Glossary of history

This glossary of history is a list of definitions of terms and concepts relevant to the study of history and its related fields and sub-disciplines, including both prehistory and the period of human history.

A
ab urbe condita (AUC):

absolute monarchy: A system of government headed by a monarch as the only source of power, controlling all functions of the state.

abstract: A summary of a textual source.

access rights: Information about who can access the resource or an indication of its security status.

accrual method: The method by which items are added to a collection.

accrual periodicity: The frequency with which items are added to a collection.

accrual policy: The policy governing the addition of items to a collection.

administrative history:

aeon:

age:

Age of Discovery:

Age of Enlightenment:

agent provocateur: A person who goes undercover in the ranks of the enemy during a social or political conflict with the intention of damaging or compromising the enemy from within by provoking actions that might not otherwise have taken place. Agents provocateurs have sometimes been employed by governments or businesses to provoke armed clashes between groups, to create disorder, or to incite controversies which might be used as an excuse for war or foreign intervention.

Alltagsgeschichte:

anachronism: A chronological inconsistency, in particular the introduction of an object, linguistic term, technology, idea, or anything else into a period in time to which it does not belong.

ancient history:

Annales School: A style of linked to the French scholarly journal Annales d'histoire économique et sociale and broadly associated with the of cultural practices.

annals: Historical accounts of facts and events arranged in chronological order, year by year.

Anno Domini (AD):

anthropology: The study of humanity, culturally and physically, in all times and places.

antiquarian:

A who studies or things of the past, often with particular attention to artifacts, archives, manuscripts, or archaeological sites from, as opposed to more recent history. In a broader sense, an antiquarian may also be a person who is simply a collector or aficionado of such artifacts and not necessarily a professional historian.

antiquarianism: Historical study focusing on the empirical evidence of the past, including manuscripts and archives, and archaeological and historic sites and. The term is now often used in a pejorative sense, to refer to an excessively narrow interest in historical trivia, to the exclusion of a sense of historical context or process.

antiquities: Objects or from, especially from the civilizations and cultures of the Mediterranean region and the ancient Near East.

antiquity: See ' and '.

archaeology: The study of and through the excavation of sites and the analysis of physical remains.

architectural history: The study of buildings in their historical and stylistic contexts.

archival bond: The relationship that each archival record has with other records produced as part of the same transaction or activity and located within the same group.

archival research:

archival science: The study and theory of building and curating.

archive: An accumulation of historical documents and records, or the physical repository in which they are located.

archontology: The study of historical offices and important positions in state, international, political, religious, and other organizations and societies, including chronologies, succession of officeholders, their, and related records.

arrested decay:

art history: The study of objects of art in their historical and stylistic contexts.

artifact:

Any material object associated with a, such as a tool, an article of clothing, or a prepared food item.

audience: A class of entity, often a specific, for whom a given resource is intended or useful.

authorized biography:

autobiography: An individual's account of his or her own life.

auxiliary sciences of history:

The set of specialist scholarly disciplines which help evaluate and use historical sources and are often used to support historical research. These disciplines may include but are not limited to,, , , , , and.

Avalonia: A separate plate in the Early Paleozoic consisting of much of what is now Northern Europe, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, and some coastal parts of New England.

B
Baltica: A separate continental plate of the Early Paleozoic composed of what is now the United Kingdom, Scandinavia, European Russia and Central Europe. It is named for the Baltic Sea.

barbarian: A Greek word adopted by the Romans to refer to any people who did not adopt the Roman way of life. It is said to have come originally from the sound "bar-bar", which, according to the Greeks, was supposed to be the noise that people made when speaking foreign languages.

Before Christ (BC):

Before the Common Era (BCE):

Bering Land Bridge:

The vast tundra plain that was exposed as a land bridge between the continents of Asia and North America during the Last Glacial Maximum, about 21,000 years ago. It is theorized to have served as a route for people, animals, and plants for several thousand years before being once again submerged beneath rising sea levels.

bibliography: A list of written works, including books, journals, and essays, about or detailing a particular subject.

Big History:

big lie:

biography: An account of an individual's life, especially one written by someone other than the individual featured in the account.

black legend:

Blitzkrieg: German for "lightning war". A military strategy used by the German Army at the beginning of World War II to achieve victory through a series of quick offensives, especially in Belgium, the Netherlands and France. The strategy involved a heavy initial bombardment, followed by the rapid mobilisation of armour and motorised infantry to break the weakest parts of the enemy line.

Bolsheviks: A small, tightly organised, revolutionary Marxist group in early 20th-century Russia which split from the Russian Socialist movement in 1903 and was led by Vladimir Lenin. In November 1917, during the so-called October Revolution, the Bolsheviks ("Majority") took control of a chaotic Russia, becoming the rulers after the subsequent civil war. They then renamed themselves the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU).

book review: A critical examination of a text, usually including a summary of the work and opposing views.

bottom-up approach: An approach to historical scholarship that attempts to explain the experiences or perspectives of ordinary people, as opposed to elites or leaders. Contrast.

bourgeoisie: The class that came to be known as the, between the and the. A new middle class of merchants and businessmen prospered throughout Europe from the 16th century, and especially in Britain, which Napoleon described as a "nation of shopkeepers". In modern times, the term bourgeois is often used derogatorily to describe anything considered humdrum, unimaginative and/or selfishly materialistic.

Bronze Age: In Britain, a period from about 2300 to 700 BCE when metal first began to be widely used, possibly as a result of the increase in contact with mainland Europe. However, various types of stone, particularly flint, remained very important long after metal became available. The Bronze Age saw the introduction of cremation of the dead and burials in round barrows. The later (and best-known) phases of construction at Stonehenge also date from this period.

Buranji: Written chronicles of Ahoms, a medieval kingdom of Assam, India.

C
Caesar: A Roman family name best known for being used by several rulers of Ancient Rome. Contrary to popular opinion, the name "Caesar" did not originally mean "emperor", although in modern times it has come to be defined as a synonym for autocrat. When the Roman leader Gaius Julius Caesar was assassinated in 44 BCE, his nephew and successor Augustus had himself formally adopted by the dead man and so also adopted the family name Caesar. Tiberius and Caligula inherited it by adoption as well. Later Roman emperors acquired the name upon their succession or when they were formally adopted as heirs.

calendar: A descriptive list of archival documents, sometimes compiled in sufficient detail that it can be used as a substitute for the originals.

Cathaysian Terranes: A set of small landmasses that developed in tropical to subtropical latitudes on the eastern side of during the Permian and Triassic, comprising what is now North China (Sino-Korea), South China (Yangtze), Eastern Qiangtang, Tarim, and Indochina.

century: A period of 100 years. Centuries are numbered ordinally (e.g. 15th, 16th, 17th) in English and many other languages.

charter: A legal grant of authority or rights.

chorography: The geographical description of regions, often with reference to their history and antiquities.

chronicle: A historical account of facts and events arranged in chronological order.

chronology: The study of the sequence of past events.

classical antiquity:

The period of cultural history between the 8th century and the 6th century in the geographical area centered on the Mediterranean Sea, particularly relating to the contemporaneous civilizations of ancient Greece and ancient Rome, known as the, which flourished and wielded enormous influence across much of Europe, North Africa, and Western Asia during this time. Though its boundaries are imprecise, the classical period is traditionally considered to have begun with the earliest writings of the Greek poet Homer and ended with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and the decline of classical culture during Late antiquity and the.

Cimmerian Terranes:

An archipelago of small landmasses that developed in tropical and subtropical latitudes on the eastern side of during the Triassic. Blocks that comprised it include what is now Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, Tibet, and Malaysia.

circa:

Approximately, about, around; near or in the vicinity of. A Latin term signifying approximation or uncertainty, usually by immediately preceding a date or a numerical measure. Circa is widely used in historical writing and when the dates of events are not accurately known. When used with date ranges, it or its abbreviation is applied before each approximate date, while dates without circa preceding them are generally assumed to be known with certainty.

citation: A reference to the published or unpublished source for an assertion or argument.

classical tradition:

classics:

The study of, in particular of Ancient Greek and Latin literature and their respective languages, and traditionally also art, philosophy, history,, and society.

cliodynamics:

cliometrics: The systematic application of economic theory, econometric techniques, and other formal or mathematical methods to the study of history; a quantitative.

codex:

A book constructed of a number of sheets of paper, vellum, papyrus, parchment, or similar materials, especially a book with handwritten contents and formatted so that individual pages are stacked and fixed to a spine along one edge.

codicology: The study of or books as physical objects, specifically the materials and techniques used to make books, including writing surfaces (such as parchment or vellum), pigments, inks, bindings, handwriting, marginalia, glosses, and so on.

coherence theory of truth: A theory that regards statements as true if they are coherent within some specified set of sentences, propositions, or beliefs.

Cold War:

colonialism: The practice or policy by which one people or sovereignty exerts social, political, and/or economic control over other people or geographic areas, typically by establishing a colony whose administration is distinct from that of the colonizers' home territory and generally with the aim of economic dominance. The foreign administrators rule the colony in pursuit of their own interests, often imposing their language, religion, and culture upon the colonized region while seeking to benefit from the exploitation of its people and resources. Colonialism is often associated with though is distinct from.

Common Era (CE):

comparative history: The comparison of different societies which existed during the same time period or shared similar cultural conditions.

computational history:

Congo Craton: A separate continental plate that rifted from the supercontinent in the Late Precambrian. It contained a large part of what is now north-central Africa.

conjectural history:

conjectural portrait:

context: In, a discrete physical location, distinguishable from other contexts, which forms one of the units making up an overall archaeological site. The context in which an is found provides important evidence for its interpretation.

correspondence theory of truth: A theory that regards statements as true if they correspond to the world that we know by perception.

counterfactual history: A form of that seeks to explore history by extrapolating a in which key events happened in ways other than the ways in which they did in fact occur.

Cretaceous Western Interior Seaway:

The epicontinental sea that formed as marine waters from the north spread over North America from around 130 to 70 million years ago (Ma). At its peak in the Middle Cretaceous (~90 Ma), it extended from present-day Utah to the Appalachians and from the Arctic to the Gulf of Mexico.

cryptohistory:

cultural history: The academic study of the origins and history of the and cultural practices (e.g. music, theater, literature, fine art) of a particular group of people.

culture:

D
Dark Ages:

date: A specific point or period of time.

deep history:

demographic history:

digital history:

diplomatics: The study and textual analysis of historical documents.

discipline: The study, or practice, of a specific subject using a specific set of methods, terms and approaches. History is a discipline, as is, chemistry, and biology.

dominant narrative:

dossier: A group of documents deliberately assembled to provide information about a specific topic. The term often connotes information that has been purposefully collected from various sources, as opposed to documents that exist in an organic collection originating from a single source or resulting from routine activities.

dynasty:

E
early modern period:

eclogue:

economic determinism: The socioeconomic theory that economic relationships have been the main or sole driving force in all of human history.

economic history: The study of economies or economic phenomena of the past.

Edwardian: The period of British history that spanned the reign of King Edward VII (1901–1910), or more generally the period between the turn of the 20th century and the outbreak of the First World War in August 1914. Of or related to this period; an adjective used to describe any person, object, event, idea, or concept characterizing or associated with the Edwardian era, either by having originated or flourished during the period or by retrospectively coming to represent it, especially in the United Kingdom but more broadly in any part of the British Empire.

effect of reality:

Elizabethan:

empire: A type of sovereign state made up of multiple territories and peoples subject to a single and supreme ruling authority, often an emperor or empress. Empires can be composed exclusively of contiguous territories, e.g. the Russian Empire, or may include territories which are remote from the empire's home territory or metropole, as with a empire. The concept of an empire is often associated with the concept of, though the latter also refers to a political policy or ideology that is not necessarily practiced by empires and can apply to many other forms of government.

end of history:

Enlightenment: A cultural and intellectual movement of the late 17th to late 18th centuries that emphasized reason and individualism rather than tradition, predominantly among Western European cultures but also in other parts of the world.

environmental history: An approach to history that examines how nature and natural processes (i.e. plants, animals, geology, etc.) have shaped human agency and affairs, and conversely how humans have shaped nature.

eon: See.

epigraphy: The study of ancient inscriptions.

episteme: The dominant mode of knowledge or understanding of a particular era, common to many or all forms of knowledge produced at the time.

epoch: An instant in time chosen (sometimes arbitrarily) as the origin or beginning of a particular, thereby serving as a reference point from which time is measured and by which historical events are temporally related.

era: Any span of time defined for the purposes of or. In chronology, an era is the highest level of organization for the measurement of time, as used in defining for a given  and  in the history of a monarchy. The term is also used in, where an era is a subdivision of an.

essentialize: To assume the existence of an inner "essence" or an essential character shared by all of the members of a group which in reality is diverse, variable, and fluid.

ethnohistory: A branch of history or an approach to historical scholarship which addresses the history of the native peoples of a particular place or region, in particular the indigenous peoples of the Americas. Ethnohistory is an interdisciplinary approach that often supplements written historical documents with methods from,, , and.

euhemerism:

Euramerica: A supercontinent that existed in the Late Silurian through Devonian, formed by the collision of,, and. It included what is now North America, Greenland, Scandinavia, and Europe. It is also sometimes referred to as the “Old Red Continent” for the red color of its oxidized deposits.

Eurocentrism: A worldview that is centered on Western civilization or Western culture, particularly that originating in or associated with Western Europe, to the exclusion of or in a way that is biased against non-Western cultures. The term may also apply to the whole continent of Europe or beyond to countries and cultures whose histories are strongly tied to Western Europe by immigration, colonization, or influence.

F
fakelore:

Inauthentic, manufactured that is presented as if it were genuinely traditional. Compare.

farm book:

feudalism: The legal and social order prevailing through much of medieval Europe, in which society was structured around a set of reciprocal legal and military obligations.

fin de siècle:

floruit (fl.): Denoting a date or period during which a particular person or group is known to have been alive or active.

folklore: The expressive body of shared by a particular group of people, encompassing the (e.g. tales, proverbs, and jokes) and the  as well as the customs, lore, folk beliefs, rituals, celebrations and ceremonies, holidays, and initiation rites practiced by that group, and in particular those cultural elements which are transmitted informally from one individual to another and from one generation to the next either through verbal instruction or demonstration.

fonds: In, an aggregation of documents which all originate from the same source.

foreign domination:

G
genealogy: The study of family relationships.

geological time:

golden age:

Gondwana: A supercontinent that existed from the Cambrian to Jurassic, mainly composed of what is now South America, Africa, Madagascar, India, Antarctica, and Australia.

great man theory:

Gregorian calendar:

H
hagiography: A of a saint or saints, or more broadly any biography in which the author is uncritical or reverential towards the subject.

hegemony: The political, economic, military, and/or cultural predominance of one state over other states, or more generally of any group or regime which exerts undue influence within a society.

heraldic badge:

heraldry: The design, display, and study of armorial bearings and devices, often practiced together with the study of ceremony, rank, and.

heritage tourism:

hermeneutics: The theory and methodology of the interpretation of texts.

histoinformatics:

histoire des mentalités:

histoire totale:

historian: A scholar who studies or writes about.

historian's fallacy:

historic preservation:

historic recurrence:

historical anthropology:

historical classification:

historical demography:

historical method: The collection of techniques and guidelines that use to research and write histories of the. The historical method involves the historian identifying and drawing upon,, and such as that derived from , evaluating the relative authority of these sources, and then combining their testimony appropriately in order to construct an accurate and reliable picture of past events and environments.

historical metrology:

historical negationism: Falsification or distortion of the, especially by the practice of denialism. The term is sometimes used interchangeably with but may also be considered technically distinct, in that the latter can be applied to newly evidenced, fairly reasoned reinterpretations of history. Historical negationism, by contrast, is always illegitimate in its attempts to revise the past because it is practiced without impartiality or because it uses techniques that are inadmissible in proper academic discourse, such as presenting known as if they were genuine, inventing implausible reasons for distrusting genuine historical documents, and manipulating statistical figures to support a particular point of view.

historical realism: The view that there is a continuity and correspondence between the real world and the narration of that world in historians' narratives.

historical record:

historical reenactment:

historical revisionism:

historical significance:

historical source:

historical thinking: The practice of critical thinking and literacy skills in evaluating and analyzing documents in order to construct a meaningful and reliable account of the past. See also.

historicism: A mode of historical enquiry that insists that the past must be understood on its own terms, as opposed to trying to understand it from the perspectives permitted by modern knowledge, values, and beliefs, known as.

historicity: The historical actuality or authenticity of persons or events in the past; the quality of being part of instead of being a,, or fiction. The historicity of a claim about the past is its factual status.

historiography: The study of the methods, sources, and theoretical approaches used by historians in developing as an academic. A body of historical work on a particular topic. The history of historical writing about a particular topic.

historism:

history: The study of the past as it is described in written documents; events occurring before written record are generally considered. The term is also commonly used to refer to any set of events which happened earlier in time, written or otherwise. History in academic study is considered the product of our attempts to understand the past, rather than the past itself. History relates to past events as well as the memory, discovery, collection, organization, presentation, and interpretation of information about these events.

history from below: See.

history of science:

homily:

human history: The complete narrative of humanity's past, generally as reckoned from the emergence of anatomically modern humans 300,000 years ago to the present day (though sometimes inclusive of much earlier periods in human evolution), and thereby encompassing both and. The scientific study of this narrative, as it is understood through,, genetics, , and since the advent of writing, from and written sources.

humanism: An intellectual movement of the associated with the re-discovery of ideas.

I
Iapetus Ocean: A relatively small ocean that existed between the continents of,, and from the Late Precambrian to the Devonian.

illuminated manuscript: A manuscript in which the text is supplemented by the addition of decoration.

imperialism:

impresa:

An emblem, badge, or para- device worn by nobility in the, usually accompanied by a motto in Latin and painted on shields or helmets in tournaments, embroidered on clothing or on equine caparisons, or embodied in, brooches, paintings, , or other works of art. These emblems were meant to be expressive of the character, aspirations, and achievements of a particular person, rather than an entire family or lineage, and were often designed anew for each individual occasion.

Industrial Age:

information history:

interdisciplinary: The study or practice of a subject which applies the methods and approaches of several. For instance, while history, literature and archaeology are separate disciplines, they may be combined in an interdisciplinary approach.

interpretation: The ensemble of procedures by which the historian–according to personal perspective, temperament, social conditioning, and conscious choice–imposes a pattern of meaning or significance on his subject; the process of selection, arrangement, accentuation, and synthesis of historical facts that establishes the personal stamp of an individual historian on an account of the past.

interregnum:

interwar period:

Iron Age:

J
Jacobean:

journal: A scholarly periodical, often focusing on a particular historical theme.

Julian calendar:

L
lacuna: A gap in a manuscript, inscription, or text.

landscape history:

The study of the ways in which humanity has changed the physical appearance and landscapes of the surrounding environment in the past, and how they continue to change in the present.

late modern period:

Laurasia: A supercontinent that existed from the Jurassic to Early Tertiary after splitting from. It was composed of,, and (what is now North America, Scandinavia, Greenland, and Western and Central Europe), and eventually fragmented into Eurasia and North America in the Tertiary with the opening of the North Atlantic Ocean.

Laurentia: A separate continental plate that existed from the Late Precambrian to Silurian, consisting of the major part of what is now North America, northwest Ireland, Scotland, Greenland, and pieces of Norway and Russia.

legend:

local history: The study of the history of a small geographical area, of a local community, or of the local incidence of broader national or international trends. If undertaken with a view to casting light on larger historical questions, local history may be regarded as a branch of.

longue durée: An approach to the study of history popularized by the French which gives priority to long-term historical processes and phenomena, concentrating on all-but-permanent or slowly evolving structures from which broad patterns and trends can be interpreted, in contrast to the more traditional focus on the lives of specific individuals and specific events that occurred at specific points in time.

lore: See.

M
macrohistory: The study of large, long-term trends in, undertaken in order to uncover ultimate patterns that cut across the more specific details of diverse historical cultures.

manuscript: Any document written by hand, as opposed to one that is printed or reproduced in some other way.

microhistory: The intensive historical investigation of a small and narrow unit of research (an event, a community or an individual), generally undertaken with a view to casting light on broader historical questions. may be considered a branch of microhistory.

Middle Ages:

The period in the history of Europe and the Near East lasting from approximately the 5th century to the 15th century, usually considered to have begun with the collapse of the Western Roman Empire AD 476 and to have ended with the transition to the and the  in the late 1400s. The Middle Ages can be seen as part of the broader period of world history, and as the middle of the  of  history, preceded by  and followed by the. The medieval period itself is often subdivided into the Early, High, and Late Middle Ages.

migration: The movement of human beings from one place to another with the intention of settling, permanently or temporarily, at a new location. Human migrations have been defining components of the history of every settled place and a major driver of economic, cultural, and linguistic exchange between populations, so historians often emphasize the importance of studying their causes, paths, and effects.

military history: The study of the history of armed conflict and its impact on society. It may range from the study of specific military actions and engagements to the much broader examination of as a political tool.

modern history:

modernity: The state of being modern, by any of various definitions of the term. The historical period defined by, with various starting and ending points but sometimes inclusive of the present day (i.e. ), especially when used generically to contrast the recent or current state of human civilization with previous eras. The ensemble of sociocultural norms, attitudes, practices, ideas, and beliefs associated with this period, often with an emphasis on those originating in the, the, the , and/or the.

monograph: A piece of writing, especially a book or an essay, that is the product of detailed, specialized research, often by a single author, on a particular subject or an aspect of a subject, e.g. a specific historical phenomenon, person, place, or event.

myth:

mythology: The collected body of myths shared by a culture or a group of people, or the academic study of such myths.

N
narrative history:

national memory:

nationalism:

nationalization of history:

natural history: A domain of inquiry involving organisms including animals, fungi, and plants in their natural environments which leans more towards observational than experimental methods of study.

notaphily: The study and collection of paper currency and banknotes.

numismatics: The study and collection of all forms of currency, including coins, tokens, paper money, medals, and other means of payment used to resolve debts and exchange goods.

O
official history: A work of history which is sponsored, authorized, or endorsed by its subject, such as an ; or a narrative which is the accepted or conventional interpretation of historical events as formally proclaimed or endorsed by a government or institution, particularly as it is distinguished from alternative narratives or interpretations.

one-place study:

onomastics:

The study of the etymology, history, and use of proper names.

oral history:

original order: A concept in archival theory which proposes that a group of records should be maintained in the same order as they were placed by their creator.

origo gentis:

P
paleography:

The study of historic writing systems, especially very old or ancient ones, and the deciphering, dating, and authentication of historical manuscripts, with a focus on the forms, processes, and methods of writing, in particular the analysis of handwriting, rather than the textual contents of documents.

Paleo-Tethys Ocean: A large ocean that originated between eastern,, Kazakhstan, and in the Ordovician and finally closed in the Jurassic. It was replaced by the Tethys Ocean as eastern was assembled.

palimpsest:

Pangaea:

A supercontinent that existed from the end of the Permian to the Jurassic, assembled from large continents like,, and , as well as smaller landmasses like the and. The name Pangaea is Greek for “all lands”.

Pannotia: A supercontinent that existed in the Late Precambrian and gave rise to the continents of,, , and in the Cambrian.

Panthalassic Ocean:

A vast ocean that existed from the Late Precambrian to the Jurassic, circling the globe and connecting to smaller oceans that developed throughout the Phanerozoic.

past: The entire set or any subset of events which happened previously in time.

people's history:

A type of historical narrative which attempts to account for historical events from the perspective of ordinary people rather than leaders or authority figures, using a that rejects elite perspectives, instead emphasizing those of the poor, the disenfranchised, the oppressed, nonconformists, social or cultural minorities, and any group that otherwise exists on the margins of society. History for and about the majority of the population, especially that which is highly accessible and relevant to the people as a whole, as opposed to history that is intended for or only accessible to well-educated audiences or serious scholars.

periodization: The process or study of categorizing the into discrete, quantified, and named periods or blocks of time, e.g. the Bronze Age, the Middle Ages, the Victorian Era, etc. This is often done to facilitate the analysis of and the causality that might have linked specific events, resulting in descriptive abstractions that provide convenient labels for periods of time with relatively unique or stable characteristics, though these labels often overlap because the beginnings and ends of the time periods are imprecisely defined. In reality, history is continuous and not generalized, and therefore all systems of periodization are more or less arbitrary.

phaleristics: The study of military orders, decorations, and medals.

philately: The study of postage stamps.

philology: The study of language in oral and written historical sources, in particular literary texts, involving the establishment of their authenticity and original form and the determination of their meaning. The discipline lies at the intersection of textual criticism, literary criticism, history, and.

political history: The study of past events, ideas, movements, and leaders in politics.

popular history:

post-classical history:

precolonial history:

prehistory:

The period of between the use of the first stone tools by hominin apes ( 3.3 million years ago) and the invention of the earliest forms of writing (c. 5,000 years ago), the latter of which marks the beginning of conventional. The distinction between prehistory and history – i.e. between those events that occurred before the advent of writing and those that occurred after – is important because the scientific study of prehistoric events relies on very different methods from those used to study historic events. In the absence of written records, prehistory can only be understood through the interpretation of physical,, and preserved contexts, combined with inferences based on research from other disciplines of the natural sciences, in particular , evolutionary biology, and geology. The prehistoric period also does not have a universally consistent end date, because human populations invented or adopted writing at different times in different places. See also.

presentism: The application of present-day ideas and perspectives to depictions or interpretations of the past.

primary source: Material from or directly related to the past. The term usually refers to written records and documents created during the period that is being studied, such as diaries, letters, legal documents, accounts, photographs, and news reports, but may also in the broadest sense include cultural. Contrast.

prosopography: The study of collective ; the examination of a historical group of individuals, e.g. those in a common occupation, institution, or place, through a collective study of their lives.

protohistory: A period between and during which a particular civilization or  has not yet developed writing but during which other  cultures have already noted in their own writings the existence of the pre-literate culture. For example, the cultures of ancient Celtic and Germanic tribes are considered protohistoric when they began appearing in contemporary Greek and Roman sources. The transition period between the advent of literacy in a society and the earliest surviving writings of the first historians to emerge from that society.

provenance: The of the ownership, custody, or location of a historical object, document, or group of records.

pseudohistory: A type of pseudoscholarship that attempts to distort or misrepresent the, often using methods resembling those in legitimate historical research and frequently in service to a particular political, religious, or personal agenda. Works of pseudohistory share some features with other types of pseudoscience, such as treating myths, legends, and other unreliable sources as literal historical truth; emphasizing historical sources that appear to support the pseudohistorical thesis while ignoring or dismissing those that contradict it; and conflating possibility with actuality, assuming that if something could have happened, then it did.

psychohistory:

public history: A range of activities undertaken by people with some training in the discipline of history, but who are generally working outside of specialized academic settings.

Q
quantitative history: An approach to historical research that makes use of quantitative,, and computer-based tools.

R
radical history: practiced as a form of social protest; i.e. history written in conscious opposition to perceived social injustice and dedicated to the furtherance of progressive political and social change. Practitioners of radical history believe that historians are morally obligated to relate their research to the struggle for positive change and to use the study of the past for the betterment of the present and the future. From their standpoint, knowledge of the past is not valuable for its own sake but only insofar as it may be used to serve some social purpose.

radiocarbon dating:

recorded history:

reenactment: See.

reference work: A text, usually in the form of a dictionary or encyclopedia, which contains facts and information but typically not discussions.

regnal year: A year of the reign of a particular sovereign or, with the date considered as an ordinal rather than a cardinal number, e.g. "the third year in the reign of King Henry VIII". Regnal dating systems were widely used in historical times to date specific events and official records, including documents of parliamentary sessions in the United Kingdom until 1963, when the was instead adopted as the formal dating convention.

Renaissance:

respect des fonds: An archival principle which proposes that collections of archival records should be ordered and preserved according to the administration, organization, individual, or entity by which they were created or from which they were received.

retronym:

retrospective:

revisionist history: Any approach to history in which a previously held interpretation of history or of an historical event is revised. In the most general usage, every original historian may be said to be a revisionist historian, because the simple act of generating a new understanding of the past necessarily challenges or re-interprets the body of historical knowledge about a subject, though the term may also refer more specifically to re-interpretations of the mainstream or "orthodox" views on a particular time period or event, a practice known as, or, with the much more negative connotation of distorting the historical record in service of a political agenda, to.

revolution:

Rodinia: A supercontinent that existed during the Late Precambrian before the supercontinent, and the oldest supercontinent for which scientists have a good record. The name Rodinia is Russian for "homeland".

Romanticism: A cultural and intellectual movement of the late 18th to mid-19th centuries that emphasized emotion and sentiment rather than reason, predominantly among Western European cultures but also in other parts of the world.

S
saeculum: A length of time approximately equal to the potential lifetime of a human being or, equivalently, to the time it takes to completely regenerate a human population with new individuals – that is, the duration between the moment at which an event occurs (such as the founding of a city) and the point in time at which every individual who was alive at the first moment has died.

Scientific Revolution:

seal: A device for making an impression, usually in wax, or the impression so formed, historically used to authenticate documents.

second modernity:

secondary source: Material created by somebody removed from the event being studied; i.e. someone who was contemporaneous with the event but not physically present to witness it, or who was working from a period of time after the event occurred. All historical textbooks, for example, are secondary sources. Contrast.

sensory history:

Siberia:

A separate continental plate that existed from the Latest Precambrian to the Carboniferous, composed of a large part of what is now central Russia, namely the modern region of Siberia.

sigillography: The study of.

social history: A branch of history that studies the experiences of ordinary people in the past.

Space Age:

statistics: The study of the collection, organization, and interpretation of (historical) data.

Stone Age: The first of the into which is traditionally divided, during which stone was widely used by early hominins to make tools with an edge, a point, or a percussion surface. It preceded the and the  but spanned a period of time far longer than either of them, usually considered to have begun as early as 3.4 million years ago and to have ended with the advent of metalworking and particularly copper smelting, which were adopted at different times in different parts of the world but generally between 4000 BCE and 2000 BCE, after which bronze became widespread and supplanted stone in many uses.

stratigraphy: In, a key concept in interpreting a site through establishing the relative of its separate physical.

subaltern: In postcolonial studies and, the colonial populations that are socially, politically, and/or geographically excluded from the hierarchy of power of an imperial colony and from the metropolitan homeland of the colonial empire, often deliberately in order to deny their agency and voices in colonial politics.

subaltern studies:

T
teleology: A mode of historical interpretation that holds that events move towards a definite end state or goal.

terminus ante quem (TAQ): The latest time at which a specific, punctual event could possibly have occurred, as indicated by placing the event to any other events whose dates are known with certainty. The concept establishes a limit after which an event could not have occurred based on logical expectations about the progression of a, e.g. the decree of a law that is known to have been decreed by a specific monarch could not have occurred after the monarch's death.

terminus post quem (TPQ): The earliest time at which a specific, punctual event could possibly have occurred, as indicated by placing the event to any other events whose dates are known with certainty. The concept establishes a limit before which an event could not have occurred based on logical expectations about the progression of a, e.g. a battle in a which a specific person is known to have been killed could not have occurred before the person's date of birth (or any other securely dated event in the person's life).

Tethys Ocean: A small ocean that existed from the Triassic to the Jurassic. As was split into and  in the Jurassic, an arm developed westward called the Tethys Seaway or Tethys Sea.

three-age system: The of into three time periods. The most common example is the division of into the,, and , though the concept may also refer to other tripartite divisions of historic time periods.

time: The indefinite continued progress of existence and events that occur in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, and into the future.

timeline: Any display of a list of events in chronological order, typically of a graphical design showing a long bar labeled with dates parallel to it and often contemporaneous events that occurred at those dates.

timeliness: The quality of punctuality and proximity to a historical event, as a means of assessing the reliability of a source. Timeliness is an important consideration in determining the reliability of historical records because records produced with an event are generally considered more accurate than records produced at a later time.

top-down approach: An approach to historical scholarship that emphasizes the experiences and perspectives of elites and leaders, as opposed to average people. Contrast.

toponymy: The study of placenames.

transhistoricity: The quality of a concept or entity that persists throughout and is not governed or defined by the frame of reference of a particular time and place.

translatio imperii:

translatio studii:

transnational history:

typology: In, the classification of, buildings and field monuments according to their physical characteristics; an important tool for managing large quantities of archaeological data.

U
universal history: A work that aims to present a complete history of all mankind as a whole, coherent unit, including all times, nations, peoples, and events in recorded history, insofar as a scientific treatment of them is possible.

unwitting testimony: The unintentional evidence provided by historical sources.

urban history:

V
Victorian:

W
warfare:

Whig history: A mode of historical interpretation which presents the past as an inevitable progression towards ever greater liberty and enlightenment; or, more broadly, any or goal-directed narrative that assumes the inevitability of progress.

women's history: The study of the role that women have played in history, with particular emphasis on the growth of women's rights, individual women and groups of women of historical significance, and the effects that historical events have had on women. Inherent in the discipline is the belief that more traditional approaches to history have minimized or ignored the contributions of women and the impacts of political, social, and technological change on women's lives; in this respect, women's history is often practiced as a form of, seeking to challenge the orthodox historical consensus and make it more inclusive.

world history:

written history:

Y
yuga: