Who coined the term ‘Neolithic’?

Concept: Archaeologists classify prehistoric material culture using the three-age system (Stone, Bronze, Iron Age). The Stone Age itself is further subdivided by tool-making technology and way of life into the Palaeolithic (Old Stone Age - chipped/flaked tools, hunting-gathering) and the Neolithic (New Stone Age - polished/ground tools, settled agriculture, and animal domestication).

Application: This finer subdivision of the Stone Age was introduced by the British archaeologist and naturalist John Lubbock in his 1865 book 'Pre-historic Times, as Illustrated by Ancient Remains, and the Manners and Customs of Modern Savages'. In this work he coined the terms 'Palaeolithic' and 'Neolithic' to distinguish the technological and economic stages within the broader Stone Age.

Cross-check - the other names in the options belong to different, unrelated contexts:

• Huns - a confederation of nomadic peoples from Central Asia, prominent during the migrations of Late Antiquity (4th-5th century CE), unconnected to 19th-century archaeological terminology.

• Kushanas - an ancient ruling dynasty in Central Asia and northern India (1st-3rd century CE), remembered for political rule and art patronage, not for classifying Stone Age tools.

• Christian Thomsen - a Danish museum curator who introduced the broader Stone-Bronze-Iron three-age classification system in the 1830s, a related but distinct achievement from Lubbock's finer subdivision of the Stone Age itself.

• John Lubbock - the British archaeologist whose 1865 study of prehistoric remains established this very terminology.

Hence, the term 'Neolithic' was coined by John Lubbock.