Pre-History

Pre-History
Prehistoric period belongs to the time before the emergence of writing It is believed that man learnt writing only about 5000-8000 years ago during the Neolithic period The earliest known Neolithic writings are Dispilio Tablet (found in Greece) and Tărtăria tablets (found in Romania) Both of these belong to 6th millennium BC Thus, Prehistory began with appearance of the human beings about five lakh years ago, and finished with the invention of writing about 6-8 thousand years ago
Classification of Prehistoric Period
Three classes of prehistoric period are stone, bronze and iron ages, with the later two overlapping with historic age
Stone Age is divided into three periods viz Palaeolithic, Mesolithic and Neolithic Out of them, Palaeolithic {longest) and Mesolithic represent hunting-gathering stage while the Neolithic represents the stage of food production, ie plant cultivation and animal husbandry
Palaeolithic Age
The term Palaeolithic was coined by archaeologist John Lubbock in 1865 Palaeolithic Age spanned from 500,000 years ago {when tool making members of Homo erectus had arrived} till 10,000 BC It is divided into three periods viz lower Palaeolithic, middle Palaeolithic and upper Palaeolithic ages The transition from each of these phases to successive phases was slow and marked by increased fineness in the stone tools and technology of the time as follows:
Lower Palaeolithic age tools – Handaxe and cleaver
Middle Palaeolithic ager tools – Flakes
Upper Palaeolithic tools – Flakes and blades
Further, this division is not uniform around the world because of several factors such as time lag, climatic vagaries, great distances, numerous geographical and physical barriers etc Palaeolithic age finally ended with the end of Ice Age in about 10,000 BC