Forum

History, as a science, has been carefully studying written sources for over two centuries. And it mainly relies on archaeological excavations. And the artifacts extracted from the ground very eloquently testify to the economic and political relations between states, classes, and nations, etc.

But how can one confirm economic and political relations between states without texts?

Let's say they found ivory beads in Spain. It is clear that they came from Africa, but how exactly – through plunder, tribute, trade, or as a gift? That is, archaeology can establish the fact of contact between different regions, but not the nature of their relations.

The situation is even worse with political status – one can compare the degree of wealth of cities and burial sites, but this does not mean that poorer territories were subordinate to richer ones. And it is even more difficult to assess the nature of this subordination.

Added 3 minutes ago

It is clear that no one knows anymore how it actually was in detail; that is not the point. The meaning of my question was different. What is your attitude towards the occupation of one country by another? Would you like to live in a state where order is established by another country?

When it comes to events that are modern or relatively recent, I can try to assess them. But when it comes to events that happened many centuries ago, there is no point in doing so.

There was such an episode in the history of Rus' – Moscow and Tver fought for the right to be the leading power. Tver ultimately lost, and Moscow became the gatherer of Russian lands.

But if Tver had won, everything would be the same now, only the TKAD instead of the MKAD. And the people living now are descendants of the inhabitants of both cities at that time. Therefore, there is no point in evaluating that episode because it is impossible to draw any political conclusions from it that would be applicable to the present day.