Noun

archaic (plural archaics), usually capitalized: Archaic

1. (archaeology, US) A general term for the prehistoric period intermediate between the earliest period ("Paleo-Indian", "Paleo-American", "American-paleolithic", etc.) of human presence in the Western Hemisphere, and the most recent prehistoric period ("Woodland", etc.).
   • 1958, Wiley, Gordon R., and Philip Phillips, Method and Theory in American Archaeology, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, p107:

     [...] Archaic Stage [...] the stage of migratory hunting and gathering cultures continuing into environmental conditions approximately those of the present.

Archaic

Archaic may refer to a period of time preceding a "classical period":

• List of archaeological periods
  • Archaic Greece
  • Archaic period in the Americas
  • Early Dynastic Period of Egypt
• Archaic Homo sapiens, people who lived about 300,000 to 30,000 B.P. (this is far earlier than the archaeological definition)
• Archaism, the use of a form of speech or writing that is no longer current
• Archaic language, preserving features that are no longer present in languages of the same family
• List of archaic musical instruments
• Archaic Latin (also called Old Latin or Early Latin), Latin language up to about 75 BC

Archaic may also refer to:

• Archaic (comics), a comic-book series created by writer James Abrams and artist Brett Marting
• Archaic (band)