Question

Read the following passage:

(1) For much of the twentieth century, academic historians largely dismissed oral traditions as unreliable sources for reconstructing the past, favoring written documents as the only objective records. (2) This skepticism was rooted in the belief that oral narratives are inherently malleable, subject to memory failures, and inevitably distorted by contemporary political agendas. (3) Consequently, the histories of societies without extensive written records were often marginalized or told exclusively from the perspective of literate outside observers. (4) In recent decades, however, the methodological landscape of historiography has shifted significantly. (5) Historians now recognize that while oral traditions require rigorous corroboration, they provide vital access to the internal perspectives and cultural paradigms of non-literate societies that written colonial records fundamentally lack. (6) By employing comparative linguistic analysis and cross-referencing oral accounts with archaeological evidence, scholars have demonstrated that oral histories often preserve remarkably accurate records of historical events.

Which sentence explicitly states the author's main point in the passage? Provide the sentence number only.