Word Finder - prehistoric

definition

Having lasted from a remote period; having been of long duration; of great age, very old.

example

an ancient city  an ancient forest

definition

Existent or occurring in time long past, usually in remote ages; belonging to or associated with antiquity; old, as opposed to modern.

example

an ancient author  an ancient empire

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(history) Relating to antiquity as a primarily European historical period; the time before the Middle Ages.

definition

Experienced; versed.

definition

Former; sometime.

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(properly) Of or relating to the epoch before written record.

The whole neighborhood is rich in prehistoric remains.

The island contains a very large number of important prehistoric monuments.

There are large prehistoric shell-mounds at Indian Hill, about 20 m.

There is an archaeological museum with prehistoric antiquities from the lake-dwellings on an island in the Lake of Varese.

Japan appears to have been formerly inhabited by the Ainus, who have traditions of an older but unknown population, but was invaded in prehistoric times by a race akin to the Koreans, which was possibly mingled with Malay elements after occupying the southern part of the islands.

One land, however, has eclipsed all others in the Aegean by the wealth of its remains of all the prehistoric ages, viz.

The most important data bearing upon the first great period are given elsewhere in this work, and it is proposed to offer here a more general survey.5 To the prehistoric ages belong the palaeolithic and neolithic flints, from the distribution of which an attempt might be made to give a synthetic sketch of early Palestinian man.6 A burial cave at Gezer has revealed the existence of a race of slight build and stature, muscular, with elongated crania, and thick and heavy skull-bones.

Dr Elliott Smith, who has examined thousands pf skeletons and mummies of all periods, finds that the prehistoric population of Upper Egypt, a branch of the North African-MediterraneanArabian race, changed with the advent of the dynasties to a stronger type, better developed than before in skull and muscle.

The rapier (63) or lengthened dagger is rarely found, and is prisbably of prehistoric Greek origin.

The bow was always of wood, in one piece in the prehistoric and early times, also of two horns in the 1st Dynasty; but the compound bow of horn is rarely found, only as an importation, in the XVIIIth Dynasty.

Agricultural Tools.The hoe of wood (85) is the main tool from the late prehistoric time, and many have been found of the XVIIIth Dynasty.

Arms and ArmourFrom the contents of graves and other remains, and the sculptured and painted scenes, an approximate idea can be obtained of the weapons of the Egyptians at all periods from the prehistoric age onwards.

The stone mace head was a sharp-edged disk (3), in the prehistoric from 3140 sequence date; of the pear shape (4) from S.D.

Regular courts and judges existed in Ireland from prehistoric times.

This has passed through three stages, the first being represented by solid castings, such as are most celts and other implements of the prehistoric time; the mould was formed of clay, sand or stone, and the fluid metal was poured in till the hollow was full.

For the knives chipped from flint by prehistoric man see Archaeology and Flint Implements.

As the tenth patriarch Noah corresponds to the tenth prehistoric Babylonian king, Xisuthros in Berossus, Ut-napistim or Atrahasis in the cuneiform tablets, the hero of the Babylonian flood story.

The Aspis or smaller citadel to the north-east has revealed traces of an earlyMycenaean settlement; the Deiras or ridge connecting the two heights contains a prehistoric cemetery.

One set of invaders after another has from prehistoric times entered by the passes at their eastern and north-western frontiers.

The brown race, which came from the south in successive waves of immigration beginning in prehistoric times, is composed of twenty-three distinct tribes varying widely in culture, language and appearance; their languages however belong to one common stock and there is a general resemblance in physical features and in quality of mind.

The study of the prehistoric population of Finland - Neolithic (no Palaeolithic finds have yet been made) - of the Age of Bronze and the Iron Age has been carried on with great zeal.

Except in a few mountain valleys in the N., agriculture was long entirely dependent upon irrigation, which has been practised in New Mexico by the Pueblo Indians since prehistoric times.

The " megalithic " monuments of Agia Phaneromeni 1 and Hala Sultan Teke near Larnaca may perhaps be early, like the Palestinian cromlechs; but the vaulted chamber of Agia Katrina near Enkomi seems to be Mycenaean or later; and the perforated monoliths at Ktima seem to belong to oil presses of uncertain but probably not prehistoric date.

The first deals with the prehistoric period of the world, before the rise of religion; the second was to be an endeavour to deduce a universal law from known historical facts; the third to sketch the ultimate state of perfection to which humanity is moving.

Its alloy with tin (bronze) was the first metallic compound in common use by mankind, and so extensive and characteristic was its employment in prehistoric times that the epoch is known as the Bronze Age.

Prehistoric earthworks are to be seen in the neighbourhood, several animal-shaped mounds upon the shores of Lakes Mendota, Monona and Waubesa being among the best examples.

He elaborated a theory of Toltec migrations and considered the prehistoric Mexican to be of Asiatic origin, because of observed similarities to Japanese architecture, Chinese decoration, Malaysian language and Cambodian dress, &c.

Rats, frogs and bats form actually the only animal life in the caves, but a great number of antediluvian animal bones have been found here, as well as human bones and numerous remains of prehistoric human settlements.

In former ages the tree covered a large portion of the more northern part of the island, as well as of Ireland; the numerous trunks found everywhere in the mosses and peat-bogs of the northern counties of England attest its abundance there in prehistoric times; and in the remoter post-Glacial epoch its range was probably vastly more extended.

The Antiquarian Museum contains an excellent collection, including remains from a prehistoric village of the marshes, discovered in 1892, and consisting of sixty mounds within a space of five acres.

The Cadmea itself is supplied with water brought from an unknown source to the south by works supposed of prehistoric antiquity.

It is difficult to extract any historical fact out of this maze of myths; the various groups cannot be fully co-ordinated, and a further perplexing feature is the neglect of Thebes in the Homeric poems. At most it seems safe to infer that it was one of the first Greek communities to be drawn together within a fortified city, that it owed its importance in prehistoric as in later days to its military strength, and that its original "Cadmean" population was distinct from other inhabitants of Boeotia such as the Minyae of Orchomenus.

North of the railway line, hedged in between Afghanistan and the plains of the Indus, stretch the long ridges of rough but picturesque highlands, which embrace the central ranges of the Suliman system (the prehistoric home of the Pathan highlander), where vegetation is often alpine, and the climate clear and bracing and subject to no great extremes of temperature.

The province of Schleswig has proved exceptionally rich in prehistoric antiquities which date apparently from the 4th and 5th centuries.

It has several islands, the largest of which bears the same name and contains highly interesting archaeological monuments of a prehistoric civilization usually attributed to the Incas.

A prehistoric culture widely distributed has left abundant traces.

Until comparatively recent times the surrounding district was in a state of nature with merely a thin coating of turf interspersed with tufts of heath and dwarf thistles, but bare of trees and shrubs and altogether devoid of the works of man, with the exception of a series of prehistoric barrows of the Bronze Age which, singly and in groups, studded the landscape.

It is safe to say that no prehistoric monument in Great Britain has given rise to more speculation as to its origin, date and purpose; and although the few hoary stones still extant are but a small portion of the original structure they are still sufficiently imposing to excite the wonder of the passing traveller, and mysterious enough to puzzle the antiquary.

Lord Avebury regards it as a temple of the Bronze Age (150o - 1000 B.C.), though apparently it was not all erected at one time, the inner circle of small unwrought, blue stones being probably older than the rest (Prehistoric Times).

The Kuznetsk Ala-tau mines are only now beginning to be explored, while the copper, and perhaps also the silver, ores of the Altai proper were worked by the mysterious prehistoric race of the Chudes at a time when the use of iron was not yet known.

They have found their chief argument in the fact that weapons of these ages have been found side by side in prehistoric burial-places.

Also, some of the prehistoric stocks in Thessaly, like the Achaean Aeacidae, may have regarded him as specially their ancestor.

In the prehistoric period the mouth of the Tiber must have been situated at the point where the hills which follow it on each side cease, about 12 m.

Spano, from all parts of the island, and belonging to the prehistoric, Phoenician and Roman periods.

Early in the 10th century the Victoria History of the Counties of England (dedicated to Queen Victoria) began to appear; its volumes deal with each county from every aspect - natural history, prehistoric and historic antiquities, ethnography, history, economic conditions, topography and sport being dealt with by authorities in all branches.

In several places of the dry bed traces of prehistoric lake-dwellings have been discovered.

Confucius's own ancestry is traced up, through the sovereigns of the previous dynasty of Shang, to Hwang-ti, whose figure looms out through the mists of fable in prehistoric times.

This geological claim for a vast antiquity of the human race is supported by the similar claims of prehistoric archaeology and the science of culture, the evidence of all three departments of inquiry being intimately connected, and in perfect harmony.

Here three layers of vegetable soil appear, proved by the objects imbedded in them to have been the successive surface soils in two prehistoric periods and in the Roman period, but now lying 4, io and 1q ft.

From the combination of these considerations, it will be seen that the farthest date to which documentary or other records extend is now generally regarded by anthropologists as but the earliest distinctly visible point of the historic period, beyond which stretches back a vast indefinite series of prehistoric ages.