>>12608197>history is not a science? can you elaborate on that?disregard the answer by that other anon
history is not a science because reliance on primary sources carries with it bias that can't be rigorously disposed of
this is especially prevalent in ancient-to-medieval (note how that's a massive fucking period) history, where the majority of our sources are works by political figures (inherently biased to present events in a favorable way, often used for polemics rather than archival) and scholars (whose allegiances are rarely independent either, and whose competence isn't unquestionable either)
then there's the anachronistic nature of many of these sources to consider, too - a lot of the ancient history and early-mediaval historic accounts were written centuries after the fact, yet remain the only sources available, creating a situation where we are interpreting an interpretation of (again, often) unreliable oral retellings
the closer we get to the current times, however, the more politically-charged does historiography become, and so the more likely it is to have been manipulated by interested groups, some of which may even persist today still - introducing more bias
if you extrapolate it backwards in time, you'll understand that history was likely always manipulated, told with bias, written with more/different bias, re-written a few centuries later with more of the same for some political/ideological purpose rather than scholarly study... you get the idea
it's just not possible to produce definitive results due to all of this combined with the inability to make experiments and reproduce findings
archeological evidence mitigates the problem somewhat, but still falls into the pitfalls of human behavior - finding a stash of swords with hilts that were contemporarily made by vikings does not indicate presence of vikings in an area - it might also be result of trade with them, or second or third-hand reselling/robbery of traders/burial sites
such is life
