prehistoricadj.n.

1832 Foreign Quarterly Rev. Oct. 369 Was it then in a pre-historic time that the Romans wandered into these lands?

1851 D. Wilson Archæol. & Prehistoric Ann. Scotl. Pref. p. xi That ampler field of research which embraces the prehistoric period of nations.

1878 W. E. Gladstone Homer 8 Homer and Troy lie far back in the prehistoric period.

1913 Rep. Brit. Assoc. Advancem. Sci. 205 The district is rich in prehistoric remains, including some hut circles.

1951 N. Pevsner Middlesex (Buildings of Eng.) 59 Most probably the dyke is Saxon and not prehistoric.

1982 New Scientist 17 June 774/1 There is now prehistoric evidence of the metallurgical extraction of prill.

2001 Daily Tel. 26 Jan. 12/3 The prehistoric hunting and gathering Natufians of south-west Asia were drastically affected by sudden, prolonged and intense temperature and rainfall changes.

1859 ‘G. Eliot’ Let. 17 Aug. (1954) III. 133 In the pre-historic period of his existence, before he came to me, he had led a sort of Caspar Hauser life, shut up in a kennel in Bethnal Green.

1886 ‘M. Twain’ Speeches (1910) 185 I can see that printing-office of prehistoric times yet, with its horse bills on the walls.

1924 J. Buchan Three Hostages vii. 105 I obediently sampled an old hock, an older port, and a most pre-historic brandy.

1968 M. Bragg Without City Wall x. 116 It's your success story which is jaded... It's been going on for centuries... Prehistoric!

1979 Guardian 12 June 23/2 Red and blue looked exactly the same to anyone watching on prehistoric black and white [television].

2000 Big Issue 4 Sept. 17/3 The whole shebang kicked off with the libidinous antics of prehistoric rhythm‘n’bluesmen like the then-scandalous Little Richard.

1862 Continental Monthly Apr. 449/2 The origin of this name I have in vain endeavored to trace in history, perhaps because it belonged to a very old family, one of the prehistorics.

1879 Stevens Point (Wisconsin) Jrnl. 28 June He..concludes that the prehistorics were right handed people like ourselves.

1887 W. F. Barry New Antigone I. xiii. 237 Here is proof positive that the prehistoric has been in the land, or, to speak more accurately, on the water.

1956 Reno (Nevada) Evening Gaz. 19 Nov. 4/6 Teen talk is indeed a puzzlement to us ‘prehistorics’—that is, anyone over the age of twenty-one.

1992 A. R. Riverol Live from Atlantic City i. 1 If the prehistorics judged their women in loin cloth, beauty of fang and figure, and primordial screams before dragging them into the cave, there is no anecdotal or iconic evidence.

2005 Sunday Oregonian (Portland, Oregon) (Nexis) 20 Nov. t6 Fossil was established in the 1880s when a fossilized mammoth bone was found in the area. It is the gateway to the prehistoric.

1865 J. Lubbock Prehist. Times i. 2 From the careful study of the remains which have come down to us, it would appear the Pre-historic Archæology may be divided into four great epochs.

1932 Rep. Brit. Assoc. Advancem. Sci. 1931 (Centenary Meeting) 143 Another field that lies within the general field of Anthropology as now organised is that of Prehistoric Archæology.

1999 M. H. Johnson in P. P. A. Funari et al. Hist. Archaeol. ii. 24 Any methodological definition of historical archaeology as opposed to prehistoric archaeology immediately rests on the availability of something conceived of as a distinct class of material and labelled ‘documents’.

1863 Anthropol. Rev. 1 137 Wilson's Prehistoric Man.

1931 H. S. Williams Bk. Marvels 101 In studying the records of prehistoric man, the ‘rough stone’ age is found to antedate the ‘smooth stone’ age.

2001 R. W. Cahn Coming of Materials Sci. ix. 367 When prehistoric man made and fired clay pots, he relied..upon the phenomenon of sintering to convert a loosely cohering array of clay powder particles steeped in water into a firmly cohering body.