On Studying History, Part 2
Only a couple of centuries ago, historians were unable to make use of any evidence except oral or written evidence. Where no such evidence was available, they spoke of the period as “prehistoric” and beyond the bounds of history. The term prehistoric is still used today to describe the time in a society or region’s history before the advent of writing, but prehistory is no longer as unknowable as it once was, thanks to the contributions of archaeology, anthropology, linguistics, and genetics.