The art scientists usually set the theoretical viewing period somewhat differently, but logically, the pre- and early history of art begins with the beginning of art, with the first work of art that a person created.

Since art and culture are assigned a crucial role in the process of becoming ancillation, one could also say that people became humans through this first work of art.
This henne-and-egg problem has practically few problems causing art scientists because the first work of art created by humans, which was preserved for posterity, "only" arose around 40,000 years ago.
The pre- and early history of art merges with the development of the first high cultures into the art history of antiquity, from the world around 3,100 BC. BC our ancestors were a little later:
What lived with us and further north in rock caves or wooden cats had so little to do with high culture that the conflict with the Romans was still “really cultivated” a few centuries after Christ (which a demanding Roman would not have signed, the Roman culture was already quite decadent at that time).