Deep history

Deep history is a term for the distant past of the human species. Proponents of deep history argue for a definition of history that rests not upon the invention of writing, but upon the evolution of anatomically modern humans. The concept of prehistory is thus recast as an arbitrary boundary that limits the longue durée perspective of historians, and which rests upon outmoded assumptions that history follows a teleological path beginning with the origins of civilization in Ancient Mesopotamia.^[1]

Harvard history professor Daniel Lord Smail is perhaps the most prominent advocate of deep history.

See also

• Deep time
• Prehistory
• Big History

References

1. ^ Daniel Lord Smail, On Deep History and the Brain (University of California Press, 2008