What's the difference between historic and pre-historic?

Question

What's the difference between historic and pre-historic?

Answer 1

Pre-historic is before anything was recorded.

Answer 2

'Historic' is kinda shorthand for saying 'recorded history'. In other words, 'historic' times are those for which we start to find written records of some kind--ancient Egypt and Sumeria.  Pre-historic just means history before written records, obviously.

Answer 3

Just a shot in the dark, but perhaps it has to do with humanity. Pre history being that which is before our cultural landmarks and languages, pictures, symbols found in caves and what not...

Answer 4

Pre-historic means anything that happened before the sumerians invented writing. Writing was invented around 5000-3000bc. Historians use that term because before writing it is hard to be sure about what happened if nobody wrote it down.

Answer 5

Pre-history is when the people who lived in the past didn't record their stuff. History is when we do write stuff down that's important like WWII and how many people died and stuff like that.

Answer 6

Pre-historic is a term used to described the time when people did not record history... in the time of dinosaurs and cro magnon men.

Historic starts with books and the passing on of stories.

:D

Answer 7

pre-historic refers to the "history that is based on theories" periods when our ancestors lived in caves, or the Mesozoic, paleozoic, or anything that is not based on actual writings or recordings (Keeping records) or carvings left by ancient civilizations. When the first writings or drawings were done, that marks the beginning of History my friend.

Answer 8

"Pre" historic means before written history started. Roughly 3500 years ago in the middle east some records (mostly of business deals) were kept. That's the beginning of history qua history. However, cavemen, Lascaux, Altamira, mammoths, dinosaurs, pterodactyls, the juassic period, all the information about those beings and places and times has to be derived from fossils, geological records, and a few drawings. That's pre-history, before anything was written about what happened.

Answer 9

pre-historic = before historic