgeschichteB6hmens unndMdhrens. Excavations at Tepe Gawra, 1935. La Boheme a' l'Age du Bronze, 1928. Suomen MHu8seo, Helsinki. -WiltshireArchceological Magazine, Devizes.

Descriptionof Plates
Plate

I.

Plate II.

B.

A.

Craftsmen fromthe tomb of Rekhmare(after Wreszinsky)

WOODEN

METAL-WORKERS FROM THE TOMB OF REKHMARE Metal-workers using hammer and tongs, from the tomb of Rekhmare
SIOIWT FROM THE TOMB OF HEMAKA AND METAL-WORKERS PROM THE TOMB OF PETOSIRIS

A. Flint-armedwooden sickle fromthe tomb of Hemaka, IIIrd Dynasty (afterEmery) B. Metal-workers using hammer and tongs, fromthe tomb of Potosiris,4th century,B.C.

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J.R.A.I., Vol. LXXIV,

1914

Plate I

Childe, Archc,ological Ages as Technological Stages

B METAL X TORKERS FROM THES TOMB OF REKHMARE

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A WOODEN SICKLE FROM THE TOMB OF HEMAKA AND METAL-WORKERS

13

FROM THE TOMB OF PE

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