Introduction to Prehistory

May 4th, 2011

The past of humankind has been divided into two broad categories
viz.Prehistoric and historic. Prehistoric period belongs to the time
before the emergence of writing and the historic period to the time
following it. It has been so fare believed that Modern Humans originated
in Africa and have lived on our planet for around 150,000 years. In
recent times, there have been some challenges to this theory.
The anthropologists have long theorized that humans emerged from
Africa and into East and Southeast Asia around 60,000 years ago; there
has been a significant lack of fossil evidence to support these claims.
The earliest skull fossil evidence in the region had dated back 16,000
years and was found in the early 20th century. In August 2012, a new
skull was found that dates back to 46,000 to 63,000 years. This
discovery has bolstered the genetic studies that point to modern
humans inhabiting Laos and the surrounding environs at that time,
according to a report of the anthropological discovery published in the
latest edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
(PNAS). The skull has been found in Tam Pa Ling, "the Cave of the
Monkeys" in northern Laos. It helps fill in this mysterious gap in the
fossil record.
Contents [hide]
Advent of writing
Archaeology & Ethnoarcheology
Origin of Man
Prehistoric Period: Classification
Concept: Absolute and Relative Chronology

Advent of writing
But, man learnt writing only about 5000-8000 years ago. Writing most
likely began as a consequence of political expansion in ancient cultures,
which needed reliable means for transmitting information, maintaining
financial accounts, keeping historical records, and similar activities. It

has been concluded that around the 4th millennium BC, the complexity of
trade and administration outgrew the power of human memory, and
writing became a more dependable method of recording and presenting
transactions in a permanent form. The earliest record of human writing
may be the Dispilio Tablet, dated to the 6th
millennium BC.
So, we humans have not learnt
writing for a long time, even
today10-12 % of the Human
Population is illiterate.
So,
written history gives us account of
only 0.1% of human history. Then,
before the invention of printing
technology in the medieval period,
written documents were few and far between, and many of them have
been lost due to being written on perishable materials like tree bark, palm
leaf, papyrus and cloth. This means that the story of humankind has to
be reconstructed largely with the help of non-literary or archaeological
sources. These sources comprise objects tools, weapons, ornaments,
structures and artistic creations which were produced and used by
humans and which have survived the ravages of time.
Archaeology & Ethnoarcheology
Like other creatures, we humans also had to adapt ourselves to the
environment, but unlike other beings, we have done so with the aid of
technology and material culture (material objects like tools, weapons,
utensils, houses, clothes, ornaments, etc). Since, the components of
environment such as landscape, climate, flora and fauna also tends to
change over time, archaeologists have to reconstruct past environments
as well. Moreover, the biological remains of men have contributed to the
understanding of not only his biological evolution but also cultural
evolution. Archaeology, thus, is a multi-disciplinary study involving
disciplines like geology,
palaeontology, palaeobotany, biological
anthropology and archaeological chemistry.
Then, the cultural changes take place at an uneven pace in different
regions. In many parts of the world, for example in India, prehistoric
ways of life have survived more or less unchanged into modern times.

The discipline, under which we study the non-industrialized societies,

especially those practising hunting-gathering,
fishing,
primitive
cultivation and pastoralism, is known as ethnoarchaeology. This study
contributes to interpreting the archaeological record.
Origin of Man
The origin of man begins in the Miocene period, around twenty million
years ago, when the great apes, from whom the humans evolved,
flourished in large areas of the Old World. Proto humans appeared in the
Pliocene period, around five million years ago, and their cultural evolution
largely took place during the Pleistocene period, which began about two
million years ago. While biologically humans differ from the other apes in
their upright posture, ability to walk on two feet or hind limbs, extremely
versatile hand, and an unusually powerful brain, culturally they differ in
their ability to manufacture and use tools.
Prehistoric Period: Classification
The prehistoric period is divided into three ages, namely the stone,
bronze and iron ages. These ages, besides being technological stages,
also have economic and social implications. The Stone Age is divided into
three periods, viz. Palaeolithic, Mesolithic and Neolithic. The suffix lithic
indicates that technology in these periods was primarily based on
stone.Economically the Palaeolithic and Mesolithic periods represent the
hunting-gathering stage while the Neolithic represents the stage of food
production, i.e. plant cultivation and animal husbandry.
Concept: Absolute and Relative Chronology
Chronology of the past can be either relative or absolute. Relative
chronology dates prehistoric events in relation to other events and
geological deposits. The relative chronology tells us if a particular event
is earlier or later than another event. On the other hand, the Absolute
chronology dates events and phenomena in solar calendar years. The
techniques
such
as
Radiocarbon,
K/Ar,
fission
tracks,
thermoluminescence, TH230/U234 and dendrochronology are the
techniques of absolute chronology. Out of then, the dendrochronology is
applicable only to a period of a few thousand years and only in the few
areas where old wood samples have been preserved. Then, the
radiocarbon dating can date events up to sixty thousand years old. The
other methods can, however, date events belonging to the entire

prehistoric period. However, their application is dependent on the

availability of suitable materials such as volcanic ash and rock at
archaeological sites.