Paper 1 · sources of history
A disadvantage of archaeology as a source of history is that...
Ait gives no evidence of how people made a living
Bit cannot tell us what people thought or said
Cit works only on sites that have written records
Dit can be used only for the years after 1890
Explanation: Excavation recovers objects, not ideas. It can show what people ate, made and traded, but not their beliefs, their politics or the names of their rulers, so archaeology has to be read alongside oral tradition and written records where those exist.
Derived from ZIMSEC History Paper 1, Nov 2025, Q2