The preservation of oral traditions may complicate matters, as they can provide a secondary historical source for even earlier events.
The term can also refer to a period in which fragmentary or external historical documents, not necessarily including a developed writing system, have been found.
In the abstract of a later paper on "slavery in the first millennium Aegean, Carpatho-Balkan and Pontic regions",[4] Taylor, primarily an archaeologist, stated, I have taken the rather unusual step of trusting what the classical authors tell us they knew.
For other examples, see also the writings of Brian M. Fagan on the protohistory of North America[5] and the work of Muhammed Abdul Nayeem on that of the Arabian Peninsula.
In its simplest form, protohistory follows the same chronology as prehistory and is based on the technological advancement of a particular people with regard to metallurgy: The best-known protohistoric civilizations and ethnic groups are those for whom the term was originally coined: the barbarian tribes mentioned by European and Asian writers.