Periods and definitions
- Prehistory (or the prehistoric period) refers to the time before written records, however, human expression existed across the globe long before writing.
- Writing emerged at different times in different parts of the world. The earliest writing is found in ancient Mesopotamia, c. 3200 B.C.E.
- Often, art history texts begin with the prehistoric art of Europe. However, very early art is found worldwide.
- Homo sapiens (modern humans are a subspecies) – homo sapiens migrated out of Africa between 120,000 and 50,000 years ago.
- The stone age is a prehistoric period when stone implements were widely used. The stone age is divided into the Paleolithic (old stone age) and Neolithic (new stone age). After the Stone age, the next periods are known as the bronze age and the iron age.
- Historians distinguish the Neolithic period by the transition from people living as hunter-gatherers to the development of farming and the domestication of animals. The “Neolithic revolution” allowed people to create a more settled way of life. This happened at different times in different parts of the world. The first agriculture occurred in southwest Asia—in an area historians call the “fertile crescent.”
- Prehistory was a time of major shifts in climate and environment.
- Modern archaeology uses a stratigraphic process, where archaeologists precisely record each level and the location of all objects.