I named this work by analogy with the famous work of the French historian Lucien Febvre "Fights for History", although there will be no battles, and there will be a story about how the historian works.
Instead of a preface
Passions often run high on "VO", but not around the topic of this or that article from military history, but about who and how formulated opinions, to what extent this opinion is "opinion" or not "opinion" at all, or, to put it differently, whether it is backed up by scientific research or personal guesses and fantasies.
After all, what is the difference between “I think so” (to paraphrase the catchy phrase “I see so” from the movie “The Adventures of Prince Florizel”) and a real analysis of historical events?
In this short article I would like to talk about the scientific principles of the historian's work. At least about how it should ideally be.
I am writing this article at the request of readers, this is my story, a modest contribution to the topic of the historian's craft. In my story, I will try to avoid complex terms and talk about technologies in the science of history in simple words. And before starting to describe the "craft", I will touch on some aspects that seriously affect public opinion on this issue.
Firstly, these days the scientific degrees in the humanities themselves are greatly devalued due to corruption that has gripped our society and penetrated into the field of science, where many important persons certainly strive to get a degree, however, less often in history, but economics and political science less fortunate here. Of course, the same VAK will strip off seven scientific skins from a professional historian (within the legal framework, of course), before giving protection, will examine each work through an atomic microscope, but broad sections of the public believe that if there is corruption, then all are smeared with one world.
Secondly, the book business, etc. as a business, of course, it is not “boring research” that is sharply more interesting, but catchy, flashy, alternative “historians”. And the public, among which the percentage of those infected with cognitive dissonance is extremely high, needs hot facts, refutations and overthrows, enemies and rewritten stories. There have always been authors-graphomaniacs: in Soviet times, “historical works” were flooded to the Pushkin House from amateurs, the retired military was especially distinguished here. One of the works was devoted to the "research" of the poem by Alexander Pushkin "Eugene Onegin" as a monument to the war of 1812, where the dance of the ballerina Istomina, according to the "researcher", personified the struggle of the Russian and French armies, and the victory of the Russian army - the clash of legs:
“Now the camp will advise, then it will develop, And he hits his leg with a quick foot."
With the advent of the Internet, all the gateways were opened for such work.
Thirdly, professional historians often cook too much in their own juice, for various reasons, without popularizing scientific achievements, with rare, rare exceptions, thereby already giving the battlefield to non-professionals and a furious alternative. And only in recent years have professionals joined the work to popularize scientific knowledge.
What is history as a science
First, what is history as a science?
History is primarily the science of man and society. Point.
However, most of the sciences fall under this definition. Economics is the science of the history of economics. Jurisprudence is the science of the history of jurisprudence, etc.
And that's why history is called the master of life, because without a clear and, most importantly, correct understanding of the "history" of society, correct forecasts for its development are impossible, and not even forecasts for development, but the implementation of current management.
A simple business example. If you do not analyze sales for the last elapsed period, you will hardly understand why there are problems and how to fix them, how to plan future sales, it would seem that this is a standard situation: we are analyzing the past, even if it was just yesterday, in order to correct mistakes in the future. Is it different? Not in sales, but in history?
Let's figure it out.
But this, so to speak, is about the big, global, let's go down to a lower level.
Is history a science?
Let us ask ourselves a typical question that often sounds in the mouth of a doubter: is history a science?
And philosophy? And physics? And astronomy?
History is a science that has clear research mechanisms in conditions when the object of study is not a dead body, as, for example, in physics, but a person, human society. A man with all his passions, views, etc.
Many sciences study a person, he is in the center of research almost always, be it medicine or sociology, psychology or pedagogy, but a person is a social being, but the development of the society in which a person lives is precisely studied by history, and this is a key factor in life person.
Those who unknowingly argue the opposite, first of all, confuse history as a science and fiction about history.
A. Dumas or V. Pikul, V. Ivanov or V. Yan, D. Balashov - these are all writers who wrote on historical topics, someone is close to the scientific vision of the issue, someone is not very, but accessible, bright and understandable to readers: "I fight because I fight."
However, this is not history, but fiction, which allows the author's speculation. Conjecture is what categorically distinguishes science from fiction. Confusion in understanding this issue leads people to think that history is not science, since historical fiction is full of fiction, but there is no connection between science and fiction, except that writers draw their material from professional scientists …
E. Radzinsky is another example of when a playwright is perceived as a historian. Through manipulation of feelings, he transfers his thoughts to one account or another, about certain historical figures. But this is not a historian, this is a writer-playwright, a reader.
And the fact is that the work of a historian-researcher is based on a source or a historical source. It can be a chronicle or chronicle, file folders from archives or photographs, tax documents, population censuses, certificates, accounting books or birth and death records, event logs, tombstones, paintings and monuments. But the main thing that distinguishes the historian from the writer in terms of approach: the historian comes from the source, the writer from his thoughts or his vision. The historian's “stove”, from which everything dances, is the source, the writer's “stove” - the ideas that he wants to convey to the reader. Ideally, and indeed in life, it often happens that the historian at the end of his work may come to completely different conclusions than one might have expected: follow not the rabbit, like the hero of The Matrix, but follow the source.
The profession leaves an imprint on itself, and therefore, historians, if they, of course, study well, form two parameters. First: the reference to the source “one grandmother said at the market”, “one witness showed it” is not for them. The witness always has a name, otherwise it is not the work of the historian. Second: reference to historiography. More on this below.
How is a historian different from someone who can read books?
I deliberately titled this chapter in a joking tone, and in it I will talk about the main, key issues of historical science, without knowing which it is not a science at all, and the one who writes on this topic is not a historian.
So, what a historian needs to know, what are the key parameters that distinguish a scientific researcher from any person who is interested in history, is able to read, sometimes with errors, and think?
Historiography. The first thing a historian should know, or, let's say, that he is obliged to study and know in detail and scrupulously, is the historiography of the issue or the topic he is dealing with. This is a systematic work, the historian must know everything, I emphasize, all scientific work on the subject under study. Fiction, journalism and charlatans do not belong to historiography, but it is also good to know about them.
From the first year, students actively study historiography. What is it? Historiography is the scientific literature on a topic, or who and what scholars have written on a given topic from the very first work on this issue. Without knowledge of historiography, it makes no sense to start researching sources.
First, why do the work in a new way, which may have been done a hundred years ago?
Secondly, in order not to rediscover America, again, if someone came to this idea or hypothesis fifty years ago. A link to the discoverer is mandatory, if it is not there, it will be scientific incompetence if you are unfamiliar with such work, and if you knew it, it would be a forgery.
Again, there is an extensive historiography on any scientific topic, especially on the most important topics, knowing it, studying it is an important part of a researcher's work.
Moreover, in the course of their studies, historians study historiography in a different direction, which is obvious that it is impossible to read all documents (sources), it is imperative to know the opinions of historians on the topic, especially since they are diametrically opposite. It is obligatory to hand over monographs (by heart) devoted to one or another direction of historiography, the candidate minimum includes the preparation of historiographic questions in one direction or another, that is, when passing the minimum, you must fully know historiography on several topics, I repeat, completely, that is, in the case of the absence of generalizing works to pass (read) oneself through all historiography. For example, I had a minimum of historiography on the nomads of the Middle Ages in Eastern Europe and on the Second World War, to be honest, a huge amount of material.
The historian should have similar knowledge in the field of sources, that is, to know to which period which sources belong. And again, this is the required knowledge that you must possess. And we are talking not only about your subject of specialization or interest, but also about other periods, countries and peoples. You need to know this, of course, the head is not a computer, and if you do not use something, you can forget it, but the essence of this does not change, if necessary, everything is easy to restore.
For example, we do not have at all identical sources of the first period of the history of Rome (the royal and the period of the early republic); writing appeared in Rome in the 6th century. BC, in the V century. AD there were records of history - annals, but all this did not come down to us, like early historians (only fragments), and all sources refer to a later period, this is Titus Livy (59 BC - 17 AD). AD), Dionysius (same period), Plutarch (1st century AD), Diodorus (1st century AD), Varon (1st century AD) and less significant sources.
In childhood, we all read the exciting novel "Spartacus" by R. Giovagnoli, which is mostly fiction, as well as the exciting American film with K. Douglas, but there are very few historical sources on this event that have come down to us: these are several pages in the "Civil Wars" Appian and the biography of Crassus Plutarch, all other sources only mention this event. That is, from the point of view of information sources, we have almost no information.
Knowing the exact sources in different directions, and even more so in their own way, is the duty of the historian, what distinguishes him from the amateur.
How to read the source? The second important point in work is knowledge of the source language. Knowledge of the source language means a lot, but the key is just knowledge of the language. Source study is impossible without knowledge of the language.
Analysis is impossible without knowledge of the language - this is an axiom. Anyone interested in history can afford to read, for example, the so-called Tale of Bygone Years (Tale) in translation, the historian reads the published original. And so that all those interested in history could read the same PVL translated by D. S. that practically all world sources have been published in the original languages. Since it is unrealistic to constantly resort to the text of the original or the primary source, for example, to the Laurentian Chronicle itself, which is kept in the Russian National Library (RNL).
First, it is an internal responsibility, why bother the manuscript once again when it has already been published in various forms, including facsimile, simply from the point of view of its safety. Secondly, from the standpoint of the study of the monument as a source, a gigantic paleographic work has already been carried out on paper, handwriting, inserts, etc.
If it seems that reading in Old Russian is easy, then it is not. In addition to studying the course of the Old Russian language, you need to know textology, paleography.
Again, this does not mean that all researchers immediately rush to the handwritten department of the National Library of Russia or the library of the Academy of Sciences, of course not, the specialization in historical science is huge: and those who are specifically engaged in paleography or science, studying the text, rarely come up with problems, for example, the socio-economic development of Russia, and their works are actively used by historians who deal with general issues, but of course, everyone working with the text must know the language of the source.
For those who consider this a simple matter, I propose to take a paleography textbook and try to read and translate the letter of Peter I. This is not an easy matter. And now let's imagine that you suddenly wanted to check the memoirs of some 18th century figure, already published, on the basis of archival documents. That is, you need to master the reading of cursive writing, which was practiced in the 18th century, and after you wade through this palisade, understand and translate. And given the dominance of the French language in this era, you will have to master it too.
I note that a huge layer of sources on the history of Russia in the 18th century. waiting for its researcher, or rather, researchers. This work is enormous and time-consuming.
Simply put, a person who studies Ancient Egypt must know the ancient Greek and Egyptian alphabets, the Vikings - Old Norse or Old Icelandic, Anglo-Saxon early history - Latin, etc. But if you are engaged in the history of the First World War, at least knowledge of French as the language of international documents is required, and further down the list. Why these languages? I just gave an example of the languages of the most important sources on this topic.
Naturally, when delving into the topic, knowledge of other languages is also necessary, the same Latin is the main language of the early Western Middle Ages, but I repeat, knowledge of the main language of research is a prerequisite. If there is no knowledge, research is impossible, and there is no historian as a specialist.
Thus, the key parameters of the work consist in the analysis of the source, based on the knowledge of historiography, without the knowledge of the second, it is impossible to analyze something, there is no point in doing monkey work.
In the PVL, according to the Laurentian list, there is information that Oleg, who seized Kiev, does the following: “Behold Oleg … give tribute to the Slovenian, Krivichi and Mary, and (order) the Varangian to give tribute from Novgorod to a mane of 300 for the summer, sharing peace, hedgehog until the death of Yaroslavl dayash as a Varangian. " The same is in PVL according to the Ipatiev list. But in the Novgorod First Chronicle of the younger version: "And give tribute to Slovens and Varangians, give tribute to Krivich and Mer, and give tribute to the Varyag from Novgorod, and divide 300 hryvnias from Novgorod for the summer, if they don't give". All later chronicles basically repeat the formulation of the PVL. Researchers of the 19th century.and the Soviet period agreed that Oleg, who left for Kiev from the north, appointed a tribute from the Slovenes, Krivichi and Mary himself and the Varangians.
Only I. M. Trotsky in 1932, given the fact that Novgorodskaya First contains earlier texts than PVL (Shakhmatov A. A.) indicated that it is necessary to translate "… the case turns out to be dependent on "give", that is, the tribute was given not by the Slovenes, but by the Slovenes and the Varangians. There is a difference in the annals between the term "statutes" and "lay down": regulations - for the tribes marching with Oleg, lay down - for the tribes captured by Oleg (Grekov B. D.). If B. D. Grekov translated the verb "ustaviti" as "to establish the exact measure", then I. Ya. Froyanov translates as "to appoint."
As follows from the context, Oleg goes on a campaign with Slovenes, Krivichi and Merei, conquers Kiev and takes tribute from it on his allies.
Thus, the clarification of the translation leads to a completely different meaning, which corresponds to the realities, Oleg, who seized Kiev, imposed a tribute on it in favor of his army.
Of course, it is impossible to know everything, and, say, in the case of studying the history of Russia and the Mongols, the researcher may not know the eastern languages of the sources on the history of the Mongols, in which case he will use the translations of historians-specialists in languages, but, again, without knowledge of Old Russian, his work will be insignificant.
And one more important point: among amateurs there is an extremely widespread opinion that if a book was published in the 19th century, then the trust in it is complete. Let us consider three translations of Theophanes the Confessor (d. 818), the author of an extensive "Chronography" on the history of Byzantium: V. I. Obolensky's translation in the nineteenth century. and two translations (partial) by G. G. Litavrina and I. S. Chichurov at the end of the twentieth century. If you follow V. I. Obolensky, then the reader might think that the "parties" at the hippodrome dressed in armor, and in Byzantium officials were called counts. Of course, the degree of research and translations have stepped forward significantly, translations by G. G. Litavrina and I. S. Chichurov - this is the highest level for today, and many works of past periods are perceived in the professional environment as historiographic monuments.
What you need to know about source study
The second factor in source study is the question of understanding the structure, interconnectedness of historical documents, in the end, their specificity. Thus, a logbook on a ship, for example, will always be primary in relation to the memoirs of sailors; chronicle or chronicle - for antiquity, massive documents, for example, on the army - for the twentieth century.
Simply in order to distinguish false from truth, a historian dealing with a certain topic must, in addition to historiography on the topic, knowledge of the language of the source and the source itself, know his period, that is, dating, historical geography, the social structure of the period under study, terminology, etc.
Again about source studies. If we are talking about Russian chronicle writing, then it is necessary to know how the chronicles are related to each other, where are the primary chronicles or protographers, where are the later chronicles dependent on them, and this is taking into account the fact that the chronicles of later periods have come down to us: the works of Shakhmatov A. A., Priselkova M. D., Nasonov A. N., or modern authors Kloss B. M., Ziborova V. K., Gippius A. A.
Know that the most important legal document on Old Russian law "Russian Truth" has three editions: Short, Extensive, Abbreviated. But they have come down to us in different lists (physically) of the period from the fourteenth to the seventeenth century.
Then there will be no blunders when someone writes: in the PVL it is indicated so and so, and in the Laurentian Chronicle - so and so. Do not confuse the lists that have come down to us, and the original chronicles or protographs derived from them.
Have an idea of chronology, as dating is often known to be extremely complex and ambiguous. That time in history has passed, it was in the 19th century, when many works were devoted to chronology and disputes around it, certain assumptions were made, and this is not scientific opportunism, but an understanding that the sources do not allow us to speak unambiguously about a particular time. As, for example, chronology for the early history of Rome: it is not known when Rome was founded - there is no exact date, but there is a traditional one. The countdown by eras also introduces confusion, in early Rome the calendar was extremely imperfect: at first the year consisted of 9 months, and the month was lunar - 28-29 days, later there was a transition to 12 months while maintaining the lunar month (under Numa Pompilius). Or let's say, the fact that the original part of the Russian chronicle was not dated.
So modern "chronolozhtsy" from the deepest ignorance in the sources and historiography of chronology doom themselves to Sisyphean labor.
Add to all the above that the researcher must know and freely navigate the sources according to his period: this means what and when it was written, by whom, the main characteristics of the author, his views, ideology, when it comes to documents: knowledge of the system of their writing, up to up to word turnings.
Here are some examples for knowing the context of the period under review. This is approximately the same as in the history of painting to determine the authenticity of a painting on the basis of the attributes depicted in it (there was no mobile phone in the 19th century).
For fifteen years there is evidence that in the early 90s of the twentieth century. By order of the members of the Central Committee, KGB officers fabricated documents on the Katyn and similar cases; signs of forgery were identified and presented to the general public. In many ways, the forgery was revealed on the basis of linguistic analysis, inconsistencies in the "documents" themselves, dates and their discrepancy with current events.
However, forgery of documents is a separate, extremely interesting topic.
The same serious inconsistency with the context of the era caused doubts about the authenticity of two monuments of ancient Russian history: "The Lay of Igor's Campaign" and the Tmutarakan Stone.
The question of the authenticity of the Lay was raised more than once before the researcher A. A. Zimin, but his arguments caused a storm of emotions and serious discussion in the Department of History of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR on May 4-6, 1964. Zimin questioned the correspondence of the monument to the 12th century, erecting it significantly to a later time - the 18th century. Due to the destruction of the document itself during the fire of 1812 in the house of the collector and discoverer of Russian manuscripts, Count A. I. Musin-Pushkin, paleographic analysis was excluded, but a contextual analysis was carried out. Today we can say that the discussion on this historical source, which was globally started by A. A. Zimin remains open.
But when analyzing the Tmutarakan stone, the researchers lacked certain tools for a long time. The Tmutarakan stone was found on Taman in 1792. Doubts about its authenticity arose immediately, too "in time" it was found in these parts, being additional evidence of Russia's right to Novorossiya and Crimea.
And the methodological problem was that in the 18th century many branches of historical science were just making their steps in the scientific world of the leading historical countries of Europe, including Russia. This is about historical geography. The study and search for correspondence with the old geographical names of cities, mountains, seas and rivers caused a lot of controversy. Tmutarakan, for example, was placed in different places, often closer to Chernigov, to which it gravitated as a volost, according to the chronicles, the Kerch Strait was not a favorite here, hence the doubts about the authenticity.
It is clear that the monument of 1068 also raised questions from philologists, paleographers, since we did not have similar documents from this period, and only after such a direction as historical geography had taken a more reliable basis did doubts disappear. And the analysis of the marble itself and the find of an analogue completely dispelled them.
In current antiscientific research, for example, the topic of Tartary is very much reminiscent of similar studies of the 18th century, but what was then simply ignorance is today called "ignorance".
That is why the historian should not only know the entire source study base of the period under study, but in the process of study studies it in other periods as well, as in the case of historiography.
But how can we plunge into the depths of the studied century, how? Again, only knowledge of historiography gives us such knowledge.
Let's take the term "slave" ("slave"). What does he mean? When do we come across him in sources: a slave in the X or in the XVII century? What are the sources of origin, how did some researchers interpret the term? But the very concept of the development of society depends on the understanding of the term: from the conclusions that the economy of Ancient Russia was based on slavery (V. O. addicted (A. A. Zimin). Or the conclusion that in the XI-XII centuries. a servant is a captive slave, and a slave is a fellow tribesman (Froyanov I. Ya.).
A deep knowledge of your period will always come in handy when in the sources we are faced with difficult to explain questions: knowledge of weapons can help in the dating of icons.
Let me give you another example from the area of working with sources. Today, such a genre of literature as memoirs is very popular, but they are at the same time an important historical source, evidence of the era, but, like any source, memoirs require a certain approach. If a simple reader can proceed from his personal opinion: like it or not like it, I believe it or not, then a researcher cannot afford such a luxury, all the more, he cannot draw unambiguous conclusions based on his memoirs if there is no confirmation from other sources. However, you can't say better than Mark Blok (1886-1944), a historian and a soldier:
“Marbeau [1782-1854] in his“Memoirs”, which excited young hearts so much, reports with a mass of details about one brave deed, the hero of which brings himself out: if you believe him, on the night of May 7-8, 1809. he swam in a boat through the stormy waves of the overflowing Danube in order to capture several prisoners from the Austrians on the other bank. How can this story be verified? Calling for help from other testimonies, of course. We have army orders, travel journals, reports; they testify that on that famous night the Austrian corps, whose tents, he said, Marbeau found on the left bank, still occupied the opposite bank. In addition, it is clear from Napoleon's own "Correspondence" that the spill had not yet begun on May 8. Finally, a petition for production in the rank was found, written by Marbeau himself on June 30, 1809. Among the merits to which he refers there, there is not a word about his glorious feat accomplished last month. So, on the one hand - "Memoirs", on the other - a number of texts refuting them. We need to sort out this conflicting evidence. What do we think is more believable? That in the same place, on the spot, both the headquarters and the emperor himself were mistaken (if only they, God knows why, did not distort reality on purpose); that Marbeau in 1809, thirsting for promotion, sinned with false modesty; or that a long time later the old warrior, whose tales, however, won him a certain glory, decided to substitute one more tripwalk for the truth? Obviously, no one will hesitate: "Memoirs" lied again."
But then the question arises: does an author who is not a historian, that is, unfamiliar with the methods of historical research, have the right to draw conclusions? Of course, yes: we had and still have a free country, but these conclusions, even if they come from “common sense” or “logic”, will have nothing to do with science as history: based on “common sense,” he can express his thoughts both the janitor and the academician, and in this they will be absolutely equal. If they do not know the language of the source and historiography, both will have just idle speculation, but in reality, of course, they may coincide with the conclusions based on the study of sources. Also, winning a large amount of money in a casino does not make a person a prominent entrepreneur.
Thus, academician B. V. Rauschenbach (1915-2001), an outstanding mechanical physicist who stood at the origins of Soviet cosmonautics, decided to speak out about the baptism of Rus. Everyone can express an opinion on any issue, but when an entire academician says something, in the eyes of the average person it acquires special significance, and it does not matter that the academician was not familiar with either historiography, or sources, or methods of historical research.
KIND: auxiliary historical disciplines
Auxiliary historical disciplines - this is the name of a number of disciplines for the study of specific sources. For example, numismatics - coins, sphragistics - seals, faleristics - award signs.
There are, say, even studies devoted to weights and weights (Trutovsky V. K.).
Even the study of "what kind of plates there are not clear", or tareftik, objects made of metal with an image applied, is extremely important for history. For example, in the study of Sassanian Iran, the tareftika or the image of kings on plates plays an important role as a source, as well as the silver plates of Byzantium of the early period, which are one of the few direct sources for the armament of the Roman warriors of the 6th-7th centuries.
Within the framework of, for example, research on the history of weapons, iconography is of great importance, this is not the study of icons, but a study of any images, be it sculpture, tombstones or miniatures in the Bibles. Accordingly, it is necessary to be familiar with the literature (historiography) on iconography in order to understand the problems associated with it, so as not to draw incompetent conclusions. So, miniatures in the annals up to the Litsevoy vault of the 16th century. depicted warriors with swords, when the saber was the main weapon in the Russian troops for a long time, which is confirmed by the sabers of this period that have come down to us, archeology and other iconographic sources.
And, by the way, about icons. Despite the folding of certain canons in their depiction, we often, especially in early works, can find living elements of the life of the era. But the depiction of scenes from the Old Testament in the Roman Basilica of Santa Maggiore is invaluable material on the weapons and images on the shields of the 5th century, as in Montreal in Sicily - on the weapons of the Normans and Romans of the 12th century.
The professional researcher should know the basic working methods of the auxiliary disciplines, if he does not specialize in them.
Of course, if you work within the framework of the twentieth century, sphragistics is hardly useful to you, but, for example, bonistics or the study of banknotes will become an important clarifying factor for dating the events of the Civil War in Russia.
Important: any researcher in the twentieth century. must work primarily with the original sources: archival files. This is a huge work, since it will not be possible to limit oneself to a few folders, such an observation, of course, will not be accepted by the scientific community.
To work with mass documents, obviously, it is necessary to use the methods of mathematical analysis, another auxiliary discipline, and one cannot do without knowledge of records management during this period.
I repeat, real work for such a period as the twentieth century is extremely time-consuming: it requires working with a huge amount of data, working in archives, this is the work of a historian of this period, and not in retelling memoirs.
But what about other directions?
Historians also have other specializations; such sciences as art history, archeology, ethnography or ethnology stand apart.
Archeology acts independently for the preliterate periods and as an auxiliary one for the written periods of history.
As a science, archeology has developed rigorous methods of research and analysis of the subject under study. It is worth saying that these methods were formed in the twentieth century, since before that, the excavations were often carried out by outstanding pioneers, but still amateurs. So, G. Schliemann, who physically discovered a monument of an unknown culture, 1000 years earlier than Troy, described by Homer, along the way destroyed the cultural layers of Troy, which he was looking for in Hisarlik.
It is worth saying that Soviet, and behind it modern Russian, archeology is a generally recognized world flagship, and many archaeologists from all over the world are studying and being trained in Russia.
Archaeologists use, however, where appropriate, in a very limited field, modern technological methods of dating.
Another thing is that the cautious conclusions of archaeologists are not associated with methods of analysis, but with the ability to interpret them: archaeological cultures are not always tribes and even linguistic groups, if we are talking about preliterate periods or times that are poorly represented in written sources.
Instead of fortune-telling on coffee grounds, archaeologists honestly draw up lists of works and finds according to clear methodologies. And, believe me, the inconsistency of the methodology by critics and opponents will be revealed much faster than similar errors in the work of the investigation by the judge: the inconsistency of methods and order of work casts doubt on scientific conclusions, often completely. Therefore, I repeat, archaeologists are not investigators, they do not violate the procedure.
As for the use of the method of DNA analysis in archeology, let us repeat the words of the now deceased theorist of archeology L. S. Klein: DNA analysis will take its modest place among auxiliary disciplines, since with the advent of radiocarbon analysis, we did not have radiocarbon archeology.
Instead of totals
So, in this short article, we talked about the key methods of history as a science. They are consistent and methodically determined, without their use the work of the historian is impossible.
