Practice question · Sort into groups
Invented or ancient? Sort each "age-old" tradition by what historians actually found.
Groups: Substantially invented in modern times · Genuinely ancient practice
- Passover seder meal
- Ramadan fasting
- Olympic torch relay ceremony
- Most European national anthems and flag cults
- Clan-specific Scottish tartans
- Chinese ancestor veneration
Hints
- Hobsbawm’s test: trace the practice in dated sources, not in its own origin story.
- The torch relay debuted at the 1936 Berlin Games.
Show the answer
Substantially invented in modern times: Clan-specific Scottish tartans, Most European national anthems and flag cults, Olympic torch relay ceremony
Genuinely ancient practice: Passover seder meal, Ramadan fasting, Chinese ancestor veneration
Why
Clan tartans crystallized in 19th-century catalogues; the torch relay premiered in 1936. Religious calendars, by contrast, show millennia of continuous attestation. Age must be documented, never assumed from solemnity.
Practise Ethnicity and Identity
The app has 6 more questions on this lesson, and keeps your place in the course. History I is free to start.
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