i64 GEOLOGY AND HISTORY 



CHAPTER XI 



THE PREHISTORIC AND HISTORIC IN THE EAST 



THE term prehistoric was first used by my friend Sir 

 Daniel Wilson in his Prehistoric Annals of Scotland. 

 It was intended to express 'the whole period dis- 

 closed to us by archaeological evidence as distin- 

 guished from what is known by written records/ As 

 Wilson himself reminds us, the term has no definite 

 chronological significance, since historic records, pro- 

 perly so-called, extend back in different places to 

 very different times. With reference, for example, 

 to the Chaldean and Hebrew peoples, if we take 

 their written records as history, this extends back 

 to the Deluge at least. Written history in Egypt 

 reaches to at least 3000 years B.C., while in Britain 

 it extends no farther than to the landing of Julius 

 Caesar, and in America to the first voyage of Colum- 

 bus. In Palestine we possess written records back 

 to the time of Abraham, but these relate mainly to 

 the Hebrew people. Of the populations which pre- 

 ceded the Abrahamic immigration, those * Canaanites 

 who were already in the land,' we have little history 



