Mon May 23 2005 at 3:33:43
In Scandinavia Christian Thomsen sThree Age System had emerged from the 19th century as a way of interpreting prehistoric excavation sites and the materials within. He had concluded that different time periods were signified by a shift in the materials that tools were made from. Hence the Stone, Bronze and Iron ages. Although it later proved to be useful only regionally, it was a step towards figuring out a methodology for interpreting archaeological findings. At the turn of the 20th century archaeologists began seeking ways to devise theories that would explain the archaeological record in terms of culture, rather than time period. Thus was born the Culture-History paradigm.