The stretch of human history before, and at the dawn of, written record: the Paleolithic, Neolithic, Bronze Age and Iron Age as conventional archaeological ages, plus the earliest historically documented civilizations of the ancient Near East, roughly before 800 BCE. Belongs here: eras defined by tool-making technology, stone, bronze or iron, rather than by a named civilization's political history, and the earliest Near Eastern and Mediterranean Bronze Age world before the rise of the classical Greek and Roman world. Does not belong here: the classical Greek and Roman world itself, once organized states and extensive written record take over as the defining feature of an era, grouped under The Classical World.