History

We explain what history is, how it is divided, its functions and characteristics. Also, its auxiliary sciences and what prehistory is.

What is history?

The story is the study of the past humanity based on the critical examination of records, documents, material remains, photographs, films, books and any other form of support that sheds light on past events of various regions and cultures.

However, history can mean three different things:

• A discipline that studies the past of humanity and orders it in a chronological succession, which allows its understanding, contextualization and critical review. Sometimes it is framed in the social sciences and other times in the humanities.
• The past itself understood as the subject of study of historians.
• The time period that began with the invention of writing in Antiquity and continues to the present. It is a concept that marks a difference with the so-called prehistory, that is, the history before writing. Nowadays, this separation is often criticized, since prehistoric societies are also part of the history of humanity.

History is one of the oldest disciplines created by humanity, and perhaps one of the most specialized. A historical approach can be made to practically any topic: of other sciences and disciplines, of art, of a nation, of the most remote past of the human species (called “deep history”) or of the universe (called “great history”). There is also the history of the historical discipline (sometimes called historiography).

to the people Those who dedicate themselves to the study of history are known as historians and those who are in charge of telling the official history of a town or an institution or recording current events for posterity are known as chroniclers. In general, the Greek Herodotus of the 5th century BC is recognized. C. as the first historian or the “father of history” of Western civilization.

Auxiliary sciences of history: There are some auxiliary sciences that collaborate or support the interpretation of documentary sources. For example: archeology (studies the material remains of past societies), paleography (studies ancient written documents), epigraphy (studies inscriptions on stone or other supports), numismatics (studies coins and medals) and genealogy (studies family relationships).

Story features

In general terms, history as a discipline is characterized by the following:

• It is dedicated to the study of the past, based on records of different types that remained from him or that other historians elaborated. Therefore, historical knowledge is cumulative, that is, what is studied by a historian serves as a source for future historians, but at the same time it is never complete, because it promotes different interpretations.
• It is usually divided into specializations dedicated to the study of a specific topic, period or region, so there are many ways to do history. There is also the term “historiography”, which sometimes refers to the historical discipline itself and sometimes refers to the study of the way in which history is written, that is, a kind of meta-history.
• Turn to many other disciplines in search of sources and instruments such as archeology or paleography, and at the same time serves as an auxiliary discipline so that other scientific and thought activities can study the origins and development of their fields of study. For example: history of medicine, history of science, history of literature.
• Since the 19th century, the teaching of national history has been an essential part of the educational model in all countries, as a method of forming national identity.

What is history for?

The study of the past fulfills different functions that can go from the accumulation of knowledge to the understanding of the present.

One of the greatest benefits of history is that Only by studying how past events occurred can we understand the configuration of current reality. That is why many times the past (remote or recent) is the starting point for the study of a topic that has to do with the present.

Importance of history

The study of history allows us to know what life was like tens, hundreds and thousands of years ago in various regions of the world. This implies knowing what were the ways of life, beliefs, concerns, discoveries and dangers faced by those who lived in a world radically different from the current one.

Also allows us to know the processes that gave rise to the institutions and practices that govern today like the State, cities, laws, democracy, the republic or capitalism. Furthermore, it helps to identify different social and cultural trajectories, distant in space and time, that contribute to thinking about and respecting diversity in today's world.

History and prehistory

The differentiation between history and prehistory is conventional and today many scholars consider it unnecessary. Prehistory is part of human history, but it was traditionally perceived as the primal and ancestral period.

What characterizes prehistory is that it is the period prior to the invention of writing so he did not leave written documents that can be studied by historians. From the invention of writing, which is closely related to the emergence of cities and states, history itself is considered to have begun.

However, the lack of writing did not imply the nonexistence of narratives about the past, but because these were transmitted from generation to generation orally, they did not last in testimonies that historians can reconstruct. However, in some cases, images survive (especially painted or engraved in caves and rocks) that allow us to infer messages produced by prehistoric societies to which are added archaeological studies that consist of the analysis of material remains (such as artifacts and buildings) to recognize prehistoric practices and beliefs.

Periods of history

Part of the tasks of students of history is to organize and classify it, which is often done through its periodization, that is, its division into consecutive periods, the beginning and end of which are marked by certain dates and events of importance.

The traditional periodization of so-called universal history is organized according to European parameters, despite the fact that the processes and dates differ in other continents and cultures. However, today it is recognized that there is no single and universal periodization but the division of prehistory and history into large periods is usually maintained with the caveat that the model must always adapt to the particularities of each region and culture.

History in its traditional sense begins with the invention of writing and the emergence of the first States and continues to the present. It is conventionally divided into several ages, which are:

• Ancient Age or Antiquity. It was the period of emergence of the first ancient civilizations, usually in the form of a monarchy, an empire, or a series of city-states. It is subdivided into:
  • Ancient East. It began in 3300 BC. C. with the first state societies of the Near East and the Nile Valley, and encompassed the Mesopotamian cultures (Sumeria, Akkadia, Babylon, Assyria), Ancient Egypt, the Mediterranean Levant (Phoenicia and the peoples of the southern Levant, such as the Hebrews or the Philistines), the kingdoms of Anatolia and Syria (such as the Hittites and Mitanni), and further east the Indus Valley civilization, Vedic India and the ancient Chinese dynasties. Other regions in which early civilizations developed at various dates were the Mediterranean (the Minoan and Mycenaean civilizations) and the Mesoamerican and Andean areas in the Americas.
  • classical antiquity. It extended between the 8th centuries BC. C and II d. C. (although some historians extend it until the 5th century AD). It covered the rise and expansion of the city-states of Ancient Greece, which engaged in military conflicts with the Persian Empire, and of the Roman Republic, which disputed dominance of the Mediterranean with the Carthaginians and became an empire. The maximum expansion of the Roman Empire took place in the 2nd century AD. C and subsequently entered a process of decline.
  • late antiquity. It included the stage of decline of the Roman Empire from the 3rd century AD. C., its division into two halves (eastern and western) and its dissolution due to the migrations and invasions of Germanic populations from northern Europe. Furthermore, it was the time of the spread of Christianity and the rise of Islam. Its end is usually marked in the 8th century, when the Muslim conquests reached the Iberian Peninsula, the Vikings began their attacks across Europe and Charlemagne founded the Carolingian Empire. Some historians avoid the term Late Antiquity and simply mark the passage from Classical Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages in the 5th century AD. c.
• Middle Ages or Middle Ages. It was the period of Christianization of all of Europe and the development of a new mode of production, feudalism, after the fall of the Western Roman Empire. The nobility and the clergy were the dominant social classes and the Church exercised strict control over culture and politics. It is usually subdivided into two stages:
  • Early Middle Ages. It extended from the 5th century to the 10th century. It was called the “dark age” in the Renaissance, as it was a period in which urban life suffered a significant setback, there was a strong ruralization of society, and art and thought They were subject to religious dogma. Currently, historians reject the term “dark ages,” although for a long time it continued to be used to characterize the period due to its scarcity of written documents.
  • Late Middle Ages. It extended from the 11th century to the 15th century. It was a period of resurgence of cities, the result of the increase in commercial activity, and the rise of a new social class, the bourgeoisie. Feudalism was strengthened, the Crusades occurred as a result of the confrontation between Islam and the Catholic Church, and towards the end the so-called Old Regime was formed: a society organized in centralized or absolutist monarchies. Some historians call the period between the 11th and 13th centuries the Middle Ages.
• Modern Age. It was a period of great changes worldwide that began in the 15th century, with the fall of Constantinople and the Eastern Roman Empire and the subsequent European discovery of America. In Europe, the Renaissance took place under the influence of a new and powerful philosophy, humanism, which replaced faith in God with human reason, and laid the foundations for a scientific revolution that changed humanity forever.
  This age was the age of discovery, in which the great European empires explored the world. Thus began a stage of conquests, colonization and imperialism. At the end of this period, the Enlightenment and liberalism emerged, which contributed to the fall of the Ancien Regime and the political rise of the bourgeoisie.
• Contemporary Age. It is the period that began with the French Revolution in 1789 and continues to this day. It was an age of scientific, technological, social, political and cultural revolutions, which transformed the world in a much more radical and accelerated way than the rest of history. It also witnessed the most devastating wars. In the 20th century, science and technology demonstrated their negative side, such as the launching of two atomic bombs, and also their positive side, such as advances in medicine and the arrival of humans to the Moon. The end of the 20th century and the first decades of the 21st saw the consolidation of democratic regimes in various parts of the world and the consolidation of capitalism at a global level, which in turn included important economic crises.

Continue with: Ages of history

Prehistory Division

Prehistory was the oldest period in the history of human beings, corresponding to the times when there was no writing. It includes two major stages with their respective subdivisions:

• Stone Age. It was the period that began with the development of the first tools, made of stone, wood or bone, and ended with the discovery of the handling of the first metals. It was the longest age, subdivided into three periods:
  • Paleolithic Period. Its name means “ancient stone” and spans from 2.5 million years ago to approximately 10,000 BC. C. He witnessed the emergence of the first human groups capable of manufacturing and using lithic tools, who discovered fire and survived by hunting, fishing and gathering.
  • Mesolithic Period. Also known as Epipaleolithic or Protoneolithic, it is considered a period of transition from nomadic to sedentary life, coinciding with the end of the last ice age. It is considered to have spanned from 12,000 BC. C. until 8500 BC. C. in the Near East, but in Europe and other regions its start and end dates were later.
  • Neolithic Period. It was the last period of the Stone Age, which began according to the regions between 8500 and 4000 BC. C., and in which the so-called Neolithic revolution took place, with the development of agriculture. This technique revolutionized the human way of life with the domestication of plant and animal species, and the consolidation of a sedentary lifestyle.
• Metal Age. It was the period in which the use of metals for the manufacture of tools and weapons began and became widespread. It is normally divided into three ages, according to the predominant type of metal:
  • Copper Age or Chalcolithic. It began between the year 5500 or 4500 BC. C and 3000 BC. C., when copper was discovered and used in its native state, first by hammering and cold beating until the possibility of smelting it was discovered. The use of ceramics also expanded and the first alloys were produced.
  • Bronze Age. It began around 3000 BC. C. in the Near East and culminated in 1200 BC. C., so it was rather part of the history in this region (that is, characteristic of civilizations that developed writing). However, in most of Europe it was a prehistoric period, as it spread in societies that did not have writing. It was characterized by the metallurgy of bronze, a much more versatile and resistant metal than copper and stone, which was used both to make weapons and tools and to make statues and decorative objects.
  • Iron Age. It was the last period of the Age of Metals, in which humanity developed the metallurgy of iron, a metal more resistant and durable than bronze but at the same time very abundant. It is dated approximately between 1200 BC. C and 550 BC. C., although this varies according to the regions. Like the Bronze Age, in some areas it is considered a prehistoric age and in others a historical age.

References

• Burke, P. (ed.) (2003). Ways to make history. Second edition. Alliance.
• Dosse, F. (2003). History: concepts and writings. New Vision.
• Hunt, L. et al. (2016). The Making of the West. Peoples and Cultures. 5th edition. Bedford/St. Martin's.
• Luebering, J. (2023). History. Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/