prehistory

/priˈhɪstəri/

Prehistory refers to the period of time before civilization and writing. We don't know a lot about prehistory.

Since pre means "before," and history is the record of human events, prehistory refers to the time before human civilization developed and started writing things down. Scientists often speculate about what happened in prehistory, which is also known as prehistoric times. When did spoken language develop? What was the first tool? What were families like? Scientists study fossils and artifacts to help them theorize about prehistory, because people weren’t writing things down during that time.

Definitions of prehistory

1. noun

   the time during the development of human culture before the appearance of the written word
   synonyms: prehistoric culture

   type of:

   period, period of time, time period

   an amount of time