Practice question · True or false
The boundary between prehistory and history marks a real change in how people lived.
Hints
- The boundary describes our sources, not their lives.
- A village becomes historic when an outsider writes about it.
Show the answer
False
Why
It marks a change in our sources, not in them. The same village becomes "historic" the moment a literate outsider describes it, without anyone in it doing anything differently. The line lives in the archive.
Practise The Iron Age and the End of Prehistory
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More questions on The Iron Age and the End of Prehistory
- Complete the statement about the threshold.
- Sort each statement: supported, or an instance of technological determinism?
- Why is calling prehistory "the prologue to human history" a mistake about proportion?
- Why is "iron caused the fall of aristocracies" a claim to handle carefully?
- Why was the Phoenician alphabet as consequential as iron?
- The Phoenician alphabet had about 22 signs where cuneiform had hundreds. What did that reduction actually…
- What follows from an alphabet that ordinary people can learn?