An introduction to First Year History - What is an Archaeologist, what is a Historian, Primary and Secondary Sources, Bias, Propaganda and Prejudice.

1. Mr Hogan

2. Historians look at written evidence left behind by
people who lived long ago
Examples of written evidence: newspapers, books,
reports, diaries, posters, etc
Archaeologists look at other types of evidence left
behind by people
Examples of other evidence: houses, tools, weapons,
works of art, treasure!

4. Written Evidence

7. Primary Sources come directly from the past
◦ Examples of Primary Sources: old newspapers, diaries, an old
tool, a photograph...
Secondary Sources are written by historians and do
NOT come directly from the past
◦ Example of a secondary source: your textbook

14. Primary source Things found by archaeologists
Secondary source Uses written sources only
Historian Where written sources are kept
Archaeologist Comes directly from the past
Library Looking for non written sources
Dig Written about the past
Artifact Uses non written sources

15. Post Holes help show us where _________ once stood
Traces of burnt wood show where ________________
A R_______ H______ can give us a lot of information such as
what people ______ .
Grains of P_________ can give us clues as to how farmers
farmed in ages past
In the C_______ F________ in County _______ archaeologists
discovered S________ W_______ under the bog using long
_______. This showed that the land was farmed 5_______
years ago.

17. The Deeper something is buried,
the older it is.

18. Pottery lasts a very long time when it is buried
Archaeologists can use the design of buried pottery to
guess its age.

19. All living things have radioactive carbon in them
When the body dies, the carbon slowly leaks away
If you measure how much is left in the body, you can
estimate how old it is

21. The year Jesus Christ was born – Year 1
All years after that are known as AD
AD = “Anno Domini – the year of Our Lord”
This year is the year 2011 AD
Dates before the birth of Jesus are known as BC
BC = “Before Christ”

23. Bias – changing the truth by putting something in or
leaving something out
Prejudice – where the writer has an unhelpful opinion
of other people or events
Propaganda – where someone is trying to win others
over to their point of view.

27. Historians find artefacts
Archaeologists use written sources like books
An interview with a person from a long time ago would be an
oral source
Primary sources are sources about primary school
Your textbook is a secondary source
Propaganda is where someone is trying to win others over to
their point of view
AD stands for After Dark
Artefacts would usually be stored in libraries

34. Post Holes are where stone age people posted letters
Pollen is used to find out what crops people grew long ago
The Ceide Fields are located in County Kilkenny
There are stone walls buried under bog at the Céide Fields
Stratigraphy is the study of Layers of soil
Carbon Dating can be used to tell the age of a piece of metal
Dendrochronology is a way of telling the age of something by
using tree rings
A viking ship was once dated to 1025 AD by using
dengrochronology