6th Grade · Week 1 of 36 · History
How we know the deep past: archaeology, writing, and what we cannot know
1. Hook
- Read (or listen to) what you’re learning. Don’t jump to the quiz.
- Walk the worked example. Then use the interactive lab on this page.
- Guided set → independent set → mastery check → teach-back.
- If you write a paper, stay on campus: Citation Helper, Source Library, Paper Studio.
This is self-paced homeschool on Life Academy. Everything you need is on this page.
Nobody wrote down the first farms or the first cities' beginnings. So how do we know anything about people who lived 10,000 years ago?
Then: lab → guided → quiz → teach it back. The lab is the lesson, not a decoration.
2. Teach
Explain how historians and archaeologists learn about the deep past from artifacts, writing, and science, and recognize the limits of evidence (C3 D2.His.9.6-8, D2.His.10.6-8; CCSS RH.6-8.1).
Standards alignment: C3 Framework D2.His (6-8) · D3 Evaluating Sources (domain-level; works with any state’s standards)
Radiocarbon dating measures carbon-14, which loses half its amount about every 5,730 years. Labs use that half-life to date wood, bone, and seeds up to roughly 50,000 years old.
- Archaeology studies material remains: tools, pottery, bones, seeds, buildings. Dating methods include stratigraphy (deeper layers are usually older) and radiocarbon dating of once-living material (useful up to about 50,000 years).
- Writing appeared around 3200 B.C.E. In Mesopotamia and soon after in Egypt. Everything before writing is called prehistory.
- Evidence has gaps: organic materials decay, many people never wrote, and records reflect the views of those who kept them (often rulers or priests).
Example: charred grains at an ancient site show what people farmed. Radiocarbon dating gives an approximate date with a margin of error.
Historians say "we do not know" when evidence is missing; that honesty is part of good history.
- Find: pottery in a lower layer and coins in a higher layer.
- Rule: lower layers are usually older.
- Inference: the pottery likely predates the coins.
- Limit: layers can be disturbed, so confirm with other dating.
Sort a list of 8 clues (seed, clay tablet, bone tool, wall painting, coin, royal inscription, trash pit, footprint) into "artifact" or "written source," and write what each can and cannot tell us.
Assuming that if no record exists, nothing happened, or that written records are always unbiased.
Detectives, scientists, and journalists also reason from evidence and admit what they don't know.
No classroom teacher today — this page is the lesson. Follow the how-to, then the lab, then the quiz. Follow Lesson Studio, then the lab, then the quiz.
Quick check · from this week’s lesson
Tap the answer that fits. Every item comes from this week’s lesson.
Your work — type it here
Name who, when, and where. Then one cause.
3. Guided practice
Try these with me — type the missing word, then check.
Reveal the thinking
Evidence → inference → limits.
4. Independent practice
Work the set. Check when finished — this is practice (mastery quiz is next).
5. Mastery check
Scored quiz — results save to your gradebook.
Primary sources — then a citation
Read the document. Place it in time and on a map. Name the source next to the fact. Today: How we know the deep past: archaeology, writing, and what we cannot know.
Classroom · Gradebook · Transcripts
Stay on this page. The studio, the lab, pictures, and Your work are the lesson.
6. Reflection / teach-back
Teach-back: Explain How we know the deep past: archaeology, writing, and what we cannot know in your own words. Give one example and name the usual mistake.