Research Paper on:
The Importance of Historical Timelines

Unformatted Sample Text from the Research Paper:
Historians, as the name would imply, are charged with recording history, the story of mankinds past. More specifically, history is a chronicle of past events  that is compiled using many different approaches. These approaches include the documentation and analysis of material artifacts such as monuments, buildings, newspapers, literature, etc. They also include the  development of timelines documenting when specific event and development occurred. Historical timelines are invaluable when studying world events. Timelines provide  context. They provide a point or points of comparison that allows us to understand an event or development from the perspective of what led up to it and what  followed it. Comparison points can be far removed culturally, geographically, and chronologically or they can be closely connected. Timelines have  even been created for prehistoric events. Consider, for example, our contemporary understanding of the so-called "Neolithic Revolution". Timelines have been created detailing the transition of hunter/gatherers to farmers  and for the respective developments of agriculture and animal husbandry. Timelines demonstrate quite clearly that the "Neolithic Revolution" proposed by some was not a choreographed cultural, geographic, or technological  transition. Furthermore, timelines demonstrate that the development of cities and complex sociopolitical structure did not necessarily go hand in hand with the rise of agriculture either in Egypt or  in other areas of the world (Pringle, 1998a). Sometimes this was the case but sometimes agricultural developments were preceded thousands of years by a more sedentary pattern of life  and sometimes it took civilizations thousands of years after the advent of agriculture to settle into the sedentary lifestyle. This was just as true in the Near East