eneolithic

[prettygoodword]

eneolithic (ee-nee-oh-LITH-ik) - adj., of or pertaining to the Copper Age, between the Neolithic and Bronze Ages.


Sometimes more specifically used only of the Near East and eastern Europe. A time when copper was being worked and used alongside stone tools, before peoples had learned to add a little arsenic or tin to it to make bronze. Also called chalcolithic, to avoid it being read as e-neolithic, "outside the Neolithic" -- both terms mean literally "copper-stone," with eneo- coming from Latin aeneus, genitive of aes, copper (or sometimes bronze), and chalco- coming from Greek khalkós, copper. (-lithic, of course, is from Greek lithos, stone.)

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---L.

Comments

[browngirl.livejournal.com]

This is my favorite historical time period, btw. Today's word cheered me greatly.

[prettygoodword.livejournal.com]

I've been reading up on it lately, specifically the Eurasian eneonlithic stuff. I'd only seen chalcolithic used, in part because I had earlier been more interested in the Near East, where that term is perfered.