[alexkearns]

Thanks for the suggestion. Mehrgarh is a very important archeological site. But according to wikipedia ancient history has a very specific meaning. If my interpretation is correct, ancient history starts from the beginning of writing or recorded history, which Mehrgarh predates. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_history

[yowlingcat]

The boundary conditions are somewhat porous here. Take a look at the related page [1] about proto-writing. I think to some extent there's a philosophical and ontological frame that you have to put at the boundary; personally, I'm more inclined to add some slack into my understanding to accommodate for new artifacts we find that push back the earliest artifacts of recorded history. Still, even now, we have evidence of proto-writing at 6600BC at least (Jiahu shells), as well as the Vinca script and Dispilio tablet around 5200BC.

Thinking about this stuff stirs the same childlike wonder I used to have as a kindergartener thinking about dinosaurs and trying to comprehend or imagine what life must have been like so many millions of years ago. I very selfishly hope (but have no proof) that we will find earlier and earlier evidence of proto-writing. What a grand mystery and story!

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_writing#Proto-writi...

[InitialLastName]

The Tower of Babel story comes into pretty good context when you realize that the people writing it down (most likely in the 5th-6th century BC in Babylon) were living among the ruined towers of a Babylonian empire from a millennium before them.

[AlotOfReading]

This is a controversial, and in my opinion (as an archaeologist), a rather incorrect definition. It's certainly the traditional one, but most archaeologists today don't use it because of all the theoretical issues it would entail, like Europeans "bringing history" in 1492 to an entire continent when nothing about the nature of our sources changes at that time.

I've worked on both sides of the "writing line" and frankly, the process is very much the same in most cases.

[lebuffon]

"ancient history starts from the beginning of writing or recorded history"

Perhaps an unconscious bias of literate cultures. In the Canadian high arctic years ago, scientists discovered evidence of "paleo-eskimo" (bad name) peoples in the soil. These included more primitive hunting tools than were used by the Inuit people who were there when Europeans arrived.

They took to the tools to the village elders excited to show what they had found. The news story reported that the elders said (paraphrase) "Yes we know. These are the Tuliit people. We have songs about them" :-0

[InitialLastName]

I think some would argue that oral history counts as "recording", so this is history.

More generally, history (as a field) deals with those records, where archaeology as a field deals with the artifacts. They obviously interact and inform each other to varying extents, but are distinct in their practices and habits.

[seneca]

> Perhaps an unconscious bias of literate cultures

It seems like a quite conscious decision. That's how categorizing things works. You have to have a definition, however vague and exception ridden, otherwise your words don't refer to anything.