Prior to this time period, prehistory civilizations were pre-literate and did not have written language.
[46] In the context of this list its use encompasses various other civilizations including, but not limited to, those of the Ancient Near East.
Late Antiquity is a periodization used by historians to describe the transitional centuries from Classical Antiquity to the Middle Ages, in both mainland Europe and the Mediterranean world: generally from the end of the Roman Empire's Crisis of the Third Century (c. ACE 284) to the Islamic conquests and the re-organization of the Byzantine Empire under Heraclius.
The Early Middle Ages are a period in the history of Europe following the fall of the Western Roman Empire spanning roughly five centuries from CE 500 to 1000.
Not all historians agree on the ending dates of ancient history, which frequently falls somewhere in the 5th, 6th, or 7th century.