That’s not how we classically define prehistory though. Technically pre-history is defined as the period of time beginning when the first humans started using stone tools and ending when different cultures developed writing systems.
My criticism is that western scholars put too much importance on the written word.
That’s my point: The classical definition makes the assumption that written records are the only records with any kind of reliability, which doesn’t hold everywhere.
That’s not how we classically define prehistory though. Technically pre-history is defined as the period of time beginning when the first humans started using stone tools and ending when different cultures developed writing systems.
My criticism is that western scholars put too much importance on the written word.
That’s my point: The classical definition makes the assumption that written records are the only records with any kind of reliability, which doesn’t hold everywhere.
I could’ve phrased it better.
That was also my original point when I said it disrupted the concept of prehistory.