Of time, an event, etc.: before historical time or record; fixed by astronomical or other calculation, not by actual observation. Also: = proleptic…

= prehistoric, adj. 1; cf. prehistorical, adj.

= prehistoric, adj. 1.

Of or pertaining to a lake or lakes. Said esp. of plants and animals inhabiting lakes, and Geology of strata, etc., which originated by…

Of, relating to, or characteristic of palaeotheres. Also: designating, relating to, or characterized by fossil mammals of a wholly extinct type…

Of, relating to, dating from, or designating the time before written historical records.

The name of the southern outlying foot hills of the Himalayas, extending from Sikkim through Nepal and India to Pakistan, used attributively with…

Designating or relating to a prehistoric monument consisting or constructed of large stones. Also: designating a period, people, culture, etc…

Ecology. Designating the latter part of the glacial climatic period in Europe; of or relating to this epoch. Cf. Arctic, adj. 6, dryas, n.…

= prehistoric, adj. Obsolete. rare.

= prehistoric, adj. 1.

gen. Of or pertaining to stone; consisting of stone. lithic age, the ‘stone age’ of Archæology.

Archaeology and Cultural Anthropology (now disused). Also with capital initial. Designating or relating to the period in the development of human…

(a) designating or relating to (the earlier part of) the Palaeolithic or a period preceding it, when the earliest stone tools were in use (now rare…

= lacustrine, adj.

Of, relating to, or designating the earliest of the three major divisions of the Stone Age (followed successively by the Mesolithic and…

Archaeology. Designating, belonging to, or characteristic of the part of the Stone Age intermediate between the Palaeolithic and Neolithic periods.

Used attributively to denote a phase of the early Iron Age, and the type of civilization of that period.

Consisting or constructed of small stones; (also, of a period, people, etc.) characterized by the erection of microlithic (as opposed to megalithic)…

(in J. W. Dawson's terminology) designating or relating to the palanthropic human race.

transferred, loosely designating a primitive age or period in the remote past.

Of, relating to, or designating a middle part of the Stone Age, esp. the Upper Palaeolithic and Mesolithic periods taken together.

see archaeo-, comb._form.

Of or relating to a period (primarily in the 5th, 4th and 3rd millennia b.c.) in many parts of the Near East and Europe (especially South East…

= Palaeolithic, adj.

Of or belonging to, characterized by, the special type of flint implements found in a cave at Solutré; belonging to the same period as these.

Pertaining to the earliest age of man that is represented by the use of worked flint implements. Also figurative and as n.

Of or belonging to the earliest palæolithic period of Europe; also called Abbevillian, adj. n. (see quot. 1964). Also absol.

Of, relating to, or designating the period immediately preceding the Palaeolithic or Early Stone Age.

Of a Palaeolithic character or appearance.

Archaeology and Cultural Anthropology (now disused). Also with capital initial. Designating primitive stone implements with minimal shaping…

Of or belonging to the transition period between the palæolithic and neolithic ages. Also n.

Of, relating to, or designating an early Palaeolithic period in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and India, preceding the Mousterian, and…

Used attributively to designate an Italian culture of the early Iron Age.

Of or pertaining to a period of culture characterized by the concurrent use of stone and bronze implements. (Cf. eneolithic, adj.)

Belonging to or characteristic of a culture postulated to exist in either the Eolithic or the Lower Palaeolithic age in Belgium and characterized…

(a) n. the earliest part of the Neolithic period; (b) adj. of, relating to, or designating this period.

Archaeology. Denoting the Neolithic period in Sicily.

Archaeology. Denoting the Chalcolithic, Bronze, and Iron Ages in Sicily.

Of or pertaining to the Aurignac cave of the Pyrenees; belonging to the Aurignac era or period, that indicated by the remains and works of art…

Archaeology. Of or relating to a late Palaeolithic people of the eastern Sahara or their culture. Cf. Capsian, adj., Ibero-Maurusian, adj. Now rare.

Used attributively to designate the earliest stage of the Aurignacian epoch, or artefacts characteristic of this stage.

Belonging to the period or cultural stage between the end of the palæolithic and the beginning of the mesolithic; (formerly) = Mesolithic, adj.

Pertaining or belonging to a cultural period of the Mesolithic or late Palæolithic, represented only in Britain and roughly contemporary with the…

Of or belonging to the palaeolithic period of culture following the Mousterian, as represented by the flint implements found at Gafsa in Tunis.

Of, pertaining to, or designating the Villanova period. Also absol.

Combining form of Chellean, adj., esp. in Chelleo-Acheulean adj., of or pertaining to the Chellean and Acheulean periods jointly.

Archaeology. Designating a culture of the Lower Palaeolithic dated to about 700,000–500,000 years ago, characterized by the first appearance in…

Of, pertaining to, or characteristic of a (principally) mesolithic culture in Poland and neighbouring countries, or its artefacts. Also absol. as n.

Geology. With capital initial. Used attributively to designate each of three cold (subarctic) climatic phases of the Late Pleistocene epoch in…

Of or pertaining to rocks in the vicinity of Shamva, a town in northern Zimbabwe; spec. the epithet of a Pre-Cambrian mountain-building episode in…

Archaeology. = Swiderian, adj.

Of, pertaining to, or designating the most recent Pleistocene glaciation in Britain (identified with the Weichsel of continental Europe); of or…