what is involved in a pre-modern society?

Answer 1

If this is for a class, you need to give more information -- either about the class you are taking, or the materials you have read in class. Depending on whose idea of "pre-modern" you are referring to, the answer could be different.

Answer 2

You only have to go back about 60 years.

I consider a pre-modern society to be one before the great inventions of our current electronic systems.

Answer 3

It hasn't undergone industrialization, and so is either a hunter-gatherer economy, or a purely agricultural economy.