How Well Do We Understand the Past?

History is written by the winners.

That is a statement no one can refute, but it isn’t always the winners who adjust written records. Sometimes it is just whoever is in charge of the books.

Take your basic fairy tale like “The Three Little Pigs”. Many years ago, they cooked the wolf in a cauldron of boiling water and ate him!

Today, the pigs would probably give the wolf a stern talking to after which and they’d all have dinner together as besties.

The point being it isn’t just the winners who write history as we know it today, but the whims of society and the steering of the publishers to sell them books.

Once you think all of this through, you realize that there isn’t any certainty in what we’ve learned. Either you read books that have been rewritten many times over the centuries or you trust archaeological studies.

These studies are often based on opinions or theories because without a time machine those are the best we can do. We have tools like carbon dating and there is a great deal of scientific know-how used to come up with these theories, but at the end of the day, much of what we learn is based on nothing more.

Take this article, for example, “Neandertal-like tools found in China present a mystery”.

We’ve uncovered something that shouldn’t be where it is based on previous theories. Yet, those theories are what we use for learning and teaching. I’m not against this method of education but we need to do a better job at caveating what we teach.

The truth is, the past is as unknown as space or the future. The only real way to learn the past would be to visit it. Once we can do that, we’ll finally know the truth. I have my own theory that the actual truth will shock everyone.

Do you believe history is accurate or do you feel there is room for error? Please comment below.