How Long Ago Was Ancient?

[Bugbear]

How old does something have to be, or far back in history does something have to have happened to qualify as "ancient"?
What is your concept of ancientness?

Thank you.

[Jock Scot]

OH I don't know, how about 2000 years?

[xman]

Ancient Greece, Ancient Egypt, Ancient China. these are things I primarily consider as ancient. So certainly2,000-5,000 years ago. Anything before that is prehistoric. I suppose it could be argued that events before Somerled's empire could be considered ancient as well, but nothing really any later than that. That was about 1,000 years ago.

[ohiopiper]

There is no "real" answer. Historians generally consider the fall of the Roman empire to be the dividing line between ancient and modern, but even that is not a hard line, but a rule of thumb. Prehistoric is considered to be before the advent of written history (originally first hand acounts) so you'd have to go back about 7,000 years or so.

Remembering that there are no hard and fast rules:
more than 5,000 B.C. is prehistoric
5,000 B.C. to 410 (or thereabouts) A.D. is ancient
410 A.D. to the present is modern

[Woodsheal]

There is no "real" answer. Historians generally consider the fall of the Roman empire to be the dividing line between ancient and modern, but even that is not a hard line, but a rule of thumb. Prehistoric is considered to be before the advent of written history (originally first hand acounts) so you'd have to go back about 7,000 years or so.

Remembering that there are no hard and fast rules:
more than 5,000 B.C. is prehistoric
5,000 B.C. to 410 (or thereabouts) A.D. is ancient
410 A.D. to the present is modern

Slight correction: Middle Age history is between the Ancient and Modern periods. The Modern era is considered to have begun roughly 1500 AD....

[ohiopiper]

See what I mean about no hard and fast rules? Some historians regard the period from the fall of Rome to the rennaisance to be "middle ages", some lump it all in together.

Personally, I think the Middle Ages era is deserving of a seperate division because so much happened during the rennaisance to progress from the state of civilization found prior to it.

[Ryan Ross]

slight correction: Middle age history is between the ancient and modern periods. The modern era is considered to have begun roughly 1500 ad....

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[KenB]

I can't really tell what "ancient" really means. What I can do is tell you what it feels like; some days better than others.

[MacMillan of Rathdown]

Ancient History begins about 3000 BC with the advent of coherent writing and, depending on your university, continues to 476 AD and the fall of the last western Roman emperor.

When I was very young I met a veteran of the US Civil War, and I thought he was positively ancient; now that the last veteran of WWI has died, a war in which my immediate family took part, I'm beginning to feel ancient...

[mookien]

Half my college professors were ancient and to my knowledge not one of them was born before the last Punic war. So, I would have to agree with Jock Scott.