Information about dating, relative and absolute, is used to help establish a relative framework of cultural developments to which period titles are given: the Hellenistic period, the late Roman Empire, the Bronze Age, the Iron Age, and so on. These names are artificial, but they are helpful markers for student and specialist alike.
The terms Paleolithic, Mesolithic, and Neolithic periods (= Old, Middle, and New Stone Ages), Bronze Age, and Iron Age were developed in the nineteenth century to describe different stages in the technology practiced by humans. The prime material used for making tools determined the names. A progression from simpler to more sophisticated technology was assumed. Continuing research, however, has revealed these definitions as too simplistic, for they hide other important factors of human development. For example, the Neolithic period — where our story begins, in Chapter 1 — is now defined by the introduction of food production (agriculture and animal husbandry) and pottery making, with simple metallurgy (working of copper and malachite) appearing, too. The picture is even more complicated because traditional subsistence methods, such as pastoralism, continued to be practiced. Regional variations, with the presence and absence of such features, can blur the definition. These period titles are thus more usefully seen as umbrella designations convenient to indicate a certain time span within which various combinations of technological and cultural features occurred.
Finally, as we shall see in the chapters ahead, different regions have their own specialist terminology for denoting cultural developments and chronological distinctions. In Mesopotamia, the “Bronze Age” is defined by terms rooted in history: the Protoliterate or Uruk, Early Dynastic, and Akkadian periods, and the like. Similarly, Bronze Age Egypt is divided according to historical dynasties (as mentioned above), grouped within the larger units of the Old, Middle, and New Kingdoms. With patience and attention, the beginner should be able to absorb in short order these cumbersome structures of terminology.
World History
