Question

Historians who insist on a rigid separation between "prehistory" and "history" may be forgetting that: _____________.

a. The scientific instruments used by anthropologists have a high failure rate in the field.
b. Archaeologists developed the parameters of field surveys long before "history" existed as a literary form.
c. Written records can be highly unreliable documents, subject to manipulation before, during, and after their original production.
d. Written records have survived from 2 million years ago, but the languages in which they were composed are, at least today, untranslatable.

Answer 1

Historians may overlook that written records can be unreliable, and although history begins with writing, archaeological evidence is also crucial for understanding the past.

Step-by-step explanation:

Historians who insist on a rigid separation between "prehistory" and "history" may be forgetting that written records can be highly unreliable documents, subject to manipulation before, during, and after their original production. While history technically begins with the advent of writing, it is also important to consider that the study of civilizationand archaeological evidence play significant roles in understanding the past, especially when few written records are available from ancient times. Therefore, to construct the narratives of the past, historians must examine both written and non-written artifacts with a critical approach, acknowledging that the separation between prehistory and history is not always clear-cut.