Prehistory
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| prehistory |
The time of human history between the usage of the first stone tools by hominins c. 3.3 million years ago and the emergence of writing systems is known as prehistory, also known as pre-literary history. Humans have long used symbols, signs, and images, but the first known writing systems developed around 5000 years ago, and it took thousands of years for writing systems to become widely established.Writing systems were not utilised in certain human societies until the eighteenth century, and in others they are still not used now. As a result, the end of prehistoric occurred at different times in different regions, and the word is less commonly employed in discussions of communities where prehistory ended lately.
Early Bronze Age civilizations such as Sumer in Mesopotamia, the Indus Valley Civilization, and ancient Egypt were the first to develop their own scripts and retain historical records. The first to follow were neighbouring cultures. During the Iron Age, most other civilizations reached the end of their prehistory. The three-age system of prehistory, which divides prehistory into the Stone Age, Bronze Age, and Iron Age, is still used in much of Eurasia and North Africa, but not in those parts of the world where hard metal working emerged suddenly from contact with Eurasian cultures, such as Oceania, Australasia, much of Sub-Saharan Africa, and parts of the Americas.With a few exceptions in pre-Columbian civilizations in the Americas, these areas did not establish extensive writing systems prior to the arrival of Eurasians, hence their prehistory spans very recent times; for example, the end of Australia's prehistory is widely regarded as 1788.
The protohistory of a culture is the period when it has been written about by others but has not created its own writing system. Because there are no written records from human prehistory, it is critical to date prehistoric materials. Until the nineteenth century, clear dating procedures were not well-developed.
Beginning
The phrase "prehistory" can apply to the enormous period of time since the beginning of the Universe or the Earth, but it is more commonly used to refer to the time since life first appeared on Earth, or, more precisely, the time since human-like beings first appeared.
End
The beginning of the present recorded historical record is usually used to denote the end of prehistory. As a result, the date varies greatly from region to region, depending on when relevant records become a valuable academic resource. In Egypt, for example, prehistory is thought to have ended around 3100 BCE, whereas in New Guinea, the prehistoric era ended much more recently, in the 1870s, when Russian anthropologist Nicholai Miklukho-Maklai spent several years living among native peoples and wrote a comprehensive treatise about their way of life.In Europe, the relatively well-documented classical cultures of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome were surrounded by cultures with little or no writing, such as the Celts and, to a lesser extent, the Etruscans, and historians must decide how much weight to give to the often highly prejudiced accounts of these protohistoric cultures in Greek and Roman literature.
Time Periods
Historians often utilise the three-age approach to divide up human prehistory in Eurasia, whereas pre-human time period scholars typically use the well-defined geologic record and its internationally defined strata basis within the geologic time scale. The three-age approach divides human prehistory into three distinct periods, each called after the primary tool-making technologies of the time:
Stone Age
The concept of a "Stone Age" is helpful in most archaeology around the world, albeit it is known by different names in the Americas and begins with a Lithic stage, or sometimes Paleo-Indian. The following sub-divisions are used for Eurasia, but not uniformly across the continent.
Paleolithic
For all civilizations that had introduced written records during the Bronze Age, the Iron Age is not considered prehistory. During the Iron Age, most civilizations that remained did so through conquest by empires that continued to expand during this time. For example, the conquest of most of Europe by the Roman Empire means that the term "Iron Age" is replaced by "Roman," "Gallo-Roman," and other similar terms.
The Iron Age refers to the beginning of ferrous metallurgy in archaeology. Because the introduction of iron coincided with other developments in some previous cultures, such as more advanced agricultural techniques, religious beliefs, and creative forms, the archaeological Iron Age is also known as the "Axial Age" in philosophy.
The Paleolithic period, sometimes known as the "Old Stone Age," began with the first usage of stone tools. The Paleolithic is the Stone Age's oldest phase.
The Lower Palaeolithic, which precedes Homo sapiens and begins with Homo habilis (and related species) and the oldest stone tools around 2.5 million years ago, is the earliest portion of the Palaeolithic.
Evidence of early humans controlling fire during the Lower Palaeolithic Era is speculative, with only sporadic scholarly backing. The most widely accepted theory is that H. erectus or H. ergaster set fire to a place near Bnot Ya'akov Bridge in Israel between 790,000 and 690,000 BP (before the present period). Early humans could cook food, keep warm, and have a light source at night thanks to the usage of fire.
The Middle Palaeolithic began 200,000 years ago, with the emergence of early Homo sapiens. During the Middle Palaeolithic, anatomic alterations indicating current language capabilities appear. The first definitive evidence of human fire use is from the Middle Palaeolithic Era. Charred bone and wood from sites in Zambia have been dated to 61,000 years ago. The Middle Paleolithic is known for its methodical burial of the dead, music, early art, and the use of more sophisticated multi-part tools.
Humans were mostly nomadic hunter-gatherers during the Palaeolithic period. Hunter-gatherer communities tended to be small and egalitarian, however those with ample resources or advanced food-storage systems evolved sedentary lives with complex social structures including chiefdoms and social stratification. Long-distance contacts, such as the Indigenous Australian "highways" known as songlines, may have been formed.
Mesolithic
Between the Palaeolithic and Neolithic periods of the Stone Age, the Mesolithic, or Middle Stone Age (from the Greek mesos,'middle,' and lithos,'stone,') was a time in the evolution of human technology.
The Mesolithic period began at the end of the Pleistocene epoch, some 10,000 years ago, and concluded with the introduction of agriculture, which occurred at a different time in different parts of the world. Agriculture had already begun in certain locations by the end of the Pleistocene, such as the Near East, and the Mesolithic there is brief and ill-defined. The term "Epipalaeolithic" is occasionally favoured in locations with little glacial effect.
The Mesolithic era, which lasted millennia, is much more visible in regions that experienced greater environmental effects as the last ice age ended. The plentiful food sources from the marshlands generated by the warmer temperature allowed Northern European societies to thrive.
This period's relics are few and few between, usually limited to middens. The first evidence of deforestation have been discovered in forested places, however this would not begin in earnest until the Neolithic, when more land was required for agriculture.
Microliths and microburins, small composite flint tools, characterise the Mesolithic in most areas. At several locations, fishing tackle, stone adzes, and wooden artefacts such as canoes and bows have been discovered. These technologies first appear in Africa, where they are associated with Azilian cultures, before spreading to Europe via Northern Africa's Ibero-Maurusian culture and the Levant's Kebaran culture. Independent discovery, on the other hand, is not ruled out.
Neolithic
The term "Neolithic" refers to the "New Stone Age." During the Paleolithic, there were multiple human species, but by the Neolithic, only Homo sapiens sapiens remained. (Homo floresiensis may have lived until the Neolithic period began, around 12,200 years ago.) This was a time when technology and social progress were still in their infancy. It began around 10,200 BCE in some regions of the Middle East and eventually spread to other parts of the world and terminated between 4,500 and 2,000 BCE in other parts of the world. The Neolithic period is defined by a series of behavioural and cultural changes, including the usage of wild and domesticated crops and domesticated animals.
Early Neolithic agriculture was confined to a few number of wild and domesticated plants, such as einkorn wheat, millet, and spelt, as well as the rearing of dogs, sheep, and goats. Domesticated cattle and pigs, the formation of permanently or seasonally occupied towns, and the use of pottery were all part of it by around 6,900–6,400 BCE. Early settlements, agriculture, animal domestication, tools, and the first recorded instances of warfare all occurred during the Neolithic period. The Neolithic era began with the introduction of agriculture, which resulted in the "Neolithic Revolution." It came to an end when metal tools became commonplace (in the Copper Age or Bronze Age; or, in some geographical regions, in the Iron Age). In the Old World, the term "neolithic" refers to cultures in the Americas and Oceania that did not fully develop metal-working skills. Working technology creates issues.
The settlements became more permanent, with some having circular mudbrick buildings with single rooms. A stone wall may surround settlements to keep domesticated animals in and defend residents from other tribes. Later settlements had rectangular mud-brick houses with single or multiple rooms where the family lived. Burial evidence points to an ancestor cult in which people kept the skulls of the dead. The Vina culture may have invented the first writing system. Gantija's megalithic temple complexes are notable for their massive structures. Although some late Eurasian Neolithic societies developed complex stratified chiefdoms or even states, states emerged in Eurasia only with the rise of metallurgy, and most Neolithic societies were simple and egalitarian on the whole. The majority of the clothing appears to have been made of animal skins, as evidenced by the numerous bone and antler pins discovered, which are suitable for securing leather.
Chalcolithic
The "Chalcolithic," "Eneolithic," or "Copper Age" is a transitional phase in Old World archaeology when early copper metallurgy occurred alongside widespread use of stone tools. Copper was used in certain weapons and equipment throughout this time period. The character of this period was still primarily Neolithic. It was a period in the Bronze Age before it was found that combining copper with tin produced the tougher bronze. The Copper Age was once thought to be a transitional period between the Neolithic and Bronze Ages. The Copper Age is classified as part of the Bronze Age rather than the Stone Age since it is characterised by the usage of metals.
The oldest firmly dated evidence of copper production at high temperature, dating from 7,500 years ago, may be found in a Serbian archaeological site. The discovery in June 2010 adds around 800 years to the known history of copper smelting, implying that the process may have been established separately in different parts of Asia and Europe at the time, rather than spreading from a single source. Although findings from the Vina culture in Europe have now been solidly dated to slightly earlier than those from the Fertile Crescent, metallurgy may have emerged early in the Fertile Crescent, where it gave rise to the Bronze Age in the 4th millennium BCE (the traditional view), Copper mining was evident in Timna Valley between 9,000 and 7,000 years ago.In archaeological stone tool assemblages from the Middle East, the transition from Neolithic to Chalcolithic is marked by a decrease in high-quality raw material procurement and use. North Africa and the Nile Valley imported iron technology from the Near East and followed the Bronze Age and Iron Age development paths of the Near East. However, much of Africa experienced both the Iron and Bronze Ages at the same time.
Bronze Age
The Bronze Age is the earliest period in which some civilizations introduced written records, marking the end of prehistory. Only those regions and civilizations that adopted or developed a system of keeping written records during later periods consider the Bronze Age or parts of it to be part of prehistory. In some ways, the invention of writing corresponds to the start of the Bronze Age. People began making texts as soon as writing was invented, including written recounts of events and records of administrative concerns.
The name "Bronze Age" refers to a period in human history when the most advanced metalworking processes (at least in systematic and widespread use) comprised smelting copper and tin from naturally occurring ore outcroppings and then combining them to cast bronze. Arsenic was commonly found as an impurity in these naturally occurring ores. Copper and tin ores are scarce, as evidenced by the lack of tin bronzes in Western Asia prior to 3000 BCE. The Bronze Age is one of the prehistoric societies' three epochs. In some parts of the world, it follows the Neolithic system.
While copper is a common ore, tin deposits are uncommon in the Old World, and it was frequently traded or transported long distances from the few mines, resulting in the development of significant trading networks. The valuable new material was used for weapons in many places as far apart as China and England, but it was apparently unavailable for agricultural tools for a long time. From Chinese ritual bronzes and Indian copper hoards to European hoards of unused axe-heads, most of it appears to have been hoarded and occasionally dumped in excessive amounts by social elites.
By the end of the Bronze Age, literate states had emerged in Egypt, China, Anatolia (the Hittites), and Mesopotamia, all of which were referred to as empires.
Iron Age
For all civilizations that had introduced written records during the Bronze Age, the Iron Age is not considered prehistory. During the Iron Age, most civilizations that remained did so through conquest by empires that continued to expand during this time. For example, the conquest of most of Europe by the Roman Empire means that the term "Iron Age" is replaced by "Roman," "Gallo-Roman," and other similar terms.
The Iron Age refers to the beginning of ferrous metallurgy in archaeology. Because the introduction of iron coincided with other developments in some previous cultures, such as more advanced agricultural techniques, religious beliefs, and creative forms, the archaeological Iron Age is also known as the "Axial Age" in philosophy.
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