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Class 6 History & Civics — The sources of history

Say what counts as a source of history, group the four kinds the chapter names, tell apart the specialists who study the past, and follow what a historian does when two sources disagree.

Name: ________________________

Before you start

Four people who each study the past in a different way, and what each of them works on.

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  1. 1. Geologist
  2. 2. Palaeontologist
  3. 3. Anthropologist
  4. 4. Archaeologist

Left to right: a trench cut into the ground with brick courses showing; a fossil bone lying in rock; three people standing together; a hill with a seam of stone running through it. Four different things to look at, four different specialists — and the chapter's point is that these four feed one history between them.

  1. 1.In the last fifty years or so, what has been contributing more and more to the reconstruction of the past, alongside the usual sources?

    • a) Larger museums
    • b) Longer inscriptions
    • c) Scientific studies
    • d) More travelogues

  2. 2.The chapter opens by saying what history is the study of. What is it?

    • a) The age of the Earth
    • b) The human past
    • c) The lives of kings and queens
    • d) The objects kept in museums

  3. 3.Put the steps a historian works through into order, starting from gathering information.

    • Gather information from as many sources as can be found
    • Where sources contradict, decide which one to trust more
    • Notice where the sources confirm each other
    • Re-create the history of the period being studied

  4. 4.Some sources reach back into the ancient past. Others exist for recent history, which usually means the last two or three centuries. Sort them.

    Groups: Reaches back into the ancient past · A source for recent history

    • stories passed down by word of mouth
    • newspapers
    • television and the internet
    • an inscription carved for a king
    • stone tools dug out of the ground

  5. 5.Studies of ancient climates, chemical studies of excavated materials, and studies of the ______ of ancient people have given historians fresh insights. Which branch of biology, the one about features passed from one generation to the next, fills the gap?

  6. 6.Two sources give contradictory information about the same event. What does the chapter say historians do then?

    • a) Decide which of the sources they can trust more
    • b) Leave the event out of the history altogether
    • c) Add the two accounts together and use both
    • d) Take whichever of the two is older

  7. 7.Sort each of these under the heading the chapter puts it beneath.

    Groups: Archaeological sources · Literary sources · Oral sources · Artistic sources

    • sculptures
    • tools and weapons
    • paintings
    • monuments
    • folklore
    • poems and plays
    • travelogues
    • genealogical accounts

  8. 8.The chapter compares putting a history together to working on a particular kind of puzzle. Which one, and what is its catch?

    • a) A jigsaw puzzle, in which quite a few pieces may remain missing
    • b) A maze, in which there is one path and many dead ends
    • c) A riddle, which has a single hidden answer
    • d) A crossword, in which one wrong word spoils the rest

Answer key — Class 6 History & Civics — The sources of history

  1. 1. c) Scientific studies
  2. 2. b) The human past
  3. 3. 1. Gather information from as many sources as can be found 2. Notice where the sources confirm each other 3. Where sources contradict, decide which one to trust more 4. Re-create the history of the period being studied
  4. 4. newspapers → A source for recent history; television and the internet → A source for recent history; stone tools dug out of the ground → Reaches back into the ancient past; an inscription carved for a king → Reaches back into the ancient past; stories passed down by word of mouth → Reaches back into the ancient past
  5. 5. genetics
  6. 6. a) Decide which of the sources they can trust more
  7. 7. monuments → Archaeological sources; tools and weapons → Archaeological sources; poems and plays → Literary sources; travelogues → Literary sources; folklore → Oral sources; genealogical accounts → Oral sources; paintings → Artistic sources; sculptures → Artistic sources
  8. 8. a) A jigsaw puzzle, in which quite a few pieces may remain missing