Talk:Prehistory

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[edit] Jade age

i read somewhere some people talking about a 'jade age'. is that stone age?

I don't belive so. i could see humans of the past using jade as a form of primative currency.

See http://english.people.com.cn/200402/25/eng20040225_135852.shtml for details. -Josiah Henderson

[edit] Prehistory?

This seems like a very strange definition to me -- is the statement "the dinosaurs were prehistoric animals" false?

No, it's valid, makes sense, and is an accepted term. Although it's strictly limited to the period before we have written sources, not before we learned to write (we could have written in sand for millions of years - but it's in our prehistory...). The period after is called "recorded history".


definition modified to try to explain the usage.

Can anybody improve the "surviving records" bit, i.e., explain why a cave painting is not a surviving record?

IMHO it pretty much boils down to "pre-writing" = "prehistoric", "post-writing" = "posthistoric"

A cave painting is a human record, but it's not human language. It's possible that for its makers, it symbolized something beyond simple visual depiction, the way a crucifixion or a patriotic emblem does for us; but it isn't a symbolically encoded communication. It's an artifact, not a written record.

We can incorporate a cave painting into histories we make. We cannot know whether the painting's makers intended its meanings to be read historically; and even if we were to posit such a reading of it, we could not know the histories they constructed around it. Those hypothetical meanings (if they existed) are lost to us in the depths of time. All that comes down to us is the object itself. It is pre-historic.

[edit] Removed

The sheer scale of prehistory is surprising. From three to 150 human civilizations equal in duration to our own could have been lost in this period.

since surprising is just a POV, while 3-150 human civilizations is meaningless speculation 195.149.37.57 16:05 Feb 22, 2003 (UTC)

Uhh, more to the point, the estimate is probably low. Prehistory consists of all time before written histories exist for any given location.

I removed the external link to an obscure Delphi forum that has 10 visitors in 3 days. The posts there are mostly URL links to pseudoanthropological theories. --Menchi 08:12 24 Jun 2003 (UTC)

[edit] Sentence

The following sentence is too long and doesn't make much sense to me. This could be divided into two or more sentences.


"If however, human prehistory is defined, as presumably it should be, as the pre-literate history of Homo sapiens sapiens then at least the matter can be resolved in principle, and the recent pace of progress in understanding the evolution of Homo sapiens suggests the answer will not be long in coming."

[edit] Homo erectus?

why homo erectus as beginning of prehistory??

--Yak 20:38, Feb 25, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Recorded history might have began in 1900 A.D.? I don't think so...

I edited the part of the article which deals with the question of when recorded history began, which originally read as follows:

"The date marking the end of prehistory is also disputed. In Egypt it is generally accepted that prehistory ended around 3500 BC whereas in New Guinea the end of the prehistoric era is set much more recently, 1900 AD."

This is misleading and frankly, absurd, not to mention just plain WRONG. What is a reasonable person to make of such a statement - that all of the recorded history from the time of the pharaohs through the Spanish-American War is in dispute? C'est absurd. I can only presume that this was intended as a politically correct nod to the indigenous peoples of New Guinea and their myths at the expense of the truth.

It now reads:

"While the date marking the end of prehistory is disputed, it is generally accepted that prehistory ended around 3500 BC in Egypt."


WikipediaEditor 21:07, 3 September 2005 (UTC)

Read it again. It means that prehistory ended and history began at different times in different places. Reverting adamsan 21:50, 3 September 2005 (UTC)

Re-removed. Pre-history refers to the time before historical records were kept. It ended when human beings started to keep records of events. The end of prehistory is thus dated to the oldest known credible records. This does not change from region to region, though perhaps knowledge of the oldest known records might. In any event, if the people of New Guinea think recorded history began in 1900 A.D., they are simply WRONG. If a previously unknown tribe were to emerge tomorrow with credible records from 25,000 years ago, the 'non-New Guinean' world would similarly have been proven wrong and be obliged to revise their date of the end of pre-history. The end of prehistory - the beginning of the documentation of historical events - was a real event in real time and a major milestone in the development of our species, not some culturally determined 'belief' that varies from region to region. WikipediaEditor 04:51, 8 September 2005 (UTC)

So a culture that had no links with Ancient Egypt and was tens of thousands of miles away magically entered the historical period when some scribe beside the Nile wrote something down? Neolithic Europe, Iron Age South Africa and Archaic North America and are all historical societies by your reasoning even though they had no written history. By all means we can name the first society to enter the historical era but the end of prehistory is not a single date across the globe- just a series of single transitions for each culture. It is a fact that the Highlands of PNG have no history before the nineteenth century. Try telling someone who studies the Bronze Age that he isn't a prehistorian. It is not a question recorded history being invented somewhere or other but when a people adopts it. No historical or archaeological terms are globally applicable; societies like Amazonian tribes are still in the Neolithic. adamsan 07:06, 8 September 2005 (UTC)
With all due respect, you seem to be confused about the generally accepted meaning of the term 'prehistory'. It simply refers to the time before any humans anywhere are known to have kept records of events.It doesn't change from region to region as people take to recording events. Note also that the term 'prehistory' has no necessary connection to technology. Suppose, for example, that evidence of a high tech society - with airplanes and Internet and predating Egypt - were found tomorrow. Despite their technological achievements, such a society would remain correctly described as prehistoric if they kept no historical records. The fact that in New Guinea, local history was not recorded until 1900 AD simply means that we have no written records of events in New Guinea prior to 1900 AD. Societies that did not keep records of events during and after the time of the Pharaohs (eg. North Amercian Indians of 2000 years ago) are nevertheless correctly described as living within the timeframe of recorded history, even though their history was not recorded. I hope this clarifies the concept of prehistory for you.WikipediaEditor 22:18, 9 September 2005 (UTC)
Hello Wikipedia Editor. I must first apologise for reverting your contributions yesterday without noticing your post above first and am sorry about that. However, I am unable to find any references to say, North American Indians from 2000 years ago living in the historical period. Here] for example is a course description from a US university defining US prehistory as ending at the time of European contact not 3500 BC. You will find that academics who study the period since then and the arrival of historical records in their own regions will describe themselves as prehistorians. Here we see the Prehistory Department of the University of Hawaii studying the builders of the stone heads at Easter Island which was a society that existed around the same time as the European Middle Ages. And here is an Australian university teaching a course in European prehistory that covers the millennia following the development of writing by our Egyptian friends.
You are quite right that any society, no matter how technologically advanced is prehistoric if it has no historical records, but this does not alter the point that prehistory does not have a single defined ending. If anything it supports this view as it would show that cultural development varied considerably around the world.
The précis of the three age system article has little place in this wider piece on prehistory as it really cannot be applied in most of the world and most of the time period covered. I do hope that you will not revert my other edits to the article in future even if we disagree on the definition of the term. I look forward to your response but in the meantime will be asking some of the other Archaeological Wikipedians to comment on this important article. adamsan 11:30, 11 September 2005 (UTC)
WikipediaEditor, adamsan is right. Prehistory varies between different parts of the world. As far as Scandinavia is concerned, the Historic era begins during the Viking Age. Everything prior to this is Prehistory in spite of the fact that there are some historic accounts of Scandinavia prior to the Viking Age.--Wiglaf 11:42, 11 September 2005 (UTC)

I agree with Adamsan and Wiglaf here, athough I think Wikipedia Editor has misunderstood the point. According to the disputed version of the article, events in New Guinea before about 1900 AD went unrecorded in writing, meaning the recorded history of New Guinea starts about 1900, and any events in New Guinea before then are prehistoric. It doesn't mean that any events anywhere in the world before 1900 are prehistoric to a New Guinean. History and prehistory are defined by the existence of writing, and writing arrived in different parts of the world at different times. In the same way, the Irish Iron Age didn't happen at the same time as, say, the Mesopotamian Iron Age as iron arrived in different parts of the world at different times. --Nicknack009 16:37, 11 September 2005 (UTC)

I agree with what you say, except for the writing part. Scandinavia was literate with the runic script for 600-800 years before it left prehistory. An area only enters history, when there is a consistent and conscious history writing in the area.--Wiglaf 16:53, 11 September 2005 (UTC)
Not to to prolong an old argument, but all the Norse scholars I know, including me, do not consider the runic period to be prehistoric. Prehistoric in the literature is always used to refer to the pre-Runic period ending after about 400 AD.DHBoggs 00:48, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

I understand the concept of prehistory argued originally by Adamsan and subsequently defended by Nicknack and Wiglaf, and agree that it's important to know when the practice of recording historical events began in particular regions of the world. Nevertheless, the article is flawed if it fails to acknowledge the sense of the term as the date of the oldest known historical records. I don't have a problem with the notion of regional prehistory so long as the important question of what the oldest known historical records are is also addressed. I suggest a re-edit that would include both the global and regional sense of the term (eg. 'World prehistory' as well as 'New Guinean prehistory' and 'Scandinavian prehistory' etc.).

WikipediaEditor 17:23, 11 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Bullets?

Why is this article a series of bullet points? This doesn't seem to be in line with the rest of Wikipedia. Threepounds 06:22, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Details of period

I reverted the additions "from other articles" -- its not clear if that is a fork of other articles or what or where it came from. There should be one place where this information is kept, linked to with "Main articles" - not replicated verbatum across multiple articles. Also it is not clear that this is the primary article for the history of the period - or is this a historiography article about the term. I'm leaning towards a historiography article as I think the term is somewhat deprecated in modern scholarly discourse. -- Stbalbach 14:20, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Merge with Prehistoric man

It looks like this was started in much the same way as that article and they underwent some divergent evolutionTrilobitealive 05:44, 7 January 2007 (UTC) This is displaying oddly as well. The other one normalized when I made a comment. What is happening?Trilobitealive 23:20, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Fixed it - that always happens when you start a line with a space. --Nicknack009 00:09, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
As to the proposed merge, on a cursory look at both articles you're probably right. --Nicknack009 00:10, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Unless somebody comes up with a compelling reason why not to do so I'm contemplating the merger in a week or so.Trilobitealive 23:36, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

While prehistoric man lived in prehistory. It should be noted that prehistory is a time period and therefor should not be dependant on man. It's like referring to the Jurassic period as the time when dinosaurs lived.--72.66.102.89 (UTC) 20:12 Apr 26 2007

Sumir Sharma 04:37, 7 October 2007 (UTC) Kindly note that there are some concepts and terms in history, which are inseparable part of learning the trade of a historian. The term "Prehistory" belongs to that genre. You may consult any history student, teacher and researcher, you will come to know that this term exists on its own merit in the realm of learning history.

In support of my argument, I may not refer to some established authorities but I direct the attention to the definition as taken in the main article. It is stated that "is a term often used to describe the period before written history" which shows that it was some field of knowledge about which we do not have "written records". However that does not mean that there is no record as such for that period for which we do not have the written record. To substantiate my argument, I suggest that to look at the sources of Indus Valley civilization. There, we have written records but they are yet to be deciphered and read. Therefore, there are no written records as such for Indus Valley Civilization. Now that does not mean that Indus Valley Civilization should be merged with Prehistoric man when it was contemporary of Mesopotamian and Sumatra Culture. Sandros for cotton has been derived from the Mesopotamian sources only to prove that there was civilized trade relations between those culture.

In short, Prehistory is a concept. It is an established term and concept in the field of research and methodology of history. No doubt, it is related to prehistoric man also but here another concept, Proto History comes in which is not covered on Wikipedia for present.

I must suggest the very idea of merging it with Prehistoric man should be dropped. Now, Prehistoric man and Prehistory, both are concepts, a type of tools, in the realm of historic research and methodology. THIS SHOULD NOT' BE MERGED. It is a notable history field subject; an article by itself is needed. J. D. Redding 16:25, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

NO merge (of course!) --HanzoHattori 12:36, 28 June 2007 (UTC)


Just to confirm, merging the two articles would be a grave mistake and in fact completely ridiculous. As noted in the article, a T-Rex is a prehistoric animal, but has nothing what-so-ever to do with prehistoric people. Prehistory is a period (albeit a very long one) that includes a vast number of things other than man (or woman for that matter). --24.20.198.152 23:35, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

I concur wholeheartedly. As there is SO much more to this universe, let alone our planet, than MAN. We are so arrogant. NO merge (of course!)68.118.131.86 04:05, 26 July 2007 (UTC)cpswarrior

Agree with all of the above, a merge would be ridiculous. Prehistoric Man is a -completely- different subject to Prehistory, to merge them merely based on the fact that Prehistoric Man lived in the period of Prehistory is absurd. It would be like merging pizza with food. Absurd. Well at least imho.. Themania 08:31, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Why in the world would anyone even come up with the idea of merging these articles? There should, no doubt, always be a link to the "Prehistoric Man" article, but prehistory is so vast that, unfortunate as it may be to the egocentrics, it dates far, far before man. Alternately, the subject of prehistoric man is itself a specific study that is, although categorized in prehistory, not in any way congruent or synonymous to prehistory itself. Furthermore, the subject of prehistoric man is extremely important and encyclopedic, more than well enough to deserve its own article. TheGreenSaga 11:13, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

May I suggest that MAN is a phallocentric title. MAN implies that men were the prime movers and shakers in the world before written records. Should it not be a neutral title ie PEOPLE? To seemingly omit women from prehistory is liable to be seen as unethical and would not enhance the reputation of Wikipedia. 86.111.163.195 08:36, 5 September 2007 (UTC)LD A-B 5 Sepptember 2007

"Man", like it or not, is the term used, and is understood in this context to include both men and women. Maybe it's an unfortunate term, maybe it isn't, but Wikipedia is not the place to campaign to dislodge it's use. mike4ty4 06:40, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

I would normally oppose this merge in principle, because the concepts are really very different- but I just went and read the Prehistoric Man article, which appears to simply summarize fragments of other articles (like the Three Age System), and my opinion has changed. I don't think they should be merged, because I don't think much of the Prehistoric Man article is worth keeping- I actually think Prehistoric Man should be deleted or turned into a redirect to Prehistory unless someone is willing to rewrite the whole article. Furthermore, even if someone WAS going to rewrite Prehistoric Man, frankly, I'm not sure what that article should cover. TriNotch 17:31, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Because the Prehistoric man article consisted entirely of material duplicating other Wikipedia articles- those being Prehistory and Three-age system- I have turned the page into a redirect to this page until someone is willing to rewrite that article into something useful. This is not a merge, because no material from the Prehistoric man article was salvaged or added to this article. In some cases, these two articles had exactly identical content. Although I encourage discussion, since this has been under discussion since January, I think it was probably the right step to take. Oh, and for J. D. Redding, there is a protohistory article already. TriNotch 19:00, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
Perhaps it's the Timeline of human evolution page that needs to be renamed, but I'd suggest that rather than Prehistoric Man, perhaps something like Prehistoric Humans would be a better option, even if that does subsume earlier hominids under the 'human'. BRahn 16:57, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
Better still, how about if prehistoric man and prehistoric humans both redirected to Human evolution, just like primitive man already does? TriNotch 19:24, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Not quite correct.

The article says: Human prehistory differs from history not only in terms of chronology but in the way it deals with the activities of archaeological cultures rather than named nations or individuals. Restricted to material remains rather than written records (and indeed only those remains that have survived), prehistory is anonymous. This isn't entirely correct. Or rather, it isn't always correct. If we define any pre-literate society as pre-historical, then, for example, Tongan "history" prior to European contact was "prehistory". The Tu'i Tonga Empire would thus be a prehistoric empire. All right, then. But this raises three issues in relation to the excerpt quoted from this article:

  • One could argue that there was a Tongan nation prior to European contact. To say that there is no such thing as a prehistoric nation-state would thus be erroneous, at least in one specific case. One could debate the semantics, but few would dispute that "prehistoric" Tonga closely ressembled what you might call a "nation".
  • As in other Pacific societies, oral history complements the study of material remains. (Maori whakapapa in New Zealand, for example, are of some value to (pre-)historians, and they are not "material remains".) Tonga today draws its roots from a long (pre-)history, which has been preserved in oral accounts.
  • Most of all, in Tonga's case, "prehistory" is definitely not "anonymous". The history of Tonga prior to the introduction of writing deals with specific names (people) and events. Again, see the article on the Tu'i Tonga Empire.

What we have in the case of Pacific societies is a "prehistory" which can be differentiated from the prehistory of Europe. For one thing, it's a lot more recent. For another, Pacific people have always had an interest in preserving oral records of their history, and these oral records (which simply no longer exist in Europe) provide source materials to (pre-)historians today. Knowledge of history among Pacific peoples before the introduction of writing had a different emphasis to what we consider "history". In many cases, it was focused on the ancestry of smallish groups, and served to legitimise their ownership of an area of land. But in the case of Tonga, something ressembling a nation-state with a maritime empire pre-dated European contact, and has its own history, preserved in oral form before writing was available. Hence a problem whenever we try to make global generalisations on "prehistory" under the current definition of that term. Aridd (talk) 10:37, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Merger of Timeline of Human Prehistory with this article

I've merged a recently created article which is the start of a timeline of human prehistory -- 2 reasons. One, it seems to fit better here and should enhance this article. Secondly, I hope that merging will improve the timeline. The main editor and creator needs help with more current references and some help with criteria. You can see on the old talk page that he isn't too happy with this and fears that his timeline will be removed entirely, but I'm sure that we can built it up to something substantial and accurate here. There was no way I could see that happening as a stand alone article.Doug Weller (talk) 12:54, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Size of Tower in Jericho

"c. 8000 BCE - In northern Mesopotamia, now northern Iraq, cultivation of barley and wheat begins. At first they are used for beer, gruel, and soup, eventually for bread. Around this time, a round stone tower, about 30 feet high and 30 feet in diameter (100 meters high by 100 meters in diameter) is built in Jericho."

I'm no scientist, but I'm reasonably sure that 30 feet is not 100 meters. However, I don't know if "feet" and "meters" were switched, if a zero was omitted from "30", if a zero was added to "10", or what, and I don't have the listed source to check the reference. Does anybody else have handy a National Geographic item from 1979? MssngrDeath (talk) 00:13, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Well caught. There are other sources, better sources in fact, I'll look. 1979 is way to old for a comment on agriculture of course.Doug Weller (talk) 07:41, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
The tower is dated to PPN-A, Pre pottery Neolithic A, (ca 10,500/10,300-9300 BP), 8.5m diameter at base, preserved to 8m height. Fagan, Brian M, ed. The Oxford Companion to Archaeology, Oxford University Press, Oxford 1996 p 363Doug Weller (talk) 08:26, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Fairly major problem perhaps

WP:Styleguide Uncalibrated (bce) radiocarbon dates: Do not give uncalibrated radiocarbon dates (represented by the lower-case bce unit, occasionally bc or b.c. in some sources), except in directly quoted material, and even then include a footnote, a [square-bracketed editor's note], or other indication to the reader what the calibrated date is, or at least that the date is uncalibrated. Calibrated and uncalibrated dates can diverge surprisingly widely, and the average reader does not recognize the distinction between bce and BCE-BC.

So, what are all these BP dates? Are they calibrated or uncalibrated? If they are uncalibrated, some of them could be very very misleading. --Doug Weller (talk) 16:34, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] tower in Jericho

In the timeline section, it says the tower was 30 feet (100 meters) high. Those can't be right, but I don't know what the correct measurement is, so I can't fix it, but someone who knows should. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.125.233.175 (talk) 20:35, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Fixed it. I'm not confident about any bits of the time line that don't have recent academic references.Doug Weller (talk) 06:31, 7 June 2008 (UTC)