(Photo by Lars Mai)
Stone Age, Bronze Age and Iron Age. You’ve probably heard these names, whether in history classes or playing Age of Empires.
This is a very famous archaeological concept that was created in the 19th century by Christian Jürgensen Thomsen and remains a reference to this day.
According to this concept, humanity went through several phases that can be represented according to the tools that men used. Below are the three ages conceptualized in the original theory:
1. Stone Age: between 2.5 million years ago until about 3000 BC. Men used simple stone tools to perform basic tasks. It ranges from cavemen, through hunter-gatherers and ending with the establishment of agricultural communities. In this first phase, man used raw minerals.
2. Bronze Age: between 3000 BC and 1200 BC. Here, man learned metallurgy and was able to manipulate bronze, an alloy of copper and tin that allows for more durable materials with better properties. As a result, civilization develops and trade grows. In the second phase, the home uses a metal alloy.
3. Iron Age: between 1200 BC until the common era. Iron requires more temperature to be moldable, but it generates more resistant materials. It was the manipulation of iron that allowed the development of certain agricultural and military techniques, giving rise to great empires. Now, we have a pure metal as a base.
However, it seems to me that there are still three other eras that have not yet been explained by other thinkers, but which would be worth describing below:
4. The Golden Age
This era would encompass classical Greece until before the industrial revolution. At this time, silver and gold became popular as a medium of exchange and allowed the development of trade in a way that had not been possible before.
Silver, being less scarce than gold, circulated more quickly, while gold was used as a more perennial standard, as a store of value. Metals coexisted and perhaps it would be more fair to call this era the “Golden and Silver Age”, but gold prevails as the most valuable metal, deserving prominence in the nomenclature.
In other eras, materials were first used for religious and aesthetic purposes (such as rituals and ornaments) and then, with the development of manipulation techniques, they became useful for building tools.
But in the golden age, it’s different. Firstly, iron and bronze had better mechanical properties than silver and gold. And second, these two precious metals were scarce. Therefore, it was not viable to make various armor and tools with them, so their use was much more focused on making jewelry and ritual items, in addition to being used as a currency of exchange and a store of value.
As a result, there has never been a large-scale production of silver and gold for industrial purposes (at least not when compared to iron or copper), even though both metals are used for specific functions within industry.
At this stage, we also use pure metals, but here the purity is fundamental: the dilution of these metals to mint more coins increases the money in circulation and causes prices to rise, generating inflation.
The end of the golden age is quite remarkable: in the 1930s, the American government temporarily banned the possession of gold by the country’s population and doubled the value of gold in a few years, diluting the population’s purchasing power.
And in the fateful year of 1971, President Nixon uncoupled the dollar from the gold standard, generating what we know today as fiat currencies: currencies backed by the trust that people have in the government that issues them.
5. The Carbon Age
The fifth age can be called the Carbon Age. It begins with the first industrial revolution, when coal (composed mostly of carbon) began to be used on a large scale in industry. This followed with the second industrial revolution, which began to use petroleum derivatives (another material mostly composed of the same element).
Today, many things have been replaced by carbon: several items are made of plastics and rubbers, which are more durable and extremely cheaper. And most of the chemicals used in industry are what we call “organic compounds”, substances that have the majority of their composition made up of carbon and hydrogen.
Carbon is even used to improve the properties of ancient metals. Take, for example, steel: an alloy of iron and carbon widely used around the world. Graphite alloys are also common.
Applications develop every year: carbon fibers, graphene, carbon nanotubes, composites and others are increasingly used, generating lightweight, robust and economically viable materials.
Here, we have a new qualitative leap: instead of dealing with metals, we are dealing with a non-metal, the fundamental element of organic chemistry, considered the element of life.
In the initial concept of organic chemistry, this science received its name because it was the chemistry of life, while inorganic chemistry dealt with inanimate processes.
Over time, the concept was modernized and organic chemistry also came to be known as carbon chemistry, since most of the compounds in this area have the majority of their structure made from this element.
Progressive manipulation of nature
Before proceeding to the conclusion, it is worth an additional note: each progress in the Ages of humanity presupposes greater manipulation of the forces of nature. Mircea Eliade says in Blacksmiths and Alchemists that metallurgy and alchemy are a continuation of the work of the gods, as it allows working on divine creations. Below is the full quote:
“Mineral substances participated in the sacredness of Mother Earth. It doesn’t take long for us to find the idea that minerals ‘grow’ in the womb of the Earth as if they were embryos. Metallurgy thus acquires an obstetric character.
The miner and the metallurgist intervene in the development of the subterranean embryology: they accelerate the growth rate of minerals, collaborate in the orb of Nature, help it to ‘have a faster birth’. In short, through the techniques that he uses, man gradually replaces Time, and his Work fulfills the task that belonged to it.
To collaborate with Nature, to help it to produce in an ever faster time the modalities of matter – we believe we have discovered in it one of the sources of alchemical ideogy.”
A symbolic example is present in the anime Saint Seiya: in it, the bronze saints are the weakest, while the silver saints are intermediate and the gold saints are the most powerful. However, the Bronze Saints, through intimate contact with the goddess Athena through the cosmos, become an integral part of Being and are able to surpass the Golden Saints in power.
And, interestingly, we also have the steel saints (an iron-carbon alloy), who instead of using the cosmos to fight for the goddess Athena, use technological armor to assist the bronze saints, indicating here a loss of the sacredness of the world due to the technological development allowed by science.
However, this loss of sacredness comes at a price: despite their technological armor, the steel saints are of little use in battles against Athena’s enemies, only being able, at best, to offer support in some of the main bronze saints’ fights – just as the irreligious man, distancing himself from the divine, feels himself without foundation in the contemporary world.
6. The Energy Age: the next era?
And what is the future? What next era awaits us? I believe that the sixth era of humanity will be a digital era – and it is unfolding in front of us. The development of the internet and software has exponentially increased the productivity of practically all economic sectors.
With recent advances in AI, we see this exponential growth accelerating: teams of 50 people have been reduced to 5 thanks to the power of automation. I worked with blogs for many years and today it is possible to write 100 articles in a few seconds – something that used to take months.
Another aspect of this development is Bitcoin, a digital currency that, due to its scarcity and security, enables the creation of an international monetary system of a digital nature.
But of course, these technologies, despite being digital, are not immaterial: to exist, they need computational power, and this computational power is generated by energy. Therefore, the next age in which we will live is the Energy Age.
Each search in ChatGPT consumes a massive amount of energy. To mine Bitcoin, an increasing amount of energy is employed. But contrary to what it may seem, this is positive, as it stimulates the search for cheap energy around the world, such as thermoelectric plants in remote locations, which are already mining Bitcoin.
Instead of being guided by the use of minerals and elements from the periodic table, we will be guided by the generation of energy, whether mechanically, electrically or nuclearly. Here we have a gigantic qualitative leap: we move from chemistry to physics.
Automation, AI, Bitcoin and other technologies will change our future and make energy increasingly central to our lives. Countries that see this will dominate the global stage in the coming decades or centuries.
Additional readings and materials:
Works and Days, Hesiod (in particular, the myth of the five races)
Bitcoin Standard, Saifedean Ammous
Large Scale Industrial Applications of Carbon Materials, Swati Sharma (Lecture)
The Forge and the Crucible, Mircea Eliade
Saint Seiya, Masami Kurumada (especially from episodes 01 to 73)