Categorizing the Past

Before the time of the Greeks and Romans, the past was ‘wrapped in a thick fog’, according to Rasmus Nyerup (1759–1829), an eminent Danish antiquarian. ‘Everything that has come down to us from heathendom… is older than Christendom.’ He declared, but by how much we can do no more than guess’ {pg. 12, The Practical Archaeologist, J. McIntosh)

Ms. McIntosh started her section on Ordering the Past with those famous words. To some extent they are true. However, the age of Christendom is moot in the discussion of history.

The world was well into its existence by the time Jesus came to Earth and taught his disciples. Anything older does disprove Christianity or undermine anything that Jesus or his disciples taught during their time on earth.

The Old Testament covers the history before that time thus the Bible is not out of touch with reality or operating in a vacuum. What concerns many people is that the Bible does not divide history into different ages making it easier for archaeologists and historians to track time and the development of technology.

Archaeologists, historians, and scholars were left to guess until more information could be excavated and published. This is still true today as it is very difficult to date backward in time.

However, something had to be done to clear the fog, even though according to Ms. McIntosh, Lucretius (99 to 55 BC approx.) had created or written about a three-age system during his ancient lifetime.

This statement cannot be verified at this time and in looking up the Lucretius, one is only given results to a Roman Philosopher who wrote 6 books on natural science ( Source). It may be this 6th book that contains the information Ms. McIntosh briefly speaks.

In the grand scheme of things, even if Lucretius did write about different eras and named them after different metals, it is highly unlikely they had anything to do with actual history.

His work most likely had nothing to do with Christian J Thomsen’s work in the 19th century where he classified artifacts for the Danish National Museum. Thomsen is credited with originating the 3-age system, stone, bronze & iron.

It was his assistant J J Warsaae (1821–1885) who did the detailed work to prove the 3-age system was valid. Warsaae did very detailed work as he dug in peat bogs, recording the different layers.

But like Thomsen, Warsaae’s work was more of a subjective effort as there was no credible way to verify the dating systems. Their work was determined by personal opinion, not fact.

Stratigraphy, which is what archaeologists call those layers, is based on the assumption that the geological process evolutionists claim to have developed the Earth as we know it was real and everything worked in that way.

Stratigraphy, then, is based on wild unprovable assumptions and we cannot rely on those dates because the foundation is not objective nor is it sound. The thinking goes that the top layers are more recent than the lower layers thus archaeologists can get some type of temporal date from looking at these layers.

Stratigraphy cannot be relied upon as the layers may not be as static as some archaeologists think. According to the California Earthquake Authority, earthquakes can push the dirt upwards:

An earthquake can push and pull the ground, tearing the surface and pushing the ground apart and upward. These are known as “surface ruptures.” A surface rupture may occur suddenly during an earthquake, or it can happen more slowly-in either case, surface ruptures often happen along preexisting faults. ( source)

What earthquakes do the ground under the surface may interrupt and alter any layer geologists and archaeologists think is there. In other words, we cannot be sure if the stratigraphy for dating is as accurate as professionals claim.

Getting back to the 3-Age system, while Thomsen and Warsaae, along with Lucretius may claim that stone tools preceded bronze ones and the latter preceded iron tools, no one can be sure about that process.

We do not know what truly took place in the past to place those different tools and weapons in the location in which they are found. On top of that, since metalwork took place in the pre-flood world (see Genesis 3) it is more likely that stone and metal tools were contemporaries and not processionary.

What that means is that Thomsen and Warsaae changed the details of the past due to their inability to see backward in time and went with the assumptions that support the stratigraphy thinking.

In fact, much of what is said about the ancient world is mere guesswork despite the help of the three-age system. One reason for saying that is because ancient records do not survive and archaeologists throughout history do not pursue the truth.

Instead, they create their own version of the past based on the assumptions they accept. One of those assumptions is that the 3-age system is correct. We do not think it is correct, not only because the Bible provides everyone a clue about our metalworking past but because it is impossible to know when an artifact reached its discovered position.

Victor Matthews wrote in his book Studying the Ancient Israelites the following:

I myself have discovered that it is not unusualfor an archaeologist to very carefully remove layers of soil within a measured square and suddenly discover a pair of broken sunglasses mixed in with Roman pottery (pg. 12)

Since this is true and not a rare event, we cannot be sure about all the other artifacts excavated. They may have slipped into one era by accident and belong to another era. For example, an Iron sword could pre-date a bronze shield or stone axe.

Categorizing the past is not as cut and dried as the 3-age system lets on. There is no way to verify many of the artifacts uncovered and place them in their correct ancient era.

The past may not be as processional as archaeologists, geologists and historians claim. The technological developments could have come at any time and overlapped with each other or developed in a different order.

As an explanation for all the stone arrows, it can be conceded that maybe the ancient population did not have the money to buy metal arrowheads. Thus they were restricted to making their own out of stone.

This could have taken place at any point in history. Just looking at the layers is not going to give us the date or the real explanation of what took place in ancient history.

We need to be more flexible in categorizing the past instead of condescending about our ancestors and their achievements and development.

Originally published at http://theoarch.wordpress.com on September 4, 2024.