Talk:Protohistory

Definitions

I've found other definitions of protohistory, such as this one from: http://www.sron.nl/~jheise/akkadian/protohistory.html "History starts per definition with the invention of writing (around 3200 BCE). However, the first written documents are scarce, difficult to read, mostly economic in nature and thus revealing little about the political situation. Most of the oldest records are still undeciphered. The earliest historic period is often called protohistory, the period of scarcely written documents....The small amount of available documents is supplemented by texts written many centuries later but referring to these early stages. In combination with archeological records, these should be taken seriously. A legendary king becomes real when e.g. votive inscriptions carrying his name are found. " Then again, this site isn't a university site nor an archeological site, as far as I know, so it could be inacurate.

Thanks for pointing out that alternate definintion. The article here is merely a translation from its French counterpart, which is unsourced. This article could very easily be wrong, in any case. I may add a tag to it saying that it needs to be fact checked or something; my first encounter with the term "protohistory" was in doing this very translation. (By the way, don't forget to sign your comments by typing four ~ symbols.) BrianSmithson 11:30, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

Unintended ambiguity

Writers and editors really should be on the alert for unintended ambiguity. Since the writer knows what they mean, it's easy to (falsely) assume that other people will, to.

Right near the beginning of the article, I saw this:

"...but other cultures have already noted its existence in their own writings."

What is the antecedent of "its"? I thought the writer meant "the existence of writing (in other tribes), but then, after reading more and thinking about it, I realized that what was meant was really "the existence of those other non-literate tribes" (not of writing as a thing).

I changed the sentence to remove the ambiguity. It might seem a little clunky to repeat the main noun instead of the more elegant "its"... but a little less grace is a small price to pay for clarity. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.26.182.149 (talk) 15:24, 14 February 2021 (UTC)