Difference between History and Prehistory

Historic and the prehistoric period had a major distinction where historians define the prehistoric era as the time where all the events took place before writing down if the events were introduced in any culture or society. In contrast to the former, the historic period is referred to as the compilation of the events and the happenings that were introduced post the writing was introduced in the society. This was also considered as the medium to preserve important data and events. This article deals with the various aspects of history and prehistory and also answers the question “what is the difference between prehistory and history”.

More Information about History and Prehistory

Historians have found records of written drafts in Egypt for the first time in the prehistoric era that was about 5000 years ago in 3200 BC. While it has been studied that the existence of the human beings on earth is determined to be 4.5 billion years ago and the first stone for the encryptions on the cave walls was introduced 3.3 million years ago. But the actual written script was done 5000 years ago and then took about 1000 years to be adopted by all the cultures and tribes of people.

The prehistoric era is divided into three parts, namely, the stone age followed by the bronze age, and then the last is the iron age. Though these three divisions of the prehistoric era are filled primarily in Eurasia and North Africa, it is not generally considered in the parts of the world where there was an abrupt rise in the metalwork that took place like that in Sub-Saharan Africa, Oceania, Australia, and few parts of America. 

During the early Bronze age, Sumer in Mesopotamia, Central Egypt, and Indus Valley Civilization in India had developed their own scripts to keep a record of the events that are happening in the past. These scripts were then adopted by the neighbouring civilizations and they got widespread during the iron age which is the last phase of the prehistoric era. The exception is with the prehistoric civilization is the pre-Columbian civilizations in the Americas. They did not develop writing scripts until the Eurasians arrived in pre-Columbian civilization. Thus it was only in the year 1788, that the writing scripts were made in areas like Australia which is much later than the iron age period.  

Protohistory is the period where culture and the events of a community or civilization are written by others as they did not have their own writing system. Thus, due to the presence of not any evidence with respect to any kind of written records or manuscripts etc of the period of prehistory; thus it is considered as very crucial to have dating on the respective prehistoric findings. But, until the 19th venturi, no definite dating techniques were developed to mark the prehistoric findings.

Prehistoric People in Different Prehistoric Times

The prehistoric age saw a wide transformation that had ended about 3200 years in a stretch where the man started from hunting with different man-made tools, to cultivation to scripting the religious and culturing happening, engraving on the walls of the caves. This has thus been divided into the following three types of  categories with respect to the transformation; people went through. Let us now take a look into the same:-

• Stone Age: The people of the Palaeolithic period were the first one to leave behind the traces of their art. They mostly used the combination of minerals, burnet bones, blood, animal fats, ochres, charcoal mixed with water, and tree saps to draw signs, humans, and animals. They were also known for curving out figures of humans and animals from small stones, antlers, clay, and bones. The end of the period also marked the end of the ice age with the melting of the glacier and the rising of the sea level due to the change in the climatic conditions. This resulted in the extinction of many early birds and large mammals and thus forced the humans to relocate to different areas. 

From 10,000 BC to 8000 BC, that is, in the Palaeolithic period, humans started using small stones that are now crafted and pointed to attach with the bones or the antlers that were used for hunting down animals. They were the first kind of spares and arrows. The humans of this age used to keep relocating and stayed in camps near rivers and other water bodies. They were mostly nomadic in nature. During this time as agriculture was introduced more and more humans went for permanent settlements in the lands and village areas.

Finally, in between 8000 to 3000 BC of the Palaeolithic period, the humans started shifting their interest from hunting the animals and being nomadic to cultivating more crops and grains and went for permanent settlements in villages. For settling in the plain lands and cultivation they started using domesticated animals for ploughing lands along with hand-made axes, adzes for ploughing and tilling the land to make it fit for irrigation. The other members of the tribe used to indulge in art like making potteries, sewing, and weaving. 

• Bronze Age:  In the bronze age that stretched from 3000 BC to 1300 BC, with the discovery of tin, copper, and bronze, the metalwork advancement was witnessed. Thus now the new invention of the metal tips for the arrows and the spares slowly replaced the use of stones that the predecessors developed during the early stone age for hunting. This also led to the invention of metal ploughs and wheels that were more efficient in the cultivation process. 

This period brought a huge innovation in terms of art as potter’s wheels were discovered in this era. The concept of clothing was developed where most of the clothes that included skirts, tunics, cloaks, and kilts were all made of wool. The home dwellers started to build roundhouses for the tribes. This was mostly made of the small stone walls in round shape with thatches on the top that served as a rooftop. This was accompanied by the fireplace and in this era, most of the village concepts started to build up.

The historians believed that the concept of organised government, law, and religion came into play during this era. Likely, the Egyptians have built pyramids during this pre-historic era. 

• Iron Age: The iron age began from 1300 BC when the heating and the casting of the iron was introduced and continued till 300 BC. At this point in time, the gold and wrought did not possess this much value as that of iron even though wrought iron was much easier to manufacture than bronze. Because of the increase in production of bronze as well as other metals, this age was said to have seen a more advanced form of houses such as with four rooms, complete with a stable as well as joining the forts to the hilltops, empires, temples, & other religious places all along the century. The planning of various cities also took place and on the other hand new water systems were also put into place as well as blocks of homes were erected along paved or cobblestone. Along with this various other aspects such as art & culture, religion as well as agriculture etc. also  became modernised as well as more sophisticated.  

What is the Difference between Prehistory and History?

Let us now see what is the difference between prehistory and history:- 

Conclusion

History and the prehistoric period had a major distinction where historians define the prehistoric era as the time where all the events took place before writing down if the events were introduced in any culture or society. In contrast to the former, the historic period is referred to as the compilation of the events and the happenings that were introduced post the writing was introduced in the society. The prehistoric era continued from 10,000 to 300 BC where a huge change in human civilization, culture, art, food habits and social structure were observed. This pre-historic age is divided into three parts namely, the Stone age, the bronze age, and the iron age depending on the change in the civilization and adoption of innovations of mankind.