Nicolas Mahudel (21 November 1673 – 7 March 1747) was a French

antiquary 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 sit ...

interested in prehistoric research. He proposed the chronological prehistoric sequence

Stone Age The Stone Age was a broad prehistory, prehistoric period during which Rock (geology), stone was widely used to make stone tools with an edge, a point, or a percussion surface. The period lasted for roughly 3.4 million years and ended b ...

Bronze Age The Bronze Age () was a historical period characterised principally by the use of bronze tools and the development of complex urban societies, as well as the adoption of writing in some areas. The Bronze Age is the middle principal period of ...

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 ...

. Mahudel was for a time a

Jesuit The Society of Jesus (; abbreviation: S.J. or SJ), also known as the Jesuit Order or the Jesuits ( ; ), is a religious order (Catholic), religious order of clerics regular of pontifical right for men in the Catholic Church headquartered in Rom ...

and later in his life a

Trappist The Trappists, officially known as the Order of Cistercians of the Strict Observance (, abbreviated as OCSO) and originally named the Order of Reformed Cistercians of Our Lady of La Trappe, are a Religious order (Catholic), Catholic religious o ...

. Nicolas Mahudel was born on 21 November 1673 in

Langres Langres () is a commune in France, commune in northeastern France. It is a Subprefectures in France, subprefecture of the Departments of France, department of Haute-Marne, in the Regions of France, region of Grand Est. History As the capital ...

. He died on 7 March 1747 in Paris. With his work ''Three Successive Ages of Stone, Bronze, and Iron'' (1734), he influenced fellow antiquaries, notably William Borlase who further developed this idea. During the 18th century still, controversy was vivid as to whether thunder-stones had been made by men or were actually

fossil A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserve ...

s. Mahudel, member of the

Académie des Inscriptions An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of tertiary education. The name traces back to Plato's school of philosophy, founded approximately 386 BC at Akademia, a sanctuary of Athena, the go ...

, presented several of those stones and showed that they have evidently been cut by the hand of man. "An examination of them," he said, "affords a proof of the efforts of our earliest ancestors to provide for their wants, and to obtain the necessaries of life." He established the stone - bronze - iron sequence after he had compared several burial sites. He noticed that graves with decayed

urn An urn is a vase, often with a cover, with a typically narrowed neck above a rounded body and a footed pedestal. Describing a vessel as an "urn", as opposed to a vase or other terms, generally reflects its use rather than any particular shape ...

s largely featured

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 ...

items, whereas

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 ...

was found in more recent ones.

References

18th-century French archaeologists 1673 births 1747 deaths People from Langres 18th-century French Jesuits French numismatists Members of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres {{archaeologist-stub