DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.14671247
title: HiST-LLM

description: Large Language Models' Expert-level Global History Knowledge Benchmark (HiST-LLM)

 Large Language Models (LLMs) have the potential to transform humanities and social science research, yet their history knowledge and comprehension at a graduate level remains untested. Benchmarking LLMs in history is particularly challenging, given that human knowledge of history is inherently unbalanced, with more information available on Western history and recent periods. We introduce the History Seshat Test for LLMs (Hist-LLM), based on a subset of the Seshat Global History Databank, which provides a structured representation of human historical knowledge, containing 36,000 data points across 600 historical societies and over 2,700 scholarly references. This dataset covers every major world region from the Neolithic period to the Industrial Revolution and includes information reviewed and assembled by history experts and graduate research assistants. Using this dataset, we benchmark a total of seven models from the Gemini, OpenAI, and Llama families. We find that, in a four-choice format, LLMs have a balanced accuracy ranging from 33.6% (Llama-3.1-8B) to 46% (GPT-4-Turbo), outperforming random guessing (25%) but falling short of expert comprehension. LLMs perform better on earlier historical periods. Regionally, performance is more even but still better for the Americas and lowest in Oceania and Sub-Saharan Africa for the more advanced models. Our benchmark shows that while LLMs possess some expert-level historical knowledge, there is considerable room for improvement.


 



Dataset links


Dataset Repository (Github)

 Croissant Metadata (Github)



Usage


This dataset can be used to benchmark LLMs on their expert level history knowledge.



Loading the dataset


using Python and Pandas:



import pandas as pd
main = pd.read_parquet("Neurips_HiST-LLM.parquet")
ref = pd.read_parquet("references.parquet") 


 



Dataset metadata


Dataset metadata documented in the croissant.json file.



Model Fingerprints


When model fingerprint are available we created extra columns for each model fingerprint. These columns are named via the following pattern <model-name>_<model-fingerprint>.



Column Descriptions




additional_review


Boolean This column describes whether datapoints underwent additional expert review. See section 3.2 of the Paper.



Q


The multiple choice question.



A


The expected completion of the prompt.



polity old id


ID for polity according to Seshat ids.



start year str


String for when polity started existing (in BCE/CE format).



end year str


String for when polity stopped existing (in BCE/CE format).



start year int


Int for when polity started existing (in BCE/CE format).



end year int


Int for when polity stopped existing (in BCE/CE format).



name


Polity name.



nga


Natural Geographic Area for Polity.



world_region


The world region of a NGA (based on the UN regions with some modifications)



category


Immediate parent category of fact from Seshat codebook.



root cat


Major category of fact.



value


Value of data point.



variable


Variable of data point.



id


Request id for openai batch requests.



description


Description provided by RAs for fact.