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History

History encompasses various branches that can focus on specific time periods, geographic regions, or themes, often requiring historians to narrow their scope or rely on secondary sources. Chronological divisions help organize history into manageable segments, with traditional classifications including prehistory, ancient history, and modern history, which may vary by region. The study of prehistory and ancient civilizations reveals the evolution of human societies, technological advancements, and the development of writing systems, leading to complex social structures and cultural achievements.

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4 views1 page

History

History encompasses various branches that can focus on specific time periods, geographic regions, or themes, often requiring historians to narrow their scope or rely on secondary sources. Chronological divisions help organize history into manageable segments, with traditional classifications including prehistory, ancient history, and modern history, which may vary by region. The study of prehistory and ancient civilizations reveals the evolution of human societies, technological advancements, and the development of writing systems, leading to complex social structures and cultural achievements.

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texagig507
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We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Areas of study

History is a wide field of inquiry encompassing many branches. Some branches focus
on a specific time period, while others concentrate on a particular geographic
region or a distinct theme. Specializations of different types can usually be
combined; for example, a work on economic history in ancient Egypt merges temporal,
regional, and thematic perspectives. For topics with a broad scope, the amount of
primary sources is often too extensive for an individual historian to review,
forcing them to either narrow the scope of their topic or also rely on secondary
sources to arrive at a wide overview.[61]

By period
Chronological division is a common approach to organizing the vast expanse of
history into more manageable segments. Different periods are often defined based on
dominant themes that characterize a specific time frame and significant events that
initiated these developments or brought them to an end. Depending on the selected
context and level of detail, a period may be as short as a decade or longer than
several centuries.[62] A traditionally influential approach divides human history
into prehistory, ancient history, post-classical history, early modern history, and
modern history.[63][m] Depending on the region and theme, the time frames covered
by these periods can vary and historians may use entirely different periodizations.
[65] For example, traditional periodizations of Chinese history follow the main
dynasties,[66] and the division into pre-Columbian, colonial, and post-colonial
periods plays a central role in the history of the Americas.[67]

Photo of the skeleton of a female hominin in a standing position, displayed in a


museum
Historians draw on evidence from various fields to examine prehistory, including
fossils like Lucy.[68]
The study of prehistory includes the examination of the evolution of human-like
species several million years ago, leading to the emergence of anatomically modern
humans about 200,000 years ago.[69] Subsequently, humans migrated out of Africa to
populate most of the earth. Towards the end of prehistory, technological advances
in the form of new and improved tools led many groups to give up their established
nomadic lifestyle, based on hunting and gathering, in favour of a sedentary
lifestyle supported by early forms of agriculture.[70] The absence of written
documents from this period presents researchers with unique challenges. It results
in an interdisciplinary approach relying on other forms of evidence from fields
such as archaeology, anthropology, palaeontology, and geology.[71]

Historians studying the ancient period examine the emergence of the first major
civilizations in regions such as Mesopotamia, Egypt, the Indus Valley, China, and
Peru, beginning approximately 3500 BCE in some regions. The new social, economic,
and political complexities necessitated the development of writing systems. Thanks
to advancements in agriculture, surplus food allowed these civilizations to support
larger populations, leading to urbanization, the establishment of trade networks,
and the emergence of regional empires. In the later part of the ancient period,
sometimes termed the classical period, societies in China, India, Persia, and the
Mediterranean expanded further, reaching new cultural, scientific, and political
heights. Meanwhile, influential religious systems and philosophical ideas were
first formulated, such as Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Judaism, and Greek
philosophy.[72

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