直立人和尼安德塔人在现代人类——智人出现后从非洲移居至欧洲。最早的欧洲人骨骼发现于格鲁吉亚达马尼斯，距今180万年。最早的生物学上的现代欧洲人出现于公元前3 5000年。公元前7千年在巴尔干已有定居点的痕迹。中欧在公元前6千年，北欧部分地区在公元前5千至4千年到达新石器时代。公元前5508-2750年的库库特尼-特里波里文化是欧洲最早的大规模文明，也是世界最早的文明之一。
从新石器时代开始，意大利卡莫尼卡河谷就开始有了卡慕尼文明，留下了欧洲最多的超过35万幅的壁画。
欧洲的铜器时代，也叫青铜时代，是一段变化和混乱交错的时期。最重要的事件是中亚民族大举迁徙和入侵欧洲。主流学者认为他们是原始印欧人，但是也有几种有争议的其他看法。其他现象包括巨石崇拜的转播发展，经济上首次出现明显的阶级差别，以及与此相关的在巴尔干地区的第一个已知的君主制政权。欧洲第一个著名的有文字记载的文明是克里特岛上的米诺斯文明，以及随后的希腊邻近地区的迈锡尼文明，始于公元前2千年早期。
虽然早在公元前1100年爱琴海地区的人就懂得使用铁器，但是直到公元前800年该技术还没有传播到中欧，除了石器时代的陶器群文化进化而来的哈尔施塔特文化之外。很可能是这项技术的优越性使得印欧人不久之后明显在意大利和伊比利亚站稳了脚跟，足迹深入这两个半岛(罗马建立于公元前753年)。
Homo erectus and Neanderthals migrated from Africa to Europe before the emergence of modern humans. The bones of the earliest Europeans are found in Dmanisi, Georgia, dated at 1.8 million years ago.
The earliest appearance of anatomically modern people in Europe has been dated to 35,000 BCE. Some locally developed transitional cultures (Szletian in Central Europe and Chatelperronian in the Southwest) use clearly Upper Paleolithic technologies at very early dates and there are doubts about who were their carriers: H. sapiens, Neanderthal or the intermarried population.
Nevertheless, the definitive advance of these technologies is made by the Aurignacian culture. The origins of this culture can be located in what is now Bulgaria (proto-Aurignacian) and Hungary (first full Aurignacian). By 35,000 B.C., the Aurignacian culture and its technology had extended through most of Europe. The last Neanderthals seem to have been forced to retreat during this process to the southern half of the Iberian Peninsula.
Around 24,000 BP two new technologies/cultures appeared in the southwestern region of Europe: Solutrean and Gravettian. The Gravettian technology/culture has been theorized to have come with migrations of people from the Middle East, Anatolia, and the Balkans
Around 19,000 BP, Europe witnesses the appearance of a new culture, known as Magdalenian, possibly rooted in the old Aurignacian one. This culture soon supersedes the Solutrean area and also the Gravetian of Central Europe. However, in Mediterranean Iberia, Italy and Eastern Europe, epi-Gravettian cultures continue evolving locally.
Around 12,500 BP, the Würm Glacial age ends. Slowly, through the following millennia, temperatures and sea levels rise, changing the environment of prehistoric people. Nevertheless, Magdalenian culture persists until circa 10,000 BP, when it quickly evolves into two microlithist cultures: Azilian, in Spain and southern France, and Sauveterrian, in northern France and Central Europe.
Evidence of permanent settlement dates from the 7th millennium BCE in the Balkans. The Neolithic reached Central Europe in the 6th millennium BCE and parts of Northern Europe in the 5th and 4th millennium BCE. The Cucuteni-Trypillian culture 5508-2750 BCE was the first big civilization in Europe and among the earliest in the world.
Starting from Neolithic we have the civilization of the Camunni in Valle Camonica, Italy, that left to us more than 350,000 petroglyphs, the biggest site in Europe.
Also known as the Copper Age, European Chalcolithic is a time of changes and confusion. The most relevant fact is the infiltration and invasion of large parts of the territory by people originating from Central Asia, considered by mainstream scholars to be the original Indo-Europeans, although there are again several theories in dispute. Other phenomena are the expansion of Megalithism and the appearance of the first significant economic stratification and, related to this, the first known monarchies in the Balkan region. The first well-known literate civilization in Europe was that of the Minoans of the island of Crete and later the Mycenaens in the adjacent parts of Greece, starting at the beginning of the 2nd millennium BCE.
Though the use of iron was known to the Aegean peoples about 1100 BCE, it didn't reach Central Europe until 800 BCE, giving way to the Hallstatt culture, an Iron Age evolution of the culture of the Urn Fields. Probably as by-product of this technological peculiarity of the Indo-Europeans, soon after, they clearly consolidated their positions in Italy and Iberia, penetrating deep inside those peninsulas (Rome founded in 753 BCE).