World Prehistory

The study of World Prehistory covers the vast period of time from the first emergence of a human-like species on planet Earth, our most distant ancestor species, more akin to primates than modern humans, following the developments through multiple evolutionary phases marked by a slow evolution of technology until we reach anatomically modern homo sapiens (“wise man”).

The first species to be designated as in the line of Man (referred to as the genus Homo, which means “man”) evolved in Africa about 2.1 million years ago (Mya). This was homo habilis, whose ancestors evolved into numerous subsequent species over millions of years including Homo erectus (2 Mya), Homo ergaster, Homo heidelbergensis (0.7 Mya), the Denisovans, Neanderthal man, and us, homo sapiens, by around 200,000 BCE.

However, the period of world prehistory does not end with the emergence of human beings. Instead, it ends with the advent of recorded history which marked the dawn of Human History. So while anatomically modern humans, homo sapiens, have been around for the last couple hundred thousand years, it is only in the last 14,000 years or so that we begin to see the more radical developments leading into true human civilization.

Beginning somewhere around 12,000 – 10,000 BCE we see a startling change in the character and way of life of ancient humans. In the Near East we see the emergence of farming and settled life in small villages, communities centered around the communal growing and harvesting of their own food. They supplemented their harvest with hunted or trapped prey, such as fish, birds, or deer, as well as gathered fruit, vegetables, and nuts found naturally in their local environment.

This is the late phase of world prehistory, when human civilization begins to emerge in earnest. As ancient humans transitioned through this phase of learning to farm and live in stable groups, their minds also seem to have changed.

The late prehistoric humans began to make pottery to store their produce and harvests, because they could. Now that they had huts and villages to store these cumbersome items, which would not have been practical or worth the effort in their earlier nomadic, hunting-and-gathering way of life.

Their clothing changed, and they began to express themselves more artistically and abstractly. Projectile weapons like the bow-and-arrow changed hunting. They began working with metals, fashioning tools and weaponry out of copper, before beginning to work with bronze, which ushered in the historical period.

The end of world prehistory is marked by the establishment and invention of the world’s first cities. The end product of millennia of seemingly organic development of a sedentary lifestyle, until it blossomed in such a profound and wonderful way. For in these ancient cities and civilizations, we as modern people living some 5000 years after the fact, can look back and see clearly the roots of the majority of the facets of our own modern civilization.

City life lead inevitably to the definitive end of prehistory itself, and of greater world prehistory, with the invention of cuneiform writing in Mesopotamia and hieroglyphic script of Egypt, from whence it spread throughout Europe and Asia from its birthplace in the Near East. The attainment of the written word resulting in recorded history, the definitive end of world prehistory.

Divisions of World Prehistory

There are a couple different perspectives on what precisely constitutes World Prehistory. Some say that prehistory spans the beginning of the Universe 13.7 billion years ago until the written record, or the birth of the Earth and Sun around 4.5 billion years ago. Others say it is the Timeline of the Evolution of Life on Earth, of which homo sapiens sapiens are the present cutting edge.

While I do believe that the Evolution of the Earth and of Life on Earth is an important inclusion within world prehistory, I prefer to focus world prehistory somewhat to the time period from the emergence of the genus Homo around 2 Mya until the historical record begins with recorded history around 3000 BCE.

We divide this roughly 2 million year period of world prehistory into three historical ages of the Three-Age System: containing the Stone Age, which has 4 divisions within itself, followed by the Bronze Age when mankind began working with bronze, into the Iron Age, which technically we are still living in as we continue to work with Iron.

However, , because by the end of the Bronze Age in the Near East we have the invention of writing along with the worlds first kings, empires, palatial architecture, books, doctors, professors, accountants, and so on. History proper, with the emergence of relatively modern human civilization.

An overview of the divisions of world prehistory in the three-age system is as follows:

1. Stone Age: human world prehistory takes place predominantly during the Stone Age, when our early cousin-species first evolved, inventing stone tools and clothing, the gradual rise of our species to the unquestionable apex of the natural world. Each of the following names ends in the suffix “lithic” from the Greek word lithos, meaning stone.
   1. Paleolithic / Old Stone Age: The “Old Stone” age begins with the first of the genus homo, Homo habilis in Africa around 2.5 Mya, extending to about 10,000 BCE. In the Paleolithic we see the invention of clothing and the discovery of fire around 1 Mya. As well as the evolution of a number of related species from Homo habilis such as Homo ergaster, Homo heidelbergensis, Homo neanderthalensis, and homo sapiens sapiens around 200,000 BCE.
   2. Mesolithic / Middle Stone Age: The “Middle Stone” age begins with the end of the Last Ice Age between 20,000 and 10,000 BCE depending on the region, and ends with the adoption of agriculture. The Mesolithic began and ended very quickly in the Near East because farming was invented so soon after the ice receded, though it took longer in northern Europe and in the Americas, for example, for agriculture to be developed.
   3. Neolithic / New Stone Age: In the Middle East the Neolithic began around 10,500 BCE right on the heels of the receding ice. This period marks the development of agricultural techniques, animal husbandry, and sedentary life (the transition from hunter-gathering) to the revolution of urban life culminating in the first cities.
   4. Chalcolithic (Copper Age): The Chalcolithic is the final division of the Stone Age. The Chalcolithic is a term that derives literally from the Greek words for “copper” and “stone” making it the Copper-Stone Age with metallurgical techniques first being used to create copper tools, used alongside the primordial stone tools, leading into…
2. Bronze Age: the Bronze Age is when mankind starting working with bronze, and is a period of radical social evolution and development, culminating in cities, higher technology, great architecture, empires, and the historical record. Prehistory in many parts of the world ends in the Bronze Age.
3. Iron Age: The oldest and greatest civilization all went transitioned from Prehistory into History during the Bronze Age, but most of the remaining civilizations did so during the Iron Age. They adopted writing on their own, or else through contact / force from the more advanced civilizations who had long since adopted writing, and were changing the face of world civilization through their military, political, and cultural expansion.

When dealing with the history and evolution of the human species, I will use these three ages. However, scholars who focus on the history of the Earth itself in the form of Geological History rely more heavily not on the Three-Age System but on the periods defined by the Geological Time Scale.

The End of World Prehistory

There is no single end date of world prehistory, because prehistory ends with the development and application of writing, which occurred at different times in different places.

In the Near East, specifically in the Land of Mesopotamia, prehistory ends shortly after 3000 BCE once the cuneiform script invented c.3200 BCE is refined enough to begin recording historical information (describing people, places, ideas, stories, beliefs, and events). It ends at around the same time for Ancient Egypt. However, even such great civilizations of Ancient Greece and Rome in the Classical Age didn’t fully exit prehistory until around 700 BCE. The earlier Mycenaean and Minoan Greeks did have a written language shortly after 200 BCE, spurred perhaps by contact with Sumer, Egypt, and Akkad. Though the knowledge was forgotten and wasn’t again reinstated permanently until the 8th century BC.

In the Americas prehistory didn’t end until the Maya begin to write down their ideas around the same time as (and just before) the Classical Greeks. Likewise the Chinese didn’t begin to write until about 1500 BCE, which is the end of prehistory in China, and so on.

Prehistory is the time before the written word, when our only sources of information are archaeological, anthropological, and genetic. When we have to uncover tools and structures, and attempt to reconstruct their culture and practices from their material culture using our significant imagination, ingenuity, logic, and well-reasoned arguments.

Within our study of world prehistory, we will explore the evolution of humanity from before we were even truly human, through the millions of years, and final intense millennia of development until the emergence of Human Civilization in earnest, with history beginning shortly thereafter.