The term prehistoric was first used by my friend Sir Daniel Wilson in his _Prehistoric Annals of Scotland_. It was intended to express 'the whole period disclosed to us by archæological evidence as distinguished from what is known by written records.' As Wilson himself reminds us, the term has no definite chronological significance, since historic records, properly so-called, extend back in different places to very different times. With reference, for example, to the Chaldean and Hebrew peoples, if we take their written records as history, this extends back to the Deluge at least. Written history in Egypt reaches to at least 3000 years B.C., while in Britain it extends no farther than to the landing of Julius Cæsar, and in America to the first voyage of Columbus. In Palestine we possess written records back to the time of Abraham, but these relate mainly to the Hebrew people. Of the populations which preceded the Abrahamic immigration, those 'Canaanites who were already in the land,' we have little history before the Exodus, except the remarkable letters recently unearthed at Tel-el-Amarna, in Egypt. In Egypt we have very early records of the dwellers on the Nile, but of the Arabian and African peoples, whom they called Pun and Kesh, and the Asiatic peoples, whom they knew as Cheta and Hyksos, we have till lately known little more than their names and the representations of them on Egyptian monuments. In both countries there may be unsounded depths of unwritten history before the first Egyptian dynasty, and before the Abrahamic clan crossed the Jordan. What, then, in Egypt and Palestine may be regarded as prehistoric? I would answer--(1) The geographical and other conditions of these countries immediately before the advent of man. (2) The evidence which they afford of the existence, habits, and history of man in periods altogether antecedent to any written history, except such notes as we have in the Bible and elsewhere as to the so-called antediluvian world. (3) The facts gleaned by archæological evidence as to tribes known to us by no records of their own, but only by occasional notices in the history or monuments of other peoples. In Egypt and Palestine such peoples as the Hyksos, the Anakim, the Amalekites, the Hittites, and Amorites are of this kind, though contemporary with historic peoples. Prehistoric annals may thus, in these countries, embrace a wide scope, and may introduce us to unexpected facts and questions respecting primitive humanity. I propose in the present chapter to direct attention to some points which may be regarded as definitely ascertained in so far as archæological evidence can give any certainty, though I cannot pretend, in so limited a space, to enter into details as to their evidence.