To designate a date earlier than the actual one; to move a date, appointment, event, or period of time to an earlier point (contrast "postdate".)
To exist, or to occur before something else; to antedate (the more correct term for this usage.)
The Japanese use of Pascal's Triangle predates its discovery by Blaise Pascal.
If you say that one thing predated another, you mean that the first thing happened or existed some time before the second thing. His troubles predated the recession. to happen or exist earlier in history than something else