By the early 1860s, as summarized in Charles Lyell's 1863 book Geological Evidences of the Antiquity of Man, it had become widely accepted that humans had existed during a prehistoric period—which stretched many thousands of years before the start of written history.
A inicios da década de 1860, como se resume no libro de Charles Lyell de 1863 Geological Evidences of the Antiquity of Man, era amplamente aceptado que os humanos existiran durante un período prehistórico, o que estendía a presenza humana en moitos miles de anos antes do comezo da historia escrita.