Talk:Prehistoric Egypt/FAQ
- Q:How is "prehistoric" Egypt different from "Paleolithic", "Predynastic", and "Protodynastic" Egypt?
- A:In general, prehistoric is used to describe any culture prior to its use of written records. The Paleolithic, on the other hand, is an archaeological term for the Old Stone Age and consequently applies to the earliest section of prehistory, from the first human artifacts to roughly the end of the Ice Age. The Predynastic period is specific to Egyptology and refers to about the last 1500 years of Egyptian prehistory; the presence of pottery characterizes archaeological sites from this period and can even be used for relative dating. Finally, the Protodynastic period consists of two or three centuries on the cusp of not just Egypt's unification under the First dynasty, but also the development of proto-hieroglyphics and the first steps towards Egyptian history proper.
- Q:Why are dates given so little emphasis in the article?
- A:Without written records, Egyptian prehistory must be studied through archaeological methods that interpret data in a specific context of artifacts, location, and relative chronology (known as an archaeological culture). Some techniques like radiocarbon dating can estimate an absolute date for many artifacts and materials, but these methods are rarely precise enough to arrange cultures in time confidently. As a result, this article focuses on different cultures of prehistoric Egypt and only implies a sequence between widely different ages.
- Q:Why do the dates have "BP" or "cal BP" next to them?
- A:The acronym "BP" is short for "years before present", a dating scheme that has many advantages when discussing prehistory. The additional "cal" is short for "calibrated"; since atmospheric levels of different carbon isotopes have fluctuated over time, the raw output of a carbon-dating analysis will have some error. Radiocarbon calibration uses independent measures of these fluctuations to eliminate the error, bringing the date into sync with other methods like dendrochronology. If you add new dates to the article, please use calibrated ones whenever possible and mark them as "cal BP". If you must use uncalibrated dates, or are unsure if they're calibrated, please mark them as uncertain with the inline {{Calibrate}} template.
- Q:Why is there no mention of Israel, Palestine, Syria, or Turkey?
- A:While these nations correspond today to regions the Egyptians interacted with, no reputable scholars (nor national traditions) claim they existed in these areas as early as the period discussed by this article. As a result, the region that today encompasses Lebanon, Palestine, Israel, and parts of Syria is referred to as either Canaan (the traditional name for the area prior to the presence of Hebrews and Philistines) or the Levant (the standard English term). Similarly, the territory that makes up much of Turkey today is here called either Anatolia or Asia Minor.
- Q:Why doesn't the article have any discussion of early Egyptian religion or gods?
- A:By definition, prehistoric Egyptians left us no writings discussing their religious beliefs. So even when archaeologists discover an artifact or figurative art, there is little context to determine if and how it has religious significance. This means that archaeologists are mostly limited to ritual burials and sacrifices as evidence for religious feeling; anything beyond this would be speculation unfit for the article.
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