this post was submitted on 21 Apr 2025
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The most likely scenario is there were immigrants fleeing their homelands for a better life.
The problem with history is we just up and belief what the rules say is true. We know from centuries of more detailed records that is simply not true but when it comes to ancient civilizations we just wholesale accept it.
"Look the despot wrote it down a dozen times, it must be true! Propaganda is beyond their level of cleverness of those silly stone chiselers!"
This just shows a fundamental misunderstanding of how the work of history is done.
Historians don't just read something, believe what it says, then say "that's history, job done".
They tease from a source glimpses of the past.
Each document or artifact provides information, and meta information, that can be used to give us a fuller picture of the past, whether the writer was telling the truth (whose truth?), writing known falsehoods, writing fiction, etc.
No historian believes The Lord of the Rings is true, but if looked at through the lens of history it could be a valuable historical artifact. The Lord of the Rings could teach one about things like: the state of literature and publishing in the mid-twentieth century, cultural attitudes towards war, religion, and industrialization, linguistic fluency among the population, the writer's education level, social standing, and personal attitudes, etc.
You don't exclude a source because it may have a bias, or known falsehoods, or missing information, etc.; you account for those in your study of the source and piece together what we can know despite those issues.
So let me get this straight, you think the field of history fails to consider that people can make up bullshit?
We know from history that historians have believed bullshit history. There is no reason to assume that's changed.
The work historians do is ceases to be science the moment they start filling in the blanks.
Bro what do you think science is? You interpolate, then seek evidence that your interpolation was bad, and if you can’t find such evidence then you accept your interpolation as good.
The study of history is done by many, many different people over many, many centuries. It would be illogical to say that just because some make a certain mistake, all do.
Additionally, you cannot say nothing changes when the understanding of history constantly changes, as our archeological abilities steadily improve.
Lastly, even scientists need to fill in blanks sometimes. Einstein was rather famous for filling in some critical blanks in Newtonian physics, for instance.
I think that's what you meant? If so - no "we" don't. Actual historians are well aware of the possibility (probability?) of ancient propaganda, take that into account when coming to conclusions, and don't claim that something is true beyond what the evidence demonstrates.