How long ago was prehistory?

Prehistory is the time before the appearance of the written Word. The Sumerian language was the first known written language, written in cuneiform script from about 3000 BC. Soon after that, other cultures developed their own styles of writing. Egyptian hieroglyphs, or picture writing, was introduced about 200 to 300 years before the Sumerian cuneiform script, was not true writing in the sense that it used pictures, not letters.