How to Know Our Past

Sources of History

Unwrit­ten sources like tools weapons coins jew­ellery cave paint­ing and draw­ing as dug out from below the earth are the evi­dence for the Pre­his­toric period. 

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Archae­o­log­i­cal Sources

There are many archae­o­log­i­cal sources few of them are:

  1. Tools and Weapons- the ear­ly man made crude tools from hard stones. Lat­er Flint anoth­er vari­ety of Grey stone was used to make bet­ter tools with star per a just like a nice like played a Bor­er and oth­ers like these. 
  2. Mega­liths- these are huge stones, dug out at the bur­ial sites. They tell us about the reli­gious believes and cus­toms of the ear­ly man. In India, graves lined with mega­liths have been found all over Deccan. 
  3. Shel­ters- The ear­ly man also used wood, branch­es of trees, hides, bones, of large ani­mals to make his shelter. 
  4. Ani­mal bones- Ani­mal bones have been found at dif­fer­ent places that are less about veg­e­ta­tion cli­mate tem­per­a­ture etc of the region. It help us to know that ear­ly man lived in har­mo­ny with ani­mals. How­ev­er human beings lived by the side of the lakes and riv­er on near water resources for reg­u­lar sup­ply of water and food. 
  5. Pot­tery, Art facts, Cave Paint­ings and Jew­ellery- These arte­facts of the ear­ly man belong to the Pre­his­toric peri­od. These are called cul­tur­al items of evi­dence and give us a lot infor­ma­tion about the lifestyle and the cus­toms of the ear­ly man. Ear­ly man made met­al jew­ellery he also made rough paint­ing on rocks in the cave. He used burnt bones would coloured Earth mixed with water or ani­mal fat to paint on the cave walls. 
  6. Old Build­ings and Mon­u­ments- The remains of many old build­ings and mon­u­ments are impor­tant source of his­to­ry. The towns like Mohen­jo Daro Harap­pa Patlipu­tra and Tak­shi­la have been found. They give a lot of infor­ma­tion about the lifestyle and cul­ture of those people. 
  7. Coins - The study of coins is numis­mas­tic. Ancient coin found at dif­fer­ent places give us valu­able infor­ma­tion about the eco­nom­ic con­di­tion of many King­dom from these coins we know about the peri­od the age and The chrono­log­i­cal order of the rulers. We also learn about the per­son­al char­ac­ter and qual­i­ties of the rulers about the span of their rule and the extent of their domain. 
  8. Edicts and inscrip­tions - Addict is an offi­cial order such offi­cial orders were engraved on met­als stone rock or pil­lars thou­sand of these have been found which relate to Harap­pa belong­ing to 3000 BC cer­tain impor­tant facts or events relat­ing to Kings were also engraved these are called inscription.

Does archae­ol­o­gy is very impor­tant sources to con­struct and recon­struct his­to­ry spe­cial­ly of the Pre­his­toric peri­od for which no writ­ten record is available. 

Lit­er­a­cy sources 

  • The first writ­ten script was in the form of pic­tures of object like the sun and the moon this script was called pictogram. 
  • It was first devel­oped in Mesopotamia between 3202 and 2800 BC. 
  • It was known as the cuneiform writing. 
  • Writ­ten records of pen­sion India can be divid­ed broad­ly into fol­low­ing categories:-
  • Reli­gious and sec­u­lar text

Series of events

  • Trav­el­ogues and accounts of foreigners. 

Reli­gious and sec­u­lar text - the four Vedas name­ly the Rig Veda the Sham Veda the yajur Veda the Athar­va Veda of the ear­ly Vedic paper are most impor­tant sources of ancient his­to­ry. The Jatakas throw light on the polit­i­cal eco­nom­ic social and cul­tur­al con­di­tions between sec­ond and third cen­turies BC. 

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