Prehistory (or better known as Pre-history) is the time before people began to write. It lasted from around 4.5 billion BC – 3000 BC, during the Stone Age.
Prehistory (or better known as Pre-history) is the time before people began to write. It lasted from around 4.5 billion BC – 3000 BC, during the Stone Age.
The word comes from the Ancient Greek words προ (pre = "before") and ιστορία (historia = "history").
Paul Tournal first used the French word Préhistorique. He found things made by humans more than ten thousand years ago in some caves in France. The word was first used in France around 1830 to talk about the time before writing. Daniel Wilson used it in English in 1851.
The term "pre-history" is mostly used for the period from 4.5 billion BC – 3000 BC, roughly speaking, the Neolithic. Sometimes the term "prehistoric" is used for much older periods, but scientists have more accurate terms for those more ancient times.
Pre-history ends when people began to write. This happened at different times in different places, depending on when people began to write and whether their records were kept safe so they could be found later on. In places like Mesopotamia, China, and Ancient Egypt, people recorded things from very early times (around 3200 BC in Ancient Egypt), and these records can be looked at and studied. In New Guinea, the end of prehistory came much later, around 1900 BC.
Less is known about prehistoric people because there are no written records for us to study. Archaeologists study things like tools, bones, buildings and cave drawings to learn about pre-history. Palaeontology, astronomy, biology, geology, anthropology, and geochronology also provide information about pre-history. For example, anthropologists study the traces of human behavior to learn what people were doing and why.
After people started to record events, first by drawing symbols (called pictographs) and then by writing, it became much easier to tell what happened, and history started. These records can tell us the names of leaders (such as Kings and Queens), important events like floods and wars, and the things people did in their daily lives.
In the more ancient Stone Age pre-history, people gathered in tribes and lived in caves or tents made from animal skin. They had simple tools made from wood and bones, and cutting tools from stone such as flint, which they used to hunt and to make simple things. They made fire and used it for cooking and to stay warm. They made clothing out of animal skins, and later by weaving.
Society started when people began doing specialized jobs. This is called the division of labour. The division of labor made people depend on one another and led to more complex civilizations.
it is more challenging to study than periods with written records because knowledge of prehistory is almost entirely dependent on archaeological evidence.
