Prehistory

The earliest period of world human history, which is often regarded also as constituent part of cultural and/or social anthropology, prehistory is aimed at reconstruction of world diversity of forms, and ways of human being's and human society's development since their origin until the formation of early political structures. The perspective purpose of prehistoric studies is the detection of general and particular regularities in anthropological, social, ethnic, economic, and mental evolution of humankind at the early stages of its existence.

The subject field of prehistory in its contemporary comprehension covers series of global theoretic issues; among them:

• problem of genus Homo and modern human beings' origins and physical anthropological evolution;
• formation of human community, family, kinship, and sociality;
• rise of ideology, mythology, arts, speech, and rational knowledge;
• origin and evolution of production, livelihood systems, household activities, economic systems, products distribution, exchange, and property;
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• shaping of self-identification in different forms, ethnic and gender including:
• formation of leadership, hierarchy, power, and administration;
• origin of private property, exploitation, and classes.

Chronology and periodization. Prehistory appears to be the longest period of human history, which covers approximately 5 million years. Chronological frameworks of prehistory traditionally are referred with special events in social history and are considered relative as far as the irregularity of social progress of humankind, which displays itself already at this earliest stage of human history.

The beginning of prehistory could be referred with the origin of the earliest representatives of genus Homo, which currently is dated between5–2 million years B.P. in Africa, approximately 1 million years ago in Europe and Asia, an estimated 40,000 years B.P. in Australia, and even less in America.

Formation of the earliest states in the Near East and Egypt (border of4,000–3,000 years B.C.) traditionally is regarded as the upper frame of prehistory in its world global context. At the same time in Europe and America the prehistoric phase of human history lasts over first millennium A.D., and in particular, in the communities of Africa,Australia, and America, the prehistoric phase is still in progress.

Three main epochs could be distinguished in the frameworks of the prehistoric period of human society, body, and cultural evolution:

• period of anthroposociogenesis (i.e., time of formation of Homo sapiens and human society);
• period of primitive community, or epoch of classic prehistory, with its two phases: phase of Early Pre historic Society(hunter-gatherers community), and phase of Late Prehistoric Community (time of early farmers and cattle-breeders);
• period of formation of political structures (states), private property, and exploitation.

Source base. Unlike other fields of historical knowledge, prehistory has no primary written sources for its reconstruction as far as it has to deal with the preliterary period of human society. The source base of prehistory consists of data of many natural and humanitarian sciences, which gives the possibility to learn about the human body, human activity, society, and the natural environment, in which prehistoric processes, events, and phenomena occur. Most fruitful among these sciences are archaeology, ethnography, and physical anthropology. Additional information about early phases of human history could be provided by primatology, paleontology, paleogeography, geology, palinology, archaeobotanic, archaeozoology, palaeoclimatology, petrology, genetics, linguistics, art criticism, sociology, demography, physics, chemistry, statistics, information technology, mathematics, and others providing scientific data and the peculiar methods and approaches of their processes. As a result prehistory tends to be an interdisciplinary synthetic field of historic and anthropological knowledge whose reliability and cognitive potential deeply depend on the complexity of the source base used in a particular case study, and on the diversity of approaches and methods that were explored during this source base evaluation and interpretation.

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