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History, Civics & Social Studies · Grade 6

Historical Inquiry and Archaeological Evidence

Learners find out how we know anything about the distant past. They sort primary and secondary sources, read the layers of a dig to put finds in order, use radiocarbon half-lives to estimate ages, separate what an artifact shows from what we infer about it, and finish by writing a claim backed by evidence and an honest statement of its limits.

  • 4 lessons
  • About 85 minutes
  • Historical inquiry check: 9 questions
  • Ways to answer: fill in the blanks, choose an answer, type a fraction, highlight a text, match pairs and type a number
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What learners will discover

  • Classify sources as primary or secondary and as artifacts, written records or oral traditions, and explain what each kind can and cannot tell us.
  • Use the law of superposition and radiocarbon half-lives to put finds in order and estimate their age, and read BCE/CE dates on a timeline.
  • Separate observations about an artifact from inferences, and explain why an object's context (where and with what it was found) matters.
  • Ask a historical question and answer it with a claim, evidence and reasoning, including what the evidence cannot show.

Lessons

  1. What counts as evidence? 7 steps4 practiceabout 20 min
  2. Reading layers and measuring time 8 steps5 practiceabout 25 min
  3. Observation, inference and context 6 steps3 practiceabout 20 min
  4. From question to claim 5 steps3 practiceabout 20 min
  5. Historical inquiry check 9 questions at the end

Keep exploring

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Guide for grown-ups