THE AGES OF
MAN
When we speak of the ages of man we use such
terms as the Wooden Age, the Stone Age
and the Bronze Age. In our minds each age is separate and .
This is not
the way it really was, however; the ages had an irritating habit of overlapping, with
no regard whatever for historians, who love dates. The three ages named above
are supposed to have ended thousands of years ago but they did not. We continue to with wood and we still employ stone for such things as grinding and polishing;
bronze is useful to us in dozens of ways in this modern world.
Today, when we say
the Wooden Age or the Bronze Age, or any other age, we to the period in
history when wood or bronze or stone was the most important material at our
disposal. Man used the best materials available something better came along. When it did,
he included it as one more item to improve his way of life; yet, at the same time, he
did not the useful resources that he
already knew. In certain cases, as with
bronze, he experimented and that by mixing copper with tin he
came up with a metal worthy of having an entire age
named for it.
The Iron Age that of
bronze. Being harder than the latter, iron soon replaced it for all practical
purposes, and so it has been down through the ages, each producing something to
advance life on this earth.
