[Lost Dutchman]

-Or why Native Americans who lived 1000 years ago are "pre-historic"?-

Prehistoric means they did not keep written records of their past.

Egypt and Sumer exited the prehistoric age approx. 5500 yrs. ago. Others followed eventually. Prehistory applies to different peoples at different times.

[maine-iac7]

Prehistoric means they did not keep written records of their past

They certainly did - Took us years to finally be able to decode them -

"writing system of the Pre-Columbian New World that can completely represent spoken language to the same degree as the written language of the old world. ...........Folding tree books were made from fig tree bark and placed in royal tombs. Unfortunately, many of these books did not survive the humidity of the tropics or the invasion of the Spanish, who regarded the symbolic writing as the work of the devil. "

and they burned all they could find.

link

http://www.crystalinks.com/mayanwriting.html

[Iwentsouth]

If you count Egyptian hieroglyphics as writing then all the hieroglyphics from here should count too.