What is the difference between prehistory and history
Answers
History is the study of the past, especially the past of human beings. Though we use the term history to generally to talk about the past. As a field or a subject, history specifically refers to the time that can be proved by written records. This means that history refers to a time period after writing was discovered. Thus, history is an area that deals with written records of the past.
PREHISTORY
The term prehistory literally means before history. Prehistory can be defined as a time period where no written records exist or time before writing systems were introduced. It refers to the period from the time human-like beings first appeared on earth to the period time where writing was introduced, developed and used.
Answer:
On the basis of development of written material history can be dividend into pre-history, proto-history and history.
Pre-History is the time before human writing existed. Though the use of language can be traced back to the paleolithic culture in the Stone Age, writing wasn't invented until the Bronze Age. Some cultures like the Indus Valley Civilization, Ancient Egyptian Civilization, Sumer in Mesopotamia reached the end of pre-history in the Bronze Age by developing scripts and maintaining written records. But for the majority of cultures which began writing and maintaining written records much later, pre-history ended in the Iron Age.
Proto-History is the period between pre-history and history. During this time writing existed but the script from this period hasn’t yet been deciphered. The period in which some cultures that had not developed scripts were mentioned in the writings of other cultures that had begun to maintain written records can also be considered proto-historical.
Finally, history is the period for which we have written records that have been deciphered and are used as a source of historical research.
As for the difference between the two, it largely lies in the lack of written material during the pre-historic period and the development of scripts and written records during the historical period. Due to lack of any written material, everything we know of the pre-historical period comes from archaeological excavations and art, thus giving us only a limited insight. Whereas our knowledge of the historical period comes from archaeological excavations, inscriptions, secular and religious literature, traveller accounts, etcetera, giving us a clear and better understanding of this period.