Timeline and Sources of History | Social Science Grade 6 CBSE

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The historian's toolkit in six terms

History has its own way of working. Tap each term to see what it means and how the ideas — sources, the three kinds of evidence, timelines and BCE/CE dating — fit together into the way we learn the past.

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The three big ideas

A historical source is any clue about the past. Sources come in three families.
Archaeological sources are material remains — tools, pottery, coins, ornaments, seals, bones and the ruins of buildings. Archaeologists dig them up carefully in an excavation.
Literary (written) sources are anything written down — manuscripts, letters, religious texts and inscriptions carved on stone, metal or copper plates. In India these were often written on palm leaves and birch bark.
Oral sources are spoken — folk tales, songs and traditions passed down by word of mouth. They can preserve memories far older than the earliest writing.
Two helpful sciences: numismatics is the study of coins, and epigraphy is the study of inscriptions.

Common mistake: thinking only big monuments are sources. A humble broken pot or a single old coin can be just as valuable for telling us how ordinary people once lived.

A timeline is a line that shows events in the order they happened, so we can see what came first and how far apart events were.
BCE and CE. We count years from a fixed point. CE (Common Era) years count forward; BCE (Before Common Era) years count backward. The older terms were AD and BC.
For BCE years, a bigger number means longer ago: 600 BCE is older than 200 BCE. CE years work the normal way: 200 CE is older than 600 CE.
Handy units of time: a decade is 10 years, a century is 100 years, and a millennium is 1,000 years.

Worked example. Two events are dated 300 BCE and 200 CE. Which came first, and how far apart were they?

300 BCE is before the Common Era, so it came first. From 300 BCE up to the start of the Common Era is 300 years; then 200 more years to 200 CE. Total: about 500 years apart.

Common mistake: thinking 600 BCE is more recent than 200 BCE because 600 is a bigger number. With BCE, bigger means older, not newer.

Sources can be incomplete. Much has been lost or destroyed over time, so historians often work with only a few surviving pieces of a much bigger picture.
Sources can be one-sided. A king’s inscription may praise only his victories; it will rarely record his defeats. We must ask who made a source and why.
So historians cross-check. They compare many sources — objects, writings and oral accounts — and trust a conclusion more when different sources agree.
History and prehistory. The very long time before writing was invented is called prehistory; for it we depend almost entirely on archaeological sources.

Common mistake: believing a single old document must be completely true. Even genuine sources can exaggerate or leave things out — which is why evidence is weighed, not just accepted.

Where you'll meet it

History detectives at work

Coins that name forgotten kings

When archaeologists find a hoard of old coins, the names and images stamped on them can reveal rulers whose stories were otherwise lost. The metal used and where the coins turn up even hint at how far trade once reached.

Inscriptions on temple walls

Carved inscriptions record gifts, grants and events with dates. Epigraphists read them to pin down exactly when something happened — turning a guess into a confident place on the timeline.

Grandmother's stories

Folk songs and family tales handed down by word of mouth are oral sources too. They can keep alive memories of festivals, floods and migrations from long before anyone thought to write them down.

Check yourself

Competency quiz

Modelled on the competency-based pattern — MCQ, assertion–reason and a case study, testing whether you can use the ideas, not just recall them.

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