The Ethnical Periods
Morgan rejects the Ages of Stone, of Bronze, of Iron, the Three-Age System of pre-history, as being insufficient characterizations of progress. This theory had been explicated by J. J. A. Worsaae in his The Primeval Antiquities of Denmark, published in English in 1849. Worsaae had built his work on the foundation of evidence-based chronology by Christian Jürgensen Thomsen, whose Guideline to Scandinavian Antiquity (Ledetraad til Nordisk Oldkyndighed) (1836), was not published in English until 1848. The two works were highly influential to researchers in Great Britain and North America.
Morgan believed the prehistoric stages as defined by the Danish were difficult to distinguish, as they overlapped and refer only to material types of implements or tools. In addition, Morgan thought they did not fit the evidence he was finding among Native American societies in North America, in which he had closely studied social structure as an indicator of stages of civilization. Based on the lines of progress, he distinguishes ethnical periods, which each have a distinct culture and a particular mode of life and do not overlap in a region. He does admit to exceptions and a difficulty of determining precise borders between periods. Scientific archaeology was being developed at this time; Morgan did not have the techniques of stratigraphy or scientific dating available, but based his arguments on linguistic and historical speculation. (Thomsen and Worsaae are credited with the foundation of scientific archaeology, as they worked to have controlled excavations in which artifacts could be evaluated by which were found together: the beginning of stratigraphy. This evidence-based system was the start of chronological dating in archeology.)
| Period | Subperiod | Ethna |
|---|---|---|
| Savagery: Natural Subsistence, at least 60,000 years. |
Lower | First distinction of man from the other animals. Fruits and Roots, tropical or subtropical habitats, at least partial tree-dwelling, gesture language, intelligence, Consanguine Family. |
| Middle | Fish Subsistence, Use of Fire, spread of man worldwide along shorelines, monosyllabic language, Punaluan Family. | |
| Upper | Weapons: bow and arrow, club, spear; addition of game to diet, cannibalism, syllabical language, Syndyasmian Family, organization into gentes, phratries and tribes, worship of the elements. | |
| Barbarism: Cultivation, Domestication, 35,000 years. |
Lower | Horticulture: maize, bean, squash, tobacco; art of pottery, tribal confederacy, finger weaving, blow-gun, village stockade, tribal games, element worship, Great Spirit, formation of Aryan and Semitic families. |
| Middle | Domestication of animals among the Semitic and Aryan families: goat, sheep, pig, horse, ass, cow, dog; milk, making bronze, irrigation, great joint tenement houses in the nature of fortresses. | |
| Upper | Cultivation of cereals and plants by the Aryans, smelting iron ore, poetry, mythology, walled cities, wheeled vehicles, metallic armor and weapons (bronze and iron), the forge, potter's wheel, grain mill, loom weaving, forging, monogamian family, individual property, municipal life, popular assembly. | |
| Civilization: Field Agriculture, 5000 years. |
Ancient | Plow with an iron point, iron implements, animal power, unlimited subsistence, phonetic alphabet, writing, Arabic numerals, the military art, the city, commerce, coinage, the state, founded upon territory and upon property, the bridge, arch, crane, water-wheel, sewer. |
| Mediaeval | Gothic architecture, feudal aristocracy with hereditary titles of rank, hierarchy under the headship of a pope. | |
| Modern | Telegraph, coal gas, spinning-jenny, power loom, steam engine, telescope, printing, canal lock, compass, gunpowder, photography, modern science, religious freedom, public schools, representative democracy, classes, different types of law. |
Read more about this topic: Ancient Society
Famous quotes containing the word periods:
“It is noticed, that the consideration of the great periods and spaces of astronomy induces a dignity of mind, and an indifference to death.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)