Prehistory

Prehistory is the time before people started writing things down. It began millions of years ago when humans first made stone tools. For a long time, people were hunter-gatherers who moved around to find food.

A "wow" fact is that the first permanent houses were made of mammoth bones and rocks! Later, during the Neolithic period, people learned to farm and stay in one place. They even made pottery and kept dogs as pets.

Because there are no books from this time, archaeologists study old bones and tools to learn how people lived.

Prehistory covers the vast majority of human history, starting 3.3 million years ago. It only ends when a culture begins to use writing to record its own story. Because there are no written records, scientists called archaeologists must study physical remains like tools, bones, and art to understand the past.

The Stone Age is the longest part of prehistory. It is divided into the Paleolithic (Old Stone Age), where humans used fire and lived as nomadic hunter-gatherers, and the Neolithic (New Stone Age). During the Neolithic Revolution, humans began farming crops like wheat and domesticating animals like sheep and goats.

This allowed people to build permanent villages like Skara Brae, which even had an ancient sewer system!

Later, humans discovered how to work with metals. The Bronze Age began when people mixed copper and tin to make stronger tools and weapons.

Eventually, the Iron Age arrived, bringing even tougher tools. Prehistory ended at different times around the world; for example, it ended in Egypt around 3100 BCE, but in Australia, it lasted until 1788.

Prehistory is the period of human history that occurred before the invention of writing systems. It began roughly 3.3 million years ago with the first stone tools and ended at different times across the globe. Because there are no written records, prehistory is often called "anonymous" history. We learn about it through the archaeological record, using scientific methods like radiocarbon dating to figure out how old objects are.

Historians divide prehistory into three main ages based on the tools people used: the Stone Age, the Bronze Age, and the Iron Age. The Stone Age is the longest, covering 99% of human history. It starts with the Paleolithic, or Old Stone Age. During this time, early humans like Homo erectus learned to control fire for warmth and cooking. By the Middle Paleolithic, about 300,000 years ago, anatomically modern humans appeared. They began burying their dead, making music, and creating art, such as the famous cave paintings in France.

Around 10,000 BCE, the Neolithic Revolution changed everything. Humans stopped moving constantly and began farming crops like millet and wheat. They domesticated animals like goats and cattle and built permanent settlements.

Famous examples include the stone-built village of Skara Brae and the massive stone pillars at Göbekli Tepe. This period also saw the development of pottery and more complex social structures, like chiefdoms.

The end of prehistory arrived when societies began to use metals and writing. The Chalcolithic or Copper Age was a transition period where copper tools appeared alongside stone. This led to the Bronze Age, where humans learned to smelt copper and tin together.

In places like Mesopotamia and Egypt, writing was invented during the Bronze Age, ending their prehistory. However, in other parts of the world, like Australia or parts of the Americas, prehistory continued until they came into contact with literate cultures much later in time.

Prehistory, or pre-literary history, encompasses the immense span of human existence from the first known use of stone tools by hominins approximately 3.3 million years ago to the inception of recorded history via writing systems. Because the adoption of writing was a localized and gradual process, the transition from prehistory to history occurred at vastly different times across the globe. For instance, while Egyptian prehistory concluded around 3100 BCE, the prehistoric era in Australia is generally cited as ending in 1788 CE with European contact.

Researching prehistory requires a multi-disciplinary approach because there are no written accounts to consult. Archaeologists and physical anthropologists analyze material remains, such as stone tools, charred logs, and human bones. They utilize advanced techniques like radiocarbon dating, genetic analysis to determine kinship, and forensic chemical analysis to track the provenance of materials. When a culture is written about by others but has no writing of its own—such as the Celts being described by the Romans—it is referred to as "protohistory."

The Paleolithic, or Old Stone Age, represents the dawn of human technology. The Lower Paleolithic saw the first stone tools at Lomekwi, Kenya, and the eventual control of fire by Homo erectus around 790,000 years ago. The Middle Paleolithic (c. 300,000 BP) marked the emergence of Homo sapiens and behavioral modernity, including the systematic burial of the dead and the creation of prehistoric art. During the Upper Paleolithic, humans expanded across the globe, reaching Australia by 40,000 BP and the Americas by the end of the last Ice Age.

The retreat of glaciers led to the Mesolithic and eventually the Neolithic Revolution. This was a pivotal shift from nomadic hunter-gatherer lifestyles to sedentary farming. Starting around 10,200 BCE in the Middle East, humans began domesticating crops like einkorn wheat and animals like pigs and cattle. This era produced monumental architecture, such as the T-shaped pillars of Göbekli Tepe and the megalithic temples of Malta.

The transition to the Bronze Age was preceded by the Chalcolithic, or Copper Age, where metallurgy first appeared. Evidence from Serbia suggests copper smelting was occurring as early as 7,500 years ago. The Bronze Age itself was defined by the smelting of copper and tin, a process that required extensive trade routes since tin was rare. This period saw the rise of the first literate empires in Mesopotamia and Egypt.

Finally, the Iron Age introduced ferrous metallurgy. Iron was more abundant than copper, allowing for the mass-production of tools and weapons, which facilitated the expansion of large empires. In many regions, the Iron Age coincides with the "Axial Age," a time of significant shifts in philosophy and religion.

As these empires expanded and brought writing to new regions, the prehistoric era finally drew to a close, replaced by the recorded history of the modern world.