• As human beings, we are naturally curious about our earliest origins and we want to know more about our past • Where did the first humans come from? • What was life like thousands of years ago? • How did people survive? • Where did they live? • What did they wear? • What did they eat? • But how can we learn about and understand what has happened in the past?
• About 5,000 years ago people first developed systems of writing • They began to keep written records of their experiences and described the things that were happening around them • These developments marked the beginning of “history” or the written or recorded events of people • The time before history is described as prehistory and is the period before writing was invented • How do historians and scientists study these different periods?
• To learn about life in prehistoric times scientists must look for clues • Archaeologists are scientists who study past peoples and cultures by excavating human remains and artifacts • They sift through the dirt of prehistoric sites to find bones, tools, jewellery or other objects • The objects they find might tell them something about the people who lived there
• Historians can study the written records of a particular country or place to understand the people who lived there and its society. For example, its wars, its religions and its kings • Written records can include things like books, letters, manuscripts and stone tablets • Historians can compare records of the same event written by different people • People often have different ideas and opinions and will not see things in the same way
• Oral traditions are stories that are told and passed down from generation to generation • They can include family history, such as stories about grandparents or great- grandparents • They can also tell stories about heroes or events from the past • Oral stories are not always true or accurate, they change as they are told and re-told • They are important because they tell how people lived and what people thought was important
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