This lesson puts together the meaning of the term 'ancient history' in a very simple and easy to understand manner.
So, let's get started!
Humans have a long and mysterious history. Humans lived for hundreds of thousands of years. Our pre-human ancestors lived for millions before that. Many different types of people like historians, archeologists, etc. have worked together to figure out the mysteries of our past. Archeologists discover artifacts that give them clues about the past, and historians study primary and secondary resources to connect ideas and make theories. All this builds our knowledge of the past.
As we know that writing is one of the greatest inventions of the human species. It was invented with the formation of civilizations when people settled in small towns and started agriculture, which led to a rise in populations. Before writing, the only things we have are the tools and monuments made by earlier people. This is studied by archeology rather than history.
The period of time that came before the invention of writing is known as 'prehistory'. It means the time before civilization. The area of prehistory is the domain of academic fields with the two Greek forms attached: arche 'beginning' or paleo 'old'. Thus, there are fields like archeology, paleobotany, and paleontology that look at the world from before the development of writing. As an adjective, prehistoric tends to mean before urban civilization. Again, prehistoric civilizations tend to be those without written records.
To have a history, a civilization must have left a written record. Ancient history is all the events between the invention of writing and the start of the Middle Ages. Places like Egypt, Mesopotamia, Rome, and Greece are all civilizations that taught us what life was like in ancient times. Studying ancient history shows us how humans have progressed from then until now. It is important to study ancient history because many of the things we have today have their roots in the ancient period. For example, democracy, the system of government in which the people decide what happens has its roots in Athens (a Greek city). The ancient civilizations also made a remarkable performance in the fields of math and philosophy that still stand relevant.
Ancient history covers all continents inhabited by humans in the period 3000BC - AD 500. The dividing line between prehistory and ancient history also varies across the globe. The ancient historic period of Egypt and Sumer started about 3100 BCE, perhaps a couple of hundred years later writing began in the Indus Valley, around 1650 BCE for Minoans, in 2200 there was a hieroglyphic language in Crete, and in 2600 BC String writing began in Mesoamerica.
The term 'ancient history' is not the same as 'classical antiquity'. The term classical antiquity is often used to refer to Western history in the Ancient Mediterranean from the beginning of recorded Greek history in 776BC (first Olympiad). This also overlaps with the founding of Rome in 753 BC, the beginning of the history of ancient Rome, and the beginning of the Archaic period in Ancient Greece.
Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphics
It is difficult to find facts about ancient history because people wrote less in those times, and much of what was written has been lost. As there was no printing, people wrote by hand and there weren't many copies made. Ancient Rome was one civilization where more people could read and write but much of what they wrote is now lost. Some of the ancient historians are Plutarch, Herodotus, Tacitus, Xenophon, Polybius, Josephus, Caesar, Cato, Livy, Sallust, Eusebius, Ammianus, Suetonius and Sima Qian.
Apart from the written records, modern-day historians look at things that were made and used in ancient history to learn more about it. Some of these ancient things found are:
The period of Ancient history ends with the Early Middle Ages. But ancient didn't become modern overnight. It didn't even turn into the Middle Ages overnight. The classical ancient world made a transition in late antiquity. Some facts about the transitional period of "Late Antiquity"
