prehistoric societies
Before written records
Prehistoric societies are human communities that existed before the development of writing systems, roughly before 3000 BCE in most regions.
The term encompasses diverse cultures from small hunter-gatherer bands to complex agricultural settlements.
Archaeologists reconstruct these societies through material remains: Tools and burial sites reveal how prehistoric societies organized themselves.
The adjective prehistoric sometimes implies primitive or outdated: His attitudes toward women belong to prehistoric societies.
- early humansAncient ancestral primates
- hunter gatherersPre-farming nomadic peoples
- cave artPrehistoric images on stone
- cave paintingsPrehistoric artwork on stone
- PaleolithicEarliest archaeological era
bone tools · fire-making · campfire stories · burial mounds · glacial retreat · oral traditions · shamanism · hunting strategies · pottery · weaving · fertility rituals · ritual burial · animism · stone tools · Bronze Age · animal domestication · Stone Age · skeletal remains
- prehistorystone tools, Neolithic, Stone Age, caveman, cavemen
- ancient metalworkingsmelting, forging, smithing, casting molds, crucibles
prehistoric societieshistorical societies
Groups preserving local heritage
recorded history · ancient empires · classical antiquity · historical periods
prehistoric societiesindustrial society
Civilization centered on manufacturing
contemporary society · space age · information age · nuclear age · machine age
prehistoric, societies, society, history, historic, historical, historian, prehistory, social