prehistoric times
Era before writing
Prehistoric times refers to the period of human history before written records, ending at different points in different regions depending on when writing developed.
The phrase typically evokes Stone Age life—cave dwellers, mammoths, primitive tools: Humans have used fire since prehistoric times.
Informally, prehistoric can mean extremely old or outdated: That computer is from prehistoric times.
- cave paintingsPrehistoric artwork on stone
- rock artImages on natural stone
- Stone AgeEra of knapped tools
- PaleolithicEarliest archaeological era
- stone toolsShaped rocks for tasks
primitive tools · petroglyphs · extinction events · burial sites · Lascaux · Denisovans · Ice Age · hand axes · Australopithecus · Neanderthals · fossils · fossil record · megaliths · cavemen · hunter gatherers · Homo erectus · mammoth · bipedalism
- prehistorystone tools, Neolithic, Stone Age, caveman, cavemen
- erasera, epoch, age, bronze age, period
- historical erasStone Age, Bronze Age, Iron Age, Middle Ages, Renaissance