  The birth and death of the first generation of stars have important
implications for the thermal state and chemical properties of the intergalactic
medium (IGM) in the early universe. Sometime after recombination, the neutral,
chemically pristine gas was reionized by ultraviolet photons emitted from the
first stars, but also enriched with heavy elements when these stars ended their
lives as energetic supernovae. Using the results from previous high-resolution
cosmological simulations of early structure formation that include radiative
transfer, we show that a significant volume fraction of the IGM can be
metal-polluted, as well as ionized, by massive Population III stars formed in
small-mass (10^6-10^7 Msun) halos early on. If most of the early generation
stars die as pair-instability supernovae with energies up to 10^{53} ergs, the
volume-averaged mean metallicity will quickly reach Z ~ 10^{-4}Zsun by a
redshift of 15-20, possibly causing a prompt transition to the formation of a
stellar population that is dominated by low-mass stars. In this scenario, the
early chemical enrichment history should closely trace the reionization history
of the IGM, and the end of the Population III era is marked by the completion
of reionization and pre-enrichment by z=15. We conclude that, while the
pre-enrichment may partially account for the ``metallicity-floor'' in
high-redshift Lyman-alpha clouds, it does not significantly affect the
elemental abundance in the intracluster medium.
