Would this be an accurate way to portray human society through the ages?

[Joij21]

So all of this was/is for a game? What kind of game were you thinking of?

A mod for Civ 4. I might never make it but was just thinking.

 

[Marla_Singer]

When I was in primary school in France, that was 30 years ago, we were teaching to the young pupils we were that world History was divided as such:

• Before 5000 BC (invention of writing) : Prehistory
• From 5000 BC to 476 AD (fall of Rome) : Ancient times
• From 476 to 1492 (discovery of America) : Middle Age
• From 1492 to 1789 (French Revolution) : Renaissance and Classical Age
• Since 1789 : Industrial Age

That was tought to us gullible kids as an absolute truth, the key dates when History drastically changed. Then later, I learnt that this perception was actually Eurocentric and colonialist, and that some dates such as French revolution shouldn't even be considered meaningful. So now I have no clue.


Now this being said, I tend nowadays to consider prehistory actually ended more with development of agriculture rather than writing, even though obviously writing has been key to start tracing back historical events. Then later, I'd say the key eras are mostly about leading economical powers which I'd say were regional untill the advent of the Arabs who controlled exchanges all over Eurasia and Africa. They were later surpassed by Europeans with colonial expansion, then by Americans after world war 2 and we're now already getting into a new age which is the one of globalization that we have difficulties to perfectly perceive.

 

[Snowygerry]

(...)
Now this being said, I tend nowadays to consider prehistory actually started more with development of agriculture rather than writing, even though obviously writing has been key to start tracing back historical events.

Traditionally history and prehistory split when written sources augment archaeological evidence, naturally that is dependent on where you are, and in some places, like Egypt, we have written, archaeological sources which complicates matters further

 

[Joij21]

in some places, like Egypt, we have written, archaeological sources which complicates matters further

Wouldn't that just be a recently rediscovered written source? So what's the difference than just a written source? Is a traditional written source supposed to be something that was recorded over and over again and retranslated so many times that it remained in the history of the West forever since it's originator like Aristotle's works?

 

[Snowygerry]

Wouldn't that just be a recently rediscovered written source ?

Fairly recent yes, we [re]learned to decipher hieroglyphs in the early 19th century iirc, also the time when the term 'prehistory' first appeared in historical works.
.
Before that there was really just history, not pre-history

I believe in Egypt the end of 'prehistory' is commonly accepted to be around 3000 BC.

Here it comes much later, history typically 'starts' with the Roman accounts of life in these parts - although they are sporadically mentioned in Greek accounts before that.

So what's the difference than just a written source? Is a traditional written source supposed to be something that was recorded over and over again and retranslated so many times that it remained in the history of the West forever since it's originator like Aristotle's works ?

Yes, Roman historians used Greek sources and Medieval historians used Latin texts etc.

But an inscription in stone can be a 'source' just as well - record of events, or descriptive of life in a period as they often are in Egypt.

History/prehistory is a convention among historians more than anything else, it's a somewhat fluid concept not used much anymore to my knowledge.

Edit. more to the point of OP - the idea that history can be written for the entire planet is also new, before historians wrote the 'specific history' of the city of Rome, history of the Crusade, history of the kings of Britain etc.

 

[Joij21]

But an inscription in stone can be a 'source' just as well - record of events, or descriptive of life in a period as they often are in Egypt.

So it's just a written source. Then why call it an archeological written source and then claim it complicates things?

 

[Snowygerry]

It complicates separating history and 'prehistory' that's all, that's why the term isn't used by modern historians, even before writing, the study of the iconography [sometimes called proto-writing] can still provide valuable clues on how a society functioned.

Like here for example,

The Politics of Trade: Egypt and Lower Nubia in the 4th Millennium BC - Jane Roy - Google Books