In the 1930s van der Waerden abstracted properties of linear independence in vector spaces and algebraic independence in fields so as to define the general notion of an independence relation or matroid. This talk axiomatizes a similar ‘freeness’ relation on types. An important consequence of such a relation is the ability to port in a dimension theory, much like Krull-dimension in algebraic geometry, for certain classes of models. Our main goal is to introduce stable theories and develop Shelah’s forking calculus in a subsequent talk. After introducing the independence axioms we show that if $T$ is a theory admitting a freeness relation satisfying these axioms then certain unions of chains of $T$-models preserve saturation. Finally we reformulate freeness as a ternary relation on subsets of a monster model and show some important working tools of the theory.