The Revolution of the Ax

Extract

The word “revolution” has acquired, of recent years, a very broad meaning. It has been applied to any innovation entailing substantial economic and social change. For example, the term “neolithic revolution” is currently used to designate the transition from a hunting and gathering the fruits of the soil type of economy to the relatively sedentary life of the agriculturist. The acquisition of metal—copper, bronze, and, later, iron—also gave rise to all kinds of technical as well as social transformations. The patient researches of archeologists enable us to assess the impact of this “revolution of metal” which so profoundly altered the life of our ancestors. We have a general notion of the social changes that resulted from it, thanks to our knowledge of such things as the layout of villages or cities and the details of funeral accoutrements. Here again ethnology comes to the aid of archeology.