INTERPRETING HISTORY:

1
INTERPRETING HISTORY

• HISTORICAL EVIDENCE
• ARCHAEOLOGY

2
Historical Evidence

• Historians use both written and non-written
  sources to learn about the past.
• Written sources include books, letters, diaries,
  writings on monuments-- anything with writing.

3

• Non-written sources include fossils, artifacts,
  music and oral tradition.
• Historians must examine information and decide
  how to interpret it.

4
The Evaluation of Sources

• Historians ask questions about a source to
  determine how accurate and useful it is.
• Primary sources are materials created in the same
  time period as the events described.
• Secondary sources are materials created later by
  people who studied the original or primary
  sources.

5
The Puzzle of History

• Each generation has historians who gather and
  interpret sources of information about the past.
  The interpretation varies from generation to
  generation.
• Historians work to understand not only what
  happened in the past, but also how and why it
  happened.

6
Unlocking the Archaeological Record

• Archaeology is the recovery and study of
  artifacts, ruins, bones and fossils from the
  past.
• By studying the archaeological record,
  archaeologists can learn many things about the
  past.

7

• Archaeologists slowly remove earth at a site and
  carefully record the exact location of everything
  they find.

8
Dating the Information

• Archaeologists use two methods to determine the
  age of an artifact, cultural dating and
  scientific dating.
• Cultural dating compares the objects found at a
  site with objects whose dates and information are
  already known.

9

• Scientific dating techniques bring small samples
  of the objects found at a site into a laboratory
  for detailed analysis.

10
Interpreting the Evidence

• Archaeologists must interpret the evidence they
  collect just as historians do.
• Different archaeologists come to different
  conclusions about the materials they examine.

11
Classic Excavation

• The purpose of classic archaeology was largely to
  find treasures.
• The excavation of Tutankhamens tomb is an
  example of classic archaeology.

12
The New Archaeology

• Today, the purpose of archaeology is to
  understand the lives of all people.
• To study the lives of people, archaeologists
  study all the objects left behind, including
  rubbish.

13

• Archaeologists also work with other specialists
  to learn more about the climate, soil, plants,
  animals, and age of the area they are studying.

14
Evidence of Cultural Contact

• Clues about contact between ancient cultures are
  found in the archaeological record.
• Whenever different cultures come in contact, they
  exchange goods and ideas. This is known as
  cultural diffusion.