What time in the past does prehistoric refer?

Answer 1

The term "prehistoric" literally means "before history." History is the time since people began to write things down, which was approximately 5,000 years ago in the Middle East. In other areas history began later. For example, in most of the Americas and Australia, history didn't begin until Europeans arrived in 1492 and the late 1700's respectively, because the locals didn't write yet.

Answer 2

Generally speaking, it is any time period before humans recorded events, i.e. "before history". You can see this or something similar in just about every dictionary definition.

That doesn't mean just "writing". Recording can be cave paintings or other 'non-verbal' recordings. Since we are continually discovering new evidence of man's distant past, that time period keeps getting pushed back -- there are cave paintings found in France that have been tested to be over 10,000 years old!

It is very interesting to me, however, that many of our recorded events are recordations of events that supposedly occurred beforehand and were passed down by word of mouth!

If you want a better timeline on earth's geologic history that includes some idea of when we began to record our events, here's an interesting site:

http://www.scientificpsychic.com/etc/timeline/timeline.html

Answer 3

Prehistoric means before recorded or written history.

Answer 4

The walkman is considered prehistoric compared to the iPod.

Dinosaurs are prehistoric.

Answer 5

the time before history was recorded

Answer 6

ancient, in the beginning

Answer 7

it is when people didn't writethe history

Answer 8

Primitive