THE STUDY OF PREHISTORY

 The study of prehistory depends greatly on written records, which people over the centuries have set down on clay, stone wood, bone, and paper. Yet systems of writing and keeping records are only 5,000 or 6,000 years old, while the story of human progress is much older. The period of time before people kept written records in called prehistory. Some of the most significant events in the history took place during prehistoric times. The exact dates of those achievements are not known, nor are the names of the men and women who made them. Still they are part of our history. How do we learn about those achievements of the distant past. 

THE STUDY OF PREHISTORY

Scientists study evidence of the human past. What we know about prehistoric times comes from unwritten evidence - tools, drawings, pottery, weapons, jewelry, and other objects made by prehistoric people. Because many of the objects left from the earliest part of prehistory are simple stone tools and weapons, the period as a whole has been named the Stone Age. 

Scientists in several fields carry on research about the way Stone Age people lived and what they accomplished. Some of the evidence they find is in the form of artifacts, objects shaped by human beings. Other evidence is provided by fossils, human or animal bones and teeth and other traces left in rocks by plants and animals. 

Scientists examine this evidence in different ways. Archeologists often study places where prehistoric people lived, looking for the remains of homes, graves, and towns and examining the artifacts found there. Anthropologists study artifacts, bones, and other clues and try to determine what people looked like, what they ate, how long they lived, and other characteristics. Geologists analyze fossils and the rocks in which they are found, while the chemists and physicists use special methods to estimate the ages of artifacts and other remains from the past. Botanists and zoologists also contribute their specialized knowledge about plants and animals. 

With the findings from all these different kinds of research, scientists develop theories about how human beings lived in prehistoric times. New discoveries, new research, and new techniques may change their ideas or confirm their theories. The search for knowledge about the human past is a continuing process.