What was our planet like a long time ago?

Most of the time that people have lived on Earth has been during what we call prehistory. Today we live during the time period known as history. When did one end and the other begin? In one word, WRITING.

2000 CE1 CE2000 BCE4000 BCE 3500 BCE Writing is invented in Mesopotamia Prehistory History

F ossils A rtifacts

Physical evidence of former life from a time before recorded human history.

In order to form, fossils need to have very specific conditions. Most things do not become fossilized when they die.

F ossils A rtifacts

The size of spear tips can tell what types of animals people hunted. Large spear tips were used to hunt large animals like mammoths or deer. Small spear tips were used to hunt small animals like birds and rabbits.

Because there were no written records, archaeologists can only take their best guess when studying fossils and artifacts. Much of what we know about prehistoric times is just the best guesses of archaeologists. Some things that people thought 50 years ago have been proven false.

Fossils take so long to form that none exist from the time writing was invented. However, archaeologists still study artifacts. But now they study them together with oral traditions and written records.

Oral traditions are stories about the past that are told and passed from one generation to the next. In Africa, the storytellers are called griots. Oral traditions are not always accurate. Sometimes they change as they are told and contain exaggerations.

What are written records? Basically anything can be considered a written record and can be valuable to archaeologists. For example… 1.Governmental documents 2.Tomb walls 3.Business contracts 4.Religious documents 5.Copies of speeches made by leaders 6.Work done by a student in school