Job of the Historian 1: Page 1/2
• History is the story of the past based on surviving
evidence
• Historians use sources of evidence to find out about the
past
• There are two types: primary sources and secondary
sources
• Primary sources are sources of evidence that come from
the time we are studying. They give us first-hand
information
• Secondary sources are sources that do not come from the
time we are studying, but later. They give us second-hand
information
• There are different types of source: hand-written, printed,
pictorial, oral and artifacts (Look at yellow box page 2 and
Job of the Historian 2: Page 2 / 3
• An artifact is something made and used by people in
the past
• A museum is a place where artifacts are stored and
displayed
• An archive is a place where documents like
manuscripts and photographs are stored
• An art gallery is a place which contains paintings,
sculptures and drawings
• Sources can be unreliable as evidence: they lie;
they are mistaken; be biased (one-sided) or
prejudiced (they make up their mind because they
like or dislike the thing, not because of the facts)
• Propaganda means spreading lies and half lies to
persuade a lot of people to act a certain way.
Archaeologist 1
•
•
An archaeologist studies prehistory (the time before writing)
The difference between history and archaeology is history is
the study of the past based mainly on written sources;
archaeology is the study of the past based on artifacts
• Archaeologists must find sites: they use aerial photographs,
old maps and legends to find them.
• Sometimes they are found by accident when building is going
on
• Famous archaeology sites in Ireland are
a) Mount Sandel
b) The Ceide Fields
c) Lough Gur
• Old buildings, burial sites and middens (ancient rubbish heaps)
are the best sites
Archaeologist 2: People in history
1.
2.
Archaeologists study prehistory by finding and studying artifacts
They find sites using aerial photographs, maps, legends and
sometimes by accident
3. They must protect the site from frost and rain with plastic. They
must protect the site from people with fences
4. An archaeological dig (excavation) must be carried out properly
5. First, they use a digger to remove the topsoil.
6. They then make a map of the site
7. They divide the site into a grid using rope, and mark each square
with a number and letter
8. Each grid is dug out (excavated) very carefully using small tools, so
that no artifact is broken or overlooked. They use trowels, small
brushes, buckets, pickaxes and sieves.
9. The location of the find is recorded on the plan and in the
notebook. The artifact is photographed, labelled and put in a plastic
bag
10. It is sent to the laboratory to be dated and then to a museum.
Dating Artifacts
• Straitography is a method of dating artifacts
because artifacts found deeper in the ground are
older
• Dendro-chronology is a method of dating
wooden artefacts using the pattern of rings in the
wood
• Carbon dating is a method of dating organic
artifacts because all living things contain carbon.
They lose the carbon slowly and steadily.
Archaeologists can tell how old it is by how
much carbon is left
• Pollen analysis tells us what plants grew in the
past. Pollen last thousands of years and this can
help us to date sites.
Chronology
•
•
•
•
•
A decade is 10 years
A century is 100 years
A millenium is 1000 years
BC means before the birth of Christ
AD means after the birth of Christ
Ist century BC
2nd century AD