Historians, when writing about history, not only discuss the theoretical facts that are being proposed as the timeline, but also the means by which they arrived at their ideas. Generally, they draw their conclusions about history by reading "sources," or earlier accounts of the matter at hand. In some cases these are eye-witness accounts, in others, accounts told to a scribe by a witness, and so on.
Historians try to make a distinction between sources as "primary" and "secondary." A primary source is not necessarily an eye-witness account - though it would be nice if it was - but is defined by historians as one that cannot be traced back any further and does not seem to depend on someone else's account. Secondary sources are those that are essentially copies or "re-worked" primary sources. Often, they consist of material from several sources assembled together with commentary or additional data.
Well, obviously this could present a problem if the primary source is completely falsified.
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