User:LGreg/sandbox/Approaches to Knowledge (LG seminar)/ Group 2/Evidence/Historical evidence

One of the main role of an historian is to rebuild history for helping us to understand the past history. In order to establish or reestablish the historical truth, the historian needs to analyse the past events with critical thinking as well as neutrality and objectivity.

Which tools an historian is using for establishing the historical truth?
It is possible to divide the sources into two categorizes: the primary sources ( archives, letters, pictures…) which are the most valuable sources and the secondary sources ( books, magazines…). Via these sources, the historian needs to distinguish the fiction and the real facts as well as verifying the reliability of the documents. An article from the BBC History website also divides the sources into four types of evidence; “the printed sources”, “the archives”, “the oral testimony” and “the physical evidence”. Specifically for the oral testimony, it is important to underline that this type of evidence is subjective, the witness expresses a point of view, non-neutral. This is why, the historian needs to confront the different testimonies and cross the different sources.