When does the concept of history arise?

history, prehistory and protohistory

The word history comes from the Latin historia, borrowed from the Greek historía ('research, inquiry'):

• historìe ('to see', derived from the Indo-European root wid-, weid-);
• hìstor ('the one who sees, the witness'), and therefore 'the one who knows';
• historèin, a verb that also means 'the act of seeking to know,' hence 'to inquire.'

Originally, historìe was considered an investigation in a broad sense, which over time transformed into the 'reconstruction of the past.' It was among the Greeks that the meaning of history came to extend to the result of that investigation, thus "knowledge acquired through inquiry," but also the acquisition of this knowledge through the narration of past events.

Portrait of Herodotus, identified after other known inscribed portraits of the historian. Greek marble, Roman copy of a Greek original of the early 4th century BC. From the area of Porta Metronia, Rome.

With the Greek historian Herodotus in the 5th century BCE, the term history gained a dual nature: it referred both to res gestae (the events) and to historia rerum gestarum (the narration of events). He introduced the term historia to indicate both the process of research and its results.
Today, history is the science that studies the past, seeking to understand the events of human societies, prioritizing some aspects over others. It thus presents human facts and events from the past in an orderly way, resulting from critical investigation aimed at verifying both their truth and the reciprocal connections, which allow us to recognize a unity of development in them.
This definition of history contrasts with that of a chronicle, which is a simple chronological succession of events, usually without critical interpretation.

Portrait bust of Aristotle; an Imperial Roman (1st or 2nd century AD) copy of a lost bronze sculpture made by Lysippos.

In the 4th century BCE, the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle, 384-322 BCE, aged 61-62) — considered one of the most universal, innovative, prolific, and influential minds of all time — made a further distinction:

... it is not the office of the poet, to relate things which have really happened, but rather such as might, or could have happened, according to probable or necessary consequence. For the historian and poet do not merely differ in that they speak in verse and prose; as the history of Herodotus might be put into verse, and would be not less a history in verse than in prose : but in this they differ - that the one relates things which actually did happen, and the other, what might have happened. On this account, poetry is a more philosophic and honourable pursuit than history . For poetry treats more of general principles ; history, of particular actions. A general principle is that which a man of a certain character would say or do, according either to probability or necessity ; which poetry endeavours to make clear, by adding names. A particular actidn again. Is something which Alcibiades did or suffered.
- Aristotle's Poetics, by Aristotle, c. 335 BCE.

Prehistory, literally 'before history,' refers to the long period of time from the most remote origins of human presence on Earth to the first manifestations or written testimonies. Thus, prehistory is the era when humans, not knowing how to write, left no written documents, which are the only sources that allow us to reconstruct the history of our ancestors.
Today, this distinction between history and prehistory is merely conventional and no longer adequate, given the great progress made in archaeological investigation, conducted with increasingly refined scientific methods, which allow us to 'make history' even in the absence of written documents.
There were peoples who, despite not practicing writing, created great civilizations, in some respects perhaps even more advanced than others who did know how to write. Consider the Maya or the Aztecs, whom the Europeans encountered after the discovery of the Americas in 1492: although they did not live in splendid cities, they produced extraordinary works of art and had social structures no less complex than those of the Old World.
The introduction and use of writing represent a formal break and mark the transition from prehistory to history. Before the appearance of writing, it is possible to reconstruct the history of events and things in broad strokes; after writing, even the most detailed accounts of events and people can be recorded.
Thus, prehistory differs from history in that:

1. it cannot be investigated based on written sources;
2. it relies on testimonies that are usually unintentional (intentional sources are those by which humans deliberately intend to leave a memory of themselves for posterity);
3. it is reconstructed mainly through the examination of archaeological finds.

This transition from prehistory to history occurred at different times from place to place because writing appeared at different moments in various regions of the world. Therefore, there is no prehistoric phase that simultaneously includes all the peoples of the Earth. Consider that writing appeared in:

• 3100 BCE in Mesopotamia;
• 2700-2600 BCE in the Indus Valley;
• 2000-1500 BCE in China;
• c. 800 BCE in Greece;
• c. 700 BCE in Rome;
• c. 1000 CE in northern Germany;
• c. 1200 in Russia;
• c. 1500 in America;
• 20th century in Central Africa.

Even today, there are small communities that do not know writing, such as in Australia and tropical forests.
Protostory is the final phase of prehistory, during which phenomena begin to emerge that will lead to history.
The reconstruction of prehistoric and protostoric phases can only be conducted through archaeological evidence, integrated with archaeometric, paleoanthropological, paleobotanical, geological data, etc. For the study of historical age cultures, comparisons between archaeological and textual sources can also be employed.

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Last update: September 30, 2024

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