Fighting For Invisible History
Have You Heard Of Historiology?
In every place we walk, there is a history that is not taught in schools. It was not written down at the time by their contemporary scholars. It requires massive amounts of data from fields ranging from Chemistry to Natural Language Processing. This field combines the examination of archaeological samples with contrasting primary texts and geographic information to try and discern what *actually* happened.
Historiology (not to be confused with Historiography) upholds history to the same rigorous scrutiny as STEM fields, or so it claims. One of the earliest textbooks available is still a common text. The ideas behind it are that what we know as “History” is often a limited perspective, manipulated, likely propaganda, and requires testing or at least some reconsidering. Is that book bound with “human leather” in Los Angeles actually human? Experimental archaeology is a gift to all who read their publications. The poop knife paper is the gift that keeps on giving with each new reader I introduce.
I first learned about Historiology at an undergraduate research conference in Spring 2009. The conference was specific to STEM majors, and I was presenting research on what the longitudinal effects of neonatal exposure to excessively high doses of Salvinorin A extract did to Swiss Mice*. I promise, I was not the original student who…
