Without our past, we have no future - a great number of great thinkers, commanders and statesmen of the whole world spoke about this. The most striking example of a follower of this position can be called Theodore Roosevelt, who insisted on the need to study history as one of the most important sciences.
Even the ancient Greeks singled out the doctrine of the past as one of the most important in the life of the state, each person and humanity as a whole.
Immortalized in legends
How did people learn about the past? The question would seem banal at first glance. However, if you think about it, the answer to it is quite complicated. First of all, of course, the memory of generations comes to mind. Ever since a person distinguished himself from the world around him, got rid of syncretic thinking, the countdown of the oral, symbolic transfer of information and experience to descendants began.
In order to find out how people learned about the past, you do not need to study special literature and watch a huge number of documentaries. It is enough to pay attention to modern society from the angle of generational interaction.
In almost all countries of the world, the practice of transmitting information from the older generation to the younger through oral stories, fairy tales and other folklore forms is widespread. Approximately the same situation took place in antiquity - through rituals, customs, and preserved traditions, information about the way of life, world order, life was transmitted to descendants and thus survived to the present day.
Different eras
The way people learned about the past before is significantly different from the methods available to humanity at the moment. The most important role in this regard is not at all the level of technology development, and not the knowledge base available at the moment, but the attitude itself.
For some time now, the real world was less distinguishable from the spirit world, which could be addressed through a ritual or simple prayer. Largely thanks to such practices, the fate of mankind, which existed to the present moment, was determined.
Often, certain plants or totem animals were used as a kind of connected middle link, with the help of which shamans, witches, or, for example, priests, addressed their predecessors in the neighboring space, the world of the dead. This is how people learned about the past before the era of interest in immediate history. In some cultures, such traditions are still observed, however, with the development of civilization, they are becoming less and less.
What was what will be
In fact, how do people learn about the past in the modern world? Of course, in addition to the memory of generations already mentioned, there are a number of other sources that humanity is actively addressing in this matter. First of all, these are the written monuments that have survived to this day, and literature in general.
Despite the obvious tendency to artistry, any work is somehow a mirror of its era, not to mention the so-called specialized lists like annals or prayers.
Talking about how people learn about the past, one cannot, of course, not name such a phenomenon in the history of mankind as the Bible, the Koran and other works of this kind. On the one hand, there can be no talk of their gravitation toward science, and on the other hand, for a huge percentage of the world's population, the information presented in the scriptures is an undeniable truth.
Memory of things
Over time, the development of thought, the expansion of consciousness, a person simply could not help but wonder: "How do you know the history of the past?" Gradually, starting small, he came to the need to study the currently available artifacts, household items, clothing, and other things that still have the spirit of the times.
The reserves of what was freely available (and we will not forget about family treasures, passing from generation to generation due to the monarchical structure) have run out, humanity has been forced to expand the boundaries of its search. Thus began the first exploration of the caves, in which later drawings of the Paleolithic era were discovered, and then the interest in the past became so great that archaeologists turned to full-fledged excavations.
What became the subject of research
By and large, any detail relating to a particular era can tell about the life and life of ancestors. So to answer the question of how people learn about the past, the scheme of actions is quite simple - paying attention to details. Anything can be a subject of scientific interest, from a fragment of a hair clip to fossils that were accidentally found in the deep layers of the earth's crust when drilling a well.
Depending on the specifics of the subject, a variety of things can be defined. For example, the study of Scythian mounds allows you to accurately determine the features of the organization of their society, the relationship between its higher and lower representatives. The study of Scythian gold or fragments of utensils belonging to the era of Trypillian culture gives an understanding of the world picture, beliefs and philosophical beliefs, if it can be called that way.
Man inside humanity
Of course, the greatest interest is for historians in general and archaeologists in particular, the dynamics of the development of mankind as a whole, however, there are frequent cases of interest in a particular person. Examples include writers, actors, leaders or rulers.
How to find out the person’s past in this case? First of all, it is necessary to study all the documentary information about him and the things that belonged to him. This will make it possible to draw up an initial, general characteristic of the personality, and form the so-called skeleton of it. In addition, one should turn to the recollections of eyewitnesses, people with whom the figure studied was in correspondence or close communication. Many of these people also kept personal diaries. For example, most of the aesthetic and ethical considerations of Leo Tolstoy in one way or another are connected precisely with his diary, which he hid during his life even from his own wife.
Life before and after
Finally, it should be noted the great interest in the past in the spiritual sense, observed in modern society. A huge number of religions, cultures and subcultures have at their disposal an idea of reincarnation, which they turn to in this matter.
Almost every fortuneteller today knows how to find out a person’s past lives. To do this, use cards, magic balls, crystals, amulets, and even immersing a person in a trance. Of course, in this case there is no need to talk about any degree of scientificness, but the very concept of passing a path into several lives seems interesting and attracting more than one million people.