In 1816 Thomsen was selected to curate Danish Royal Commission for the Collection and Preservation of Antiquities' first exhibition.
As the post was unsalaried, Thomsen's independent means and his experience as a collector of coins were his primary qualifications.

He probably knew of the three-age model of prehistory through the works of Lucretius, Vedel Simonsen, Montfaucon and Mahudel, and decided to sort the material in the collection chronologically.
Before Thomsen, this might have been done by mechanically sorting the materials according to their materials or the level of craftsmanship they displayed, but as the provenance of many of the materials were known, he could see that crude artifacts were sometimes found with fine ones and metal artifacts with artifacts of stone.
Rather than take a simple technological or evolutionary approach, he realized that the task was to determine in which periods the artifacts had been made.

Thomsen decided to map out which kinds of phenomena co-occurred in deposits and which did not, as this would allow him to discern any trends that were exclusive to certain periods.
In this way he discovered that stone tools were found in connection with amber, pottery, glass beads, whereas bronze was found with both iron and gold, but silver was only found in connection with iron.
He also found that bronze weapons did not occur with iron artifacts - so that each period could be defined by its preferred cutting material.
He also found that the types of grave goods varied between burial types: stone tools were found with uncremated corpses and stone-chamber tombs, bronze weapons and lurs in relation to stone-schist graves, and iron with chamber tombs in barrows.
Thomsen was the first to use the terms Stone Age, Bronze Age and the Iron Age.
When detractors asked rhetorically why there was no ”glass age,” Thomsen responded that glass beads were found in all three periods, but bowls of glass only in the Iron Age.

To Thomsen the find circumstances were the key to dating.
 As early as 1821, he wrote in a letter to fellow antiquarian Schröder that, ”[n]othing is more important than to point out that hitherto we have not paid enough attention to what was found together,” and, the next year, that ”[we] still do not know enough about most of the antiquities either … only future archaeologists may be able to decide, but they will never be able to do so if they do not observe what things are found together and our collections are not brought to a greater degree of perfection.”

This analysis emphasizing co-occurrence and systematic attention to archaeological context allowed Thomsen to build a chronological framework of the materials in the collection and to classify new finds in relation to the established chronology, even without much knowledge of its provenience.
In this way, Thomsen's system was a true chronological system rather than an evolutionary or technological system.
His chronology was established by 1825, and visitors to the museum were instructed in his methods.
Thomsen also published journal articles and pamphlets in which he emphasized the importance of the find circumstances for later interpretation and dating.
Finally, in 1836, he published the illustrated monograph Guide to Northern Antiquity, in which he described his chronology together with comments about which things occurred together in finds.

Like previous antiquarians, such as Winckelmann, Thomsen paid attention to stylistic analysis as well, but he used his chronological framework as evidence that stylistic developments had taken place, not the other way round.
 Thomsen may have been able to make his early advances in the development of archaeology because he had such a wide variety of material to review, consisting of collective finds from a large relatively homogeneous culture area.
 He was the first to develop it into a chronological system rather than a speculative evolutionary model.

Thomsen was an important influence on subsequent generations of prehistorians in Scandinavia, and he taught his methods to archaeologists such as
In 1816 Thomsen was selected to curate Danish Royal Commission for the Collection and Preservation of Antiquities' first exhibition. As the post was unsalaried, Thomsen's independent means and his experience as a collector of coins were his primary qualifications.
He probably knew of the three-age model of prehistory through the works of Lucretius, Vedel Simonsen, Montfaucon and Mahudel, and decided to sort the material in the collection chronologically. Before Thomsen, this might have been done by mechanically sorting the materials according to their materials or the level of craftsmanship they displayed, but as the provenance of many of the materials were known, he could see that crude artifacts were sometimes found with fine ones and metal artifacts with artifacts of stone. Rather than take a simple technological or evolutionary approach, he realized that the task was to determine in which periods the artifacts had been made.
Thomsen decided to map out which kinds of phenomena co-occurred in deposits and which did not, as this would allow him to discern any trends that were exclusive to certain periods. In this way he discovered that stone tools were found in connection with amber, pottery, glass beads, whereas bronze was found with both iron and gold, but silver was only found in connection with iron. He also found that bronze weapons did not occur with iron artifacts - so that each period could be defined by its preferred cutting material. He also found that the types of grave goods varied between burial types: stone tools were found with uncremated corpses and stone-chamber tombs, bronze weapons and lurs in relation to stone-schist graves, and iron with chamber tombs in barrows. Thomsen was the first to use the terms Stone Age, Bronze Age and the Iron Age. When detractors asked rhetorically why there was no ”glass age,” Thomsen responded that glass beads were found in all three periods, but bowls of glass only in the Iron Age. 
To Thomsen the find circumstances were the key to dating.  As early as 1821, he wrote in a letter to fellow antiquarian Schröder that, ”[n]othing is more important than to point out that hitherto we have not paid enough attention to what was found together,” and, the next year, that ”[we] still do not know enough about most of the antiquities either … only future archaeologists may be able to decide, but they will never be able to do so if they do not observe what things are found together and our collections are not brought to a greater degree of perfection.”
This analysis emphasizing co-occurrence and systematic attention to archaeological context allowed Thomsen to build a chronological framework of the materials in the collection and to classify new finds in relation to the established chronology, even without much knowledge of its provenience. In this way, Thomsen's system was a true chronological system rather than an evolutionary or technological system. His chronology was established by 1825, and visitors to the museum were instructed in his methods. Thomsen also published journal articles and pamphlets in which he emphasized the importance of the find circumstances for later interpretation and dating. Finally, in 1836, he published the illustrated monograph Guide to Northern Antiquity, in which he described his chronology together with comments about which things occurred together in finds. 
Like previous antiquarians, such as Winckelmann, Thomsen paid attention to stylistic analysis as well, but he used his chronological framework as evidence that stylistic developments had taken place, not the other way round.  Thomsen may have been able to make his early advances in the development of archaeology because he had such a wide variety of material to review, consisting of collective finds from a large relatively homogeneous culture area.  He was the first to develop it into a chronological system rather than a speculative evolutionary model.
Thomsen was an important influence on subsequent generations of prehistorians in Scandinavia, and he taught his methods to archaeologists such as
Christian Jürgensen Thomsen