Historical Sources and Accounts

  Historians study historical sources. (Evidently) Historical sources are separated into two different categories: primary sources and secondary sources.

  Primary sources are sources produced during the time period being studied, and they are often produced by the people involved in the events being studied.

  Secondary sources are records that explain or interpret primary sources.

  There are three kinds of primary sources: artifacts, tradition, and written records.

  Artifacts are objects made by man. Historians study artifacts to learn about the background and culture of a people. Artifacts may be small relics, massive monuments, or priceless works of art. Most artifacts are unsophisticated, everyday items. E.g. pottery, tools, weapons, furniture, cutlery, clothes, etc.

  Tradition was the earliest method of transmitting historical data. It simply involves the handing down of information by word of mouth from generation to generation. The downsides of tradition is that it is subject to embellishing of many, can be forgotten, can be changed, can be exaggerated, etc.

  Written records are the most important to a historian as they give clearer testimonies than artifacts and are more accurate and reliable than traditions. They are prolific and vary from one to another. They include letters, journals, diaries, inscriptions, inventory lists, etc.

  In order to produce a historical account from primary and secondary sources, a historian must utilize three steps.

1) Evaluation of historical sources. A historian must examine a specific record of its reliability and believability. Then he compares it to other sources like it, analyzing their points of agreement and disagreement.

2) Historical synthesis. A historian collects the useful information he has found in his inspections and constructs an account of the past.

3) Historical interpretation. A historian needs to interpret the events he records by integrating into that account what he believes is the meaning and importance of those events. He must state what happened, why it happened, and how it relates to us today.