Prehistory is the long stretch of human existence before people invented writing. It covers everything that happened before we have written records to tell us what occurred: the first humans learning to make tools, discovering fire, painting on cave walls, and forming communities.

History begins when people start writing things down, creating documents we can read today. But humans existed for hundreds of thousands of years before writing was invented around 5,000 years ago. That enormous earlier period is prehistory.

We know about prehistory through archaeology: scientists study ancient bones, stone tools, cave paintings, and other physical evidence left behind. When archaeologists discover a 30,000-year-old cave painting in France, they're uncovering prehistoric art. When they find ancient arrowheads or pottery, those are prehistoric artifacts.

The prehistoric period includes the Stone Age, when people made tools from stone, and it ends at different times in different places. Writing appeared first in ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt, so their prehistory ended earlier. Other societies continued their prehistoric period longer, sometimes until contact with cultures that had writing.