Q 01/05

How do archaeologists of the Americas divide prehistory instead of the three metal ages?

A) Into two ages

B) Into five periods

C) By pottery styles

D) Into ruling dynasties

Answer · why

B) Into five periods

Pre-Columbian cultures worked copper and silver but never developed an iron economy, so the Old World scheme does not fit.

Q 02/05

By convention, what marks the local start of the Iron Age?

A) Smelted metal replacing bronze in daily use

B) The arrival of wheeled vehicles

C) The first use of any metal object

D) The first surviving written records

Answer · why

A) Smelted metal replacing bronze in daily use

Meteoric iron had been hammered into beads and daggers for thousands of years before anyone could smelt ore.

Q 03/05

Around when did large-scale iron production begin worldwide?

A) 500 BC

B) AD 100

C) 1200 BC

D) 3000 BC

Answer · why

C) 1200 BC

In the Near East the shift coincided with the Late Bronze Age collapse, when cities from Pylos to Gaza were destroyed or abandoned.

Q 04/05

Which Danish museum curator introduced the three-age system to archaeology in the 1830s?

A) Christian Jürgensen Thomsen

B) Jens Jacob Worsaae

C) Oscar Montelius

D) Sophus Müller

Answer · why

A) Christian Jürgensen Thomsen

He arranged the antiquities in Copenhagen chronologically by material, an idea that soon spread across Europe.

Q 05/05

Which Greek poet's Works and Days named Golden, Silver, Bronze, Heroic and Iron ages?

A) Sappho

B) Pindar

C) Homer

D) Hesiod

Answer · why

D) Hesiod

Only his Bronze and Iron ages referred to actual metal use; the modern archaeological system borrowed the names.