What is human prehistory? Where do we come from, and what do we really know about our own origins?
Unlike recorded history, which begins with the invention of writing, prehistory is the immense span of time before written records. Our knowledge comes from archaeology, anthropology, genetics, and paleontology. The timeline below offers a rough overview of key milestones—it is a fascinating and ever-evolving story.
One of the earliest ways researchers organized human prehistory was through the Three-Age System—the Stone Age, Bronze Age, and Iron Age. This system, first developed in 19th-century Europe, provided a framework for sequencing technological progress.
However, this model does not apply neatly to every region. For instance, some areas (such as Sub-Saharan Africa) skipped the Bronze Age and moved directly from stone to iron technologies, while others, like Australia, remained in a Stone Age lifestyle until the arrival of Europeans in the 17th century.
The Stone Age lasted for more than a million years and is usually divided into:
Paleolithic (Old Stone Age) – hunter-gatherer societies, simple stone tools (e.g., hand axes, scrapers), use of fire, and early art.
Neolithic (New Stone Age) – marked by the Neolithic Revolution: agriculture, permanent settlements, domestication of animals, pottery, and advanced stone tools.
It was during the Stone Age that modern humans (Homo sapiens) evolved into their current form.
With the mastery of metallurgy, human societies entered the Bronze Age (ca. 3500–1100 BC in the Near East). Tools and weapons made of bronze (an alloy of copper and tin) replaced stone. This age saw the rise of the first great civilizations in Mesopotamia, Egypt, China, and the Indus Valley.
Around 1200 BC, iron smelting spread widely, leading to the Iron Age, when iron replaced bronze for most tools and weapons. This age overlaps with the emergence of powerful states and empires, including the Neo-Assyrian Empire, early Greek city-states, and eventually the rise of Classical Greece.
Several revolutionary changes occurred before written history:
Fire and cooking – controlled use of fire transformed diet and survival.
Agriculture & food storage – enabled permanent settlements and population growth.
Animal domestication – dogs, sheep, cattle, and especially horses, which revolutionized transport, warfare, and communication.
Pottery – allowed food storage, cooking, and trade.
The wheel – a major technological leap in transport and mechanics.
Writing systems – around 3000 BC in Mesopotamia, marking the end of prehistory.
1.8 million years ago – Use of fire and cooking begins (Richard Wrangham, Catching Fire).
400,000 years ago – Homo erectus at Zhoukoudian, China; widespread fire domestication; shelters at Terra Amata (France); throwing spears at Schöningen (Germany).
300,000–160,000 BC – Appearance of archaic Homo sapiens.
50,000+ years ago – Neanderthals practice deliberate burial of the dead.
100,000 years ago – Advanced stone tool industries spread.
c. 40,000 BC – Earliest cave paintings (Chauvet, Lascaux).
12,000–15,000 years ago – First humans arrive in the Americas.
10,000–8000 BC – Agriculture and the plough.
c. 8000 BC – Earliest copper use.
c. 4000 BC – Wheel invented in Mesopotamia.
c. 3500 BC – Horse domestication.
c. 3000 BC – First writing systems (Sumerian cuneiform, Egyptian hieroglyphs).
3500–1100 BC – Bronze Age.
c. 2560 BC – Construction of the Great Pyramid of Giza.
c. 1200 BC – Beginning of the Iron Age.
c. 500 BC – Transition to the Classical Greek period.
👉 This timeline shows that human prehistory was not a uniform story, but a mosaic of parallel developments across the globe. Some societies adopted agriculture or metallurgy early, while others continued as hunter-gatherers for millennia. Together, these pathways shaped the diverse human cultures we see today.