(4) The Historian’s Tools

Our TOOLS for working here in SS032

•Contextual Analysis

•Content Analysis

•Comparative Analysis

Contextual Analysis

•Studying the social, political, historical and cultural background of a text to better understand it.

1800s

• Politics

• Historical events

• Culture etc.

•Who wrote the text? (author)

•What do we know about the author? (author’s background)

•Who did he write this for (target audience)?

•Why did he write this? (motive)

•When and where was the text written? Describe the prevailing conditions in that period of time and in that place (political, cultural, social, background)?

Content Analysis

•Finding interesting and meaningful pieces of content in a text by systematically reading it.

•The bounds of the analysis is the text itself. No supporting “outside” source is used.

• Count how many pages talked about a revolution

• Count how many bad priests were mentioned

• Was the main character successful based on his accomplishments?

Content Analysis

•Involves reading in between the lines.

•Seeing patterns within the text.

•Figuring out what the author really intends to convey

•Drawing out lessons from the text itself

Comparative Analysis

•Comparing 2 texts that talk about the same theme or event.

• Philippine society is like this…….

• Philippine society is like this…….

Comparative Analysis

•Put the two texts side-by-side

•Look for differences in what they say

•Look for commonalities in what they say

•List details that one text mentions, and the other did not; and vice versa

Comparative Analysis

•Important footnote:

•Comparative analysis often involves POINT-OF-VIEW (POV) ANALYSIS

•It is considering the POV or perspective of the one talking or writing about a historical event.

Comparative Analysis

•Example of POV Analysis: The arrival of Magellan in the Philippines

•Magellan’s POV: Oh, these natives are weird. They barely have clothes.

•Lapu-Lapu’s POV: Oh, these foreigners are weird. They are over-dressed.

Comparative Analysis

•Example of POV Analysis: The arrival of Magellan in the Philippines

•Magellan’s POV: I discovered the Philippines!

•Lapu-Lapu’s POV: I discovered that there are other people on this planet that are so tall, white-skinned, brown-haired, and hairy-chested.

Content

•1962

•An American anthropologist working for the National Museum of the Philippines, Robert Fox, discovered bones in a cave in Palawan.

•There were many Tabon birds in the cave, thus it was named Tabon Cave.

•The bones were sent to France for further scientific study.

•It was confirmed that these bones were the oldest bones in the Philippines, older than the time when Negritos were believed to have arrived in the Philippines (Wave Migration Theory by H.O. Beyer)

•The Wave Migration Theory was the prevailing “truth” about Philippine Prehistory during that time. Because of this discovery, Beyer’s Theory was debunked.

•For the next half-century, the Tabon Man was taught in schools as the first inhabitants of the Philippines.

•In 2007, diggings in Callao Cave in Cagayan Valley in Northern Luzon yielded a human foot bone.

•In 2010, it was confirmed that it was indeed a human foot bone and its age was so much older than the Tabon Man. Later, teeth were dug up.

•Thus, a new character, the Cagayan Man, is now considered as the first inhabitant of the Philippines.

•In April 2019, the Cagayan Man was given a scientific name, Homo luzonensis.

Content and Comparative Analyses

•Go to BBL/Canvas and read the PDF on the Tabon Man.

•Compare the account of Fox and Scott.

•In doing so, you will actually be doing Content and Comparative Analyses.

Read the Fox and Scott documents and answer the following questions:

1.Write one information about the Tabon Man that Scott and Fox agree on. They said the same thing about the Tabon Man.

2.Write one information about the Tabon Man that Scott and Fox had conflicting reports on. They had different accounts in their writings.

3.According to Scott himself, where did he get his information about the Tabon Man? (sentence 4 Scott, sentence 12 Fox)

4.According to our context study, where did Fox get his information about the Tabon Man? (see this ppt’s earlier slides)

5.Who is more reliable, Fox or Scott? Why?