Christian Jürgensen Thomsen (29 December 1788 – 21 May 1865) was a
Danish antiquarian
An antiquarian or antiquary () is an aficionado or student of antiquities or things of the past. More specifically, the term is used for those who study history with particular attention to ancient artefacts, archaeological and historic si ...
who developed early
archaeological
Archaeology or archeology is the study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of Artifact (archaeology), artifacts, architecture, biofact (archaeology), biofacts or ecofacts, ...
techniques and methods.
In 1816 he was appointed head of 'antiquarian' collections which later developed into the
National Museum of Denmark in
Copenhagen
Copenhagen ( ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a population of 1.4 million in the Urban area of Copenhagen, urban area. The city is situated on the islands of Zealand and Amager, separated from Malmö, Sweden, by the ...
. While organizing and classifying the antiquities for exhibition, he decided to present them chronologically according to the
three-age system
The three-age system is the periodization of human prehistory (with some overlap into the history, historical periods in a few regions) into three time-periods: the Stone Age, the Bronze Age, and the Iron Age, although the concept may also re ...
. Other scholars had previously proposed that prehistory had advanced from an age of
stone
In geology, rock (or stone) is any naturally occurring solid mass or aggregate of minerals or mineraloid matter. It is categorized by the minerals included, its Chemical compound, chemical composition, and the way in which it is formed. Rocks ...
tools, to ages of tools made from
bronze
Bronze is an alloy consisting primarily of copper, commonly with about 12–12.5% tin and often with the addition of other metals (including aluminium, manganese, nickel, or zinc) and sometimes non-metals (such as phosphorus) or metalloid ...
and
iron
Iron is a chemical element; it has symbol Fe () and atomic number 26. It is a metal that belongs to the first transition series and group 8 of the periodic table. It is, by mass, the most common element on Earth, forming much of Earth's o ...
, but these proposals were presented as systems of evolution, which did not allow dating of
artifacts. Thomsen refined the three-age system as a chronological system by seeing which artifacts occurred with which other artifacts in closed finds. In this way, he was the first to establish an evidence-based division of prehistory into discrete periods. This achievement led to his being credited as the originator of
the three-age system of European antiquity.
Thomsen also wrote one of the first systematic treatises on gold
bracteate
A bracteate (from the Latin ''bractea'', a thin piece of metal) is a flat, thin, single-sided gold medal worn as jewelry that was produced in Northern Europe predominantly during the Migration Period of the Germanic Iron Age (including the Ven ...
s of the
Migration period
The Migration Period ( 300 to 600 AD), also known as the Barbarian Invasions, was a period in European history marked by large-scale migrations that saw the fall of the Western Roman Empire and subsequent settlement of its former territories ...
. Thomsen's study of artifacts within the Copenhagen museum were based on associations between stylistic change, decoration and context; he recognised the importance of examining objects from "closed finds", allowing him to determine the associations of common artifacts for various periods (stone - bronze - iron). His results were published in the ''Ledetraad til Nordisk Oldkyndighed'' (Guideline to Nordic Antiquity) in 1836. An English translation was produced in 1848.
Early life
Christian Jurgensen Thomsen was born in
Copenhagen
Copenhagen ( ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a population of 1.4 million in the Urban area of Copenhagen, urban area. The city is situated on the islands of Zealand and Amager, separated from Malmö, Sweden, by the ...
in 1788 into a wealthy merchant family. As a young man he visited
Paris
Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...
and once he had returned to Denmark, became interested in
coin
A coin is a small object, usually round and flat, used primarily as a medium of exchange or legal tender. They are standardized in weight, and produced in large quantities at a mint in order to facilitate trade. They are most often issued by ...
collecting. This may have helped him develop his awareness of stylistic change through time.
Contributions to archaeology
In 1816 Thomsen was selected to curate Danish Royal Commission for the Collection and Preservation of Antiquities' first exhibition. As the post was unsalaried, Thomsen's independent means and his experience as a collector of coins were his primary qualifications.
He probably knew of the three-age model of prehistory through the works of
Lucretius
Titus Lucretius Carus ( ; ; – October 15, 55 BC) was a Roman poet and philosopher. His only known work is the philosophical poem '' De rerum natura'', a didactic work about the tenets and philosophy of Epicureanism, which usually is t ...
, Vedel Simonsen,
Montfaucon and
Mahudel, and decided to sort the material in the collection chronologically. Before Thomsen, this might have been done by mechanically sorting the materials according to their materials or the level of craftsmanship they displayed, but as the provenance of many of the materials were known, he could see that crude artifacts were sometimes found with fine ones and metal artifacts with artifacts of stone. Rather than take a simple technological or evolutionary approach, he realized that the task was to determine in which periods the artifacts had been made.
Thomsen decided to map out which kinds of phenomena co-occurred in deposits and which did not, as this would allow him to discern any trends that were exclusive to certain periods. In this way he discovered that
stone tool
Stone tools have been used throughout human history but are most closely associated with prehistoric cultures and in particular those of the Stone Age. Stone tools may be made of either ground stone or knapped stone, the latter fashioned by a ...
s were found in connection with amber, pottery, glass beads, whereas bronze was found with both iron and gold, but silver was only found in connection with iron. He also found that bronze weapons did not occur with iron artifacts - so that each period could be defined by its preferred cutting material. He also found that the types of grave goods varied between burial types: stone tools were found with uncremated corpses and stone-
chamber tombs, bronze weapons and
lurs in relation to stone-
schist
Schist ( ) is a medium-grained metamorphic rock generally derived from fine-grained sedimentary rock, like shale. It shows pronounced ''schistosity'' (named for the rock). This means that the rock is composed of mineral grains easily seen with a l ...
graves, and iron with chamber tombs in
barrows. Thomsen was the first to use the terms Stone Age, Bronze Age and the Iron Age. When detractors asked rhetorically why there was no "glass age", Thomsen responded that glass beads were found in all three periods, but bowls of glass only in the
Iron Age
The Iron Age () is the final epoch of the three historical Metal Ages, after the Chalcolithic and Bronze Age. It has also been considered as the final age of the three-age division starting with prehistory (before recorded history) and progre ...
.
To Thomsen the find circumstances were the key to dating. As early as 1821, he wrote in a letter to fellow antiquarian Schröder that, "
thing is more important than to point out that hitherto we have not paid enough attention to what was found together," and, the next year, that "
estill do not know enough about most of the antiquities either … only future archaeologists may be able to decide, but they will never be able to do so if they do not observe what things are found together and our collections are not brought to a greater degree of perfection."
This analysis emphasizing co-occurrence and systematic attention to archaeological context allowed Thomsen to build a chronological framework of the materials in the collection and to classify new finds in relation to the established chronology, even without much knowledge of its provenience. In this way, Thomsen's system was a true chronological system rather than an evolutionary or technological system. His chronology was established by 1825, and visitors to the museum were instructed in his methods. Thomsen also published journal articles and pamphlets in which he emphasized the importance of the find circumstances for later interpretation and dating. Finally, in 1836, he published the illustrated monograph ''Guide to Northern Antiquity'', in which he described his chronology together with comments about which things occurred together in finds.
Like previous antiquarians, such as Winckelmann, Thomsen paid attention to stylistic analysis as well, but he used his chronological framework as evidence that stylistic developments had taken place, not the other way round. Thomsen may have been able to make his early advances in the development of archaeology because he had such a wide variety of material to review, consisting of collective finds from a large relatively homogeneous culture area. He was the first to develop it into a chronological system rather than a speculative evolutionary model.
Thomsen was an important influence on subsequent generations of prehistorians in Scandinavia, and he taught his methods to archaeologists such as
J. J. A. Worsaae and
Bror Emil Hildebrand and later
Oscar Montelius. He also importantly influenced and was influenced by contemporary Swedish prehistorians such as
Sven Nilsson.
Thomsen's ''Ledetraad til Nordisk Oldkyndighed'' (Guideline to Nordic Antiquity; 1836) was published in English in 1848. Worsaae's ''The Primeval Antiquities of Denmark'' was published in English in 1849; the two works were highly influential on the development of archaeology theory and practice in Great Britain and the United States.
In 1862, he was elected as a member of the
American Philosophical Society
The American Philosophical Society (APS) is an American scholarly organization and learned society founded in 1743 in Philadelphia that promotes knowledge in the humanities and natural sciences through research, professional meetings, publicat ...
.
Influence on art
Together with
Niels Laurits Høyen, Thomsen had great influence on the arts in Copenhagen. He was active as a board in the influential ''
Kunstforeningen'' (Art Society) in the 1830s when its member numbers and position peaked. In 1839 he was appointed as inspector at the Royal Painting Collection alongside Niels Laurits Høyen. Many private collectors also consulted Thomsen.
Bibliography
*Thomsen, C. J. (1836) ''Ledetraad til Nordisk Oldkundskab'' (''Guideline to Nordic Antiquity''), published in German in 1837 and in English in 1848.
References
Sources
*Conn, Steven (2004). ''History's Shadow: Native Americans and Historical Consciousness in the Nineteenth Century'', Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
*Gjerløff, Anne Katrine. (1999). "Syn for sagn: Dansk Arkæologi og Historie i 1800-tallet", ''Historisk Tidsskrift'' 99:2
*Gräslund, Bo. (1987) ''The Birth of Prehistoric Chronology. Dating methods and dating systems in nineteenth-century Scandinavian archeology'', Cambridge University Press.
*Heizer, Robert. (1962). "The background of Thomsen's Three-age System", ''Technology and Culture'', Vol. 3, No. 3
*Rowley-Conwy, Peter. (2006). "The Concept of Prehistory and the Invention of the Terms `Prehistoric' and `Prehistorian': the Scandinavian Origin, 1833—1850", ''European Journal of Archaeology'' 9:1 pp. 103–130
*
*Worsaae, J. J. A. (1866) "Carl Christian Rafn og C.J. Thomsen", in ''Aarbøger for nordisk Oldkyndighed''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Thomsen, Christian Jurgensen
1788 births
1865 deaths
Danish archaeologists
Danish numismatists
Directors of museums in Denmark
People associated with the National Museum of Denmark
Danish prehistorians
International members of the American Philosophical Society