Prehistory means literally "before history", from the Latin word for "before," pr, and Greek .

Human prehistory is the period from the time that behaviorally and anatomically modern humans first
appear until the appearance of recorded history following the invention of writing systems. Since both the
time of settlement of modern humans and the evolution of human civilisations differ from region to region,
prehistory starts and ends at different moments in time, depending on the region concerned.
Ancient means very old. Sometimes there's a sense of "older than old." My grandmother, bless her
soul, lived until she was positively ancient.
Ancient art is that made in places and times we refer to as Ancient Greece, Ancient Rome and
Ancient Egypt, and "an ancient" is someone who lived either during those eras, or in a Biblical
context, before the flood that brought us the story of Noah and the Ark.
Paleolithic
Of or relating to the cultural period of the Stone Age beginning with the earliestchipped stone tools, about
2.4 million years ago, until the beginning of theMesolithic Period, about 15,000 to 11,500 years ago in we
stern Asia andsouthern Europe.
The term "Mesolithic" is in competition with another term, "Epipaleolithic", which means the "final Upper
Palaeolithic industries occurring at the end of the final glaciation which appear to merge technologically
into the Mesolithic".[1]
In the archaeology of northern Europe, for example for archaeological sites in Great Britain, Germany,
Scandinavia, Ukraine, and Russia, the term "Mesolithic" is almost always used. In the archaeology of
other areas, the term "Epipaleolithic" may be preferred by most authors, or there may be divergences
between authors over which term to use or what meaning to assign to each. In the New World, neither
term is used (except provisionally in the Arctic).
The Neolithic

/nilk/[1] Age, Era, or Period, or New Stone Age, was a period in the development

of human technology, beginning about 10,200 BC, according to the ASPRO chronology, in some parts of
the Middle East, and later in other parts of the world [2] and ending between 4,500 and 2,000 BC.
Traditionally considered the last part of the Stone Age, the Neolithic followed the
terminal Holocene Epipaleolithic period and commenced with the beginning offarming, which produced
the "Neolithic Revolution". It ended when metal tools became widespread (in the Copper Age or Bronze
Age; or, in some geographical regions, in the Iron Age). The Neolithic is a progression of behavioral and
cultural characteristics and changes, including the use of wild and domestic crops and ofdomesticated
animals.[3]