How do historians reconstruct the lives of ordinary people?

The lives of the ordinary people are reconstructed by making a detailed analysis of the inscriptions:

1. They are historically important as they act as a source of information about the social and political situation in those times.
2. They generally gave information about the achievements of the Kings as the inscriptions were generally written by men under the service of the Kings.
3. Some of the earliest inscriptions were generally written in the Prakrit.
4. Some of the inscriptions also mentioned the date of their commission. In other cases the actual dates of the inscriptions can be determined by several techniques.