Ancient history is everything before about A.D. 500 or 600, when every major religion except Islam was established. Ancient history created civilization and achieved many of the greatest intellectual breakthroughs of all time. Literature, drama, mathematics, philosophy, language, etc., were all created and developed during ancient history, which is why it is emphasized so much in education.
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When did mankind first begin? There is no reliable evidence of man existing before 3500 B.C. The oldest writing is a pictographic tablet called a "cuneiform" (pronounced kyu-NEE-uh-form) dated to about 3400 B.C. from Sumer (SOO-mur) in Southern Mesopotamia (where Iraq is today). These cuneiforms look like chicken-scratches featuring wedge-like or arrow-shaped characters, a primitive writing style Cuneiform writing that continued in use until nearly the birth of Christ. Originally pictographs (e.g., to write "foot" , you would draw a foot), cuneiform developed into 600 stick-based symbols or figures, with each one developing multiple meanings (e.g., the symbol for "foot" also developed the meanings of "to go" or "to stand," depending on the context).<ref>http://i-cias.com/e.o/cuneiform.htm</ref> For those who "text message" on cell phones, notice how each key has multiple possible letters and how the phone resolves the ambiguity and forms words depending on how the letters fit together to form a word. Cuneiform had only 600 symbols, but their multiple meanings were resolved by seeing how they fit together to form sentences. Cuneiform was not an alphabet or western-style script; the oldest script-based language is from the Indo-Aryan language, and one dated to 1550 B.C. was found in the Sinai.
Historians feel that spoken language originated in southeastern Europe near the Black Sea, not far from the Ararat mountain range cited in the Bible in connection with Noah. Using population estimates, we know there were that about 300 million people existed in the world at the time of Christ, and extrapolating backwards yields only one family in the year 3300 B.C. The oldest trees do not predate this time; the oldest sequoias, which never die of old age, are only 4000 years oldno older than 2000 B.C.
No "civilization" has been found that is older than about 3000 B.C. By "civilization" we mean an order and hierarchy in the way of life. Some type of political system or government is usually necessary to have a civilization. A structure similar to a city or town is necessary to bring together people, jobs, buildings or religious centers. Usually there are different classes of people, such as rich and poor. Some historians say there must be an agricultural surplus also: enough food to feed the people so that some workers could spend time in jobs other than farming. In a nutshell, a civilization must have cities, skilled (non-farming) workers, social and government institutions, writing to maintain records such as property ownership, and advanced technology. Memorize the oldest dates for the ancient civilizations:
Peru (South America):</td><td> 900 B.C.</td></tr></table>
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History books speculate at length about "prehistory", which predates writing. But there is no reliable evidence to support this speculation, and it is not worth spending time on. There is no reason to think that man existed for thousands of years without ever expressing himself in written form. But in case you are asked, historians describe the period of time known as "prehistory" as the "Stone Age." They divide the Stone Age into two time periods: "Paleolithic" and "Neolithic". The Paleolithic Age is older, when man relied mostly on hunting and picking nuts and fruit to supplement his diet. The Paleolithic Age was followed by the Neolithic Age, which consisted of the rise of agriculture. The "Neolithic Revolution" means the "Agricultural Revolution," when farming became dominant. The dates of these ages are controversial, and historians have a bias for giving them older dates than proven by archaeology.
After the Stone Age came the Bronze Age, beginning in 3500 B.C., when copper and/or bronze tools were used. That was followed by the Iron Age, which began in Turkey around 2200 B.C. and later spread to other regions. As its name suggests, it used iron for tools.