Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Archaeology/Archive 6

This is an archive of past discussions on Wikipedia:WikiProject Archaeology. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Archive 1

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Archive 4

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Goat remains at Djeitun?

I don't see Djeitun referenced in this article, Bactria–Margiana Archaeological Complex, but another article, History of Turkmenistan#Ancient history, pipes "finds at Djeitun and Gonur Tepe" to it. I found a citation here [1], for the Goat article, that puts Djeitun as one of the locations at which ancient goat remains were found; pegging very early domestication of the animal there and then (when?). I know very little about Turkmenistan (yet). Is Djeitun part of this Bactria-Margiana complex, and if it is, could someone weave it in there where it belongs? I also placed a red wikilink on another occurrence of the word Djeitun at Turkmen people#history, so if someone is really game, a separate article would be just great and feed two birds! I also left a similar comment @ Talk:Bactria–Margiana Archaeological Complex#Goat remains at Djeitun.

Sutton Hoo GA review

Sutton Hoo has been nominated to be listed as a Good Article. A review has started and is now on hold while the reviewer does more background reading on the topic. In the meantime a few points have been listed for improvement or discussion here. This project is tagged on the talkpage as one that has an interest in the article, and any extra assistance is always appreciated during a GA review. SilkTork *^YES! 10:07, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

Archaeology related AfD

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Lost Pyramid of Puñay Dougweller (talk) 20:47, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Merge discussion for Tel Dan

An article that you have been involved in editing, Tel Dan , has been proposed for a merge with another article. If you are interested in the merge discussion, please participate by going here, and adding your comments on the discussion page. Thank you. Sreifa (talk) 10:29, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Archaeology articles have been selected for the Wikipedia 0.8 release

Version 0.8 is a collection of Wikipedia articles selected by the Wikipedia 1.0 team for offline release on USB key, DVD and mobile phone. Articles were selected based on their assessed importance and quality, then article versions (revisionIDs) were chosen for trustworthiness (freedom from vandalism) using an adaptation of the WikiTrust algorithm.

We would like to ask you to review the Archaeology articles and revisionIDs we have chosen. Selected articles are marked with a diamond symbol (♦) to the right of each article, and this symbol links to the selected version of each article. If you believe we have included or excluded articles inappropriately, please contact us at Wikipedia talk:Version 0.8 with the details. You may wish to look at your WikiProject's articles with cleanup tags and try to improve any that need work; if you do, please give us the new revisionID at Wikipedia talk:Version 0.8. We would like to complete this consultation period by midnight UTC on Monday, October 11th.

We have greatly streamlined the process since the Version 0.7 release, so we aim to have the collection ready for distribution by the end of October, 2010. As a result, we are planning to distribute the collection much more widely, while continuing to work with groups such as One Laptop per Child and Wikipedia for Schools to extend the reach of Wikipedia worldwide. Please help us, with your WikiProject's feedback!

For the Wikipedia 1.0 editorial team, SelectionBot 00:10, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

Don't call it a revival

I've updated the main page: removed outdated sections, rearranged it so it's more coherent, added in some bot tasks (though neither have updated yet). I hope it's slightly more useful to editors working on archaeology-related articles now.

I'd like to see how many people watching this page are interested in reinvigorating this WikiProject. I don't quite know whether it's "inactive", but it isn't very lively either. And let's be honest, if there's any topic on Wikipedia that needs collaborative attention, it's archaeology. From what I can tell there are a few isolated very high quality articles that are down to individual editors, but the vast majority are shockingly underdeveloped, including some important core concepts (I'm thinking archaeological culture, archaeological site, etc.)

There are two immediate collaborative projects which I think could be really beneficial if this project gave their attention to them:

Few of the categorisation schemes that have been proposed here seem to have been implemented. Prehistory articles especially (which for my part I focus on) have very little in the way of structured categories. I propose setting up a categorisation sub-department that will:
1. develop one or more category schemes for archaeology
2. implement them
A featured article of our very own. There are eight articles tagged with {{WikiProject Archaeology}} which have featured status, but all of them had other WikiProjects in the lead. It would be great to show the effectiveness of this WikiProject by collaborating on article to bring it up to FA status. I think the best candidate is the Cucuteni-Trypillian culture family of articles, which Saukkomies has already put a superhuman amount of work into. It's in GA review right now, which I'm sure it will pass when they get round to clearing the backlog. But in my opinion it's very close to being FA standard, and if we could get a group of editors to give it some final polish it will be there in no time.

—Joseph Roe^Tk•Cb, 10:09, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

I totally agree with what you said here, Joey Roe. Although I am sincerely flattered that you think the Cucuteni-Trypillian culture articles are worthy of potential FA status... But I totally agree with your summation about how there is a desperate need for the subject of archaeology to be done up proper here in Wikipedia. My own experience is an example of this: I originally got involved with editing the C-T article because I was researching the roots of the Hellenic culture, and I stumbled upon the Cucuteni-Trypillian culture article, which although it was not at all well written, was absolutely amazing to me - it begged to be worked on! I couldn't just let it rest, but kept thinking about it, until I finally gave in and started the massive amount of work I needed to do to bring it up off the cutting floor and onto the showcase where it belongs. I'm still not anywhere near done with it - as you point out - but that is just ONE CULTURE, and there are so many cultures to work on! It's a little overwhelming. However, I believe that if we can borrow from one another, it will help, so I'll continue to improve the Cucuteni-Trypillian articles as best I can, and hopefully others may be inspired or find them useful to use as reference to how to do other articles about archaeological cultures, too. I do want to help in any way if you need someone to do some work on something specific - just let me know. --Saukkomies ^talk 13:14, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

Overwhelming is putting it mildly. I don't know anything about C-T, but if I can help elsewhere I will. Dougweller (talk) 15:03, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

There are actually quite a few editors active in articles related to archaeology, but because archaeology is such a wide-ranging subject their interests don't often overlap. As a result, there are hotspots of very good articles which stand head and shoulders above the standard but little consistency on a large scale. For example Simon Burchell (talk · contribs) seems to be on a (quite successful) one-man mission to have Wikipedia renamed the Mesoamerican encyclopedia. While many of the project's best articles overlap with other projects, there are some which would be considered a primarily archaeological subject, the Hoxne Hoard, Lindow Man, and Sweet Track for instance. The recent collaboration with the British Museum proved quite successful and has opened up a line of communications between Wikipedia editors and the curators at the museum so we can approach them for advice and assistance.

With 27 Featured Articles, 4 Featured Lists, and 32 Good Articles ostensibly things are quite healthy, although I think the previous lack of activity on this talk page backs up my point about interest not always overlapping. What is noticeable is that none of the articles that have gone through Wikipedia's higher assessment areas are topics on archaeology such as excavation (archaeology). Nev1 (talk) 13:40, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

I'd agree with this, and the BM project has brought a number of new editors into the area, although I think none with very specialized knowledge. Worries about which project is the "lead" are pointless, and if there is one thing that annoys me about the articles under this project, it is a strong WP:CLOSED GARDEN mentality evident at times, especially when categorizing articles, where something like a brooch will be categorized as a "foo culture artefact" and as an archeological find in fooland, but not in Category:Jewellery or other relevant categories. Johnbod (talk) 16:04, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

What I was trying to get at in talking with the "lead" thing is that most of the FAs/GAs that fall under the Archaeology WikiProject were often primarily approached from other (related) angles: local history, Egyptology, classics, etc. The issue isn't 'ownership' of the articles by this or that project, simply that counting the raw numbers of good articles alone could easily obscure the fact that archaeology, as a subject and on aggregate, remains poorly covered. I know there are exceptions like the ones Nev mentioned, and Maiden Castle, Dorset which he modestly didn't. —Joseph Roe^Tk•Cb, 16:32, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

I very much like this thread! In reply to JohnBod's excellent post, I'd like to further elaborate on something he touched on: the very critical need for editors to make sure that their article's subjects are cross-referenced very broadly throughout Wikipedia. While I have been working on the Cucuteni-Trypillian articles, I constantly am searching through other articles in Wikipedia where a reference would be useful. An example of this was when I discovered that there was what may be the very first salt mill processing center in Romania dating back to the C-T culture. Here's the bit about this: Technology of the Cucuteni–Trypillian culture#World's oldest saltworks. I followed up on this, going to Wikipedia pages about salt and about salt processing (something I knew almost nothing about prior to this), and included a sentence or two about this early salt operation, as well as links back to the C-T articles *and* additional references to the related source material this was taken from. That is just one of many, many instances where I did this - and it is unbelievably exhausting. However, I would absolutely, adamantly maintain that it is critical for the well-functioning of the encyclopedia. Okay, stepping off my soapbox now. At any rate, I just wanted to throw that out there, since I believe this is one of the things that tends to get overlooked a lot in Wikipedia editing... --Saukkomies ^talk 18:17, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

That's exactly why I thought it might be a good idea to revive this wikiproject: to bring the individual good editors working on archaeology together to work on tasks that can only be done, or can only be done well, collaboratively. If I implied that there was a lack of good contributions in general I apologise, it wasn't my attention. —Joseph Roe^Tk•Cb, 16:24, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Joseph, I for one applaud your efforts! And I would sincerely like to be a part of this - keeping in mind that I also will be busy still working away at my pet projects. But I can lend a hand here and there if needed. --Saukkomies ^talk 18:19, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Cultures and Archaeological Sites in the Continet

For the last couple of years I have been working on a personal research project, identifying prehispanic cultures and archaeological sites for the entire American continent (From Alaska to Argentina), have over 800 articles, and my aim is to translate all, to offer the same information in both. That is not the case today. Also I have found many sites that are not available in Wikipedia at all; some only in English and others in Spanish.

I could use some help in digesting the information and make it fit for Wikipedia. I am somewhat new here, and getting help could expedite uploading the information I have.

Also will require to segregate the information by cultures, regions, religions, languages, etc.

Raúl Gutiérrez (talk) 14:59, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

I have no knowledge of Spanish, although there are editors who identify as speaking Spanish who may be able to help. 800 articles is a hell of a lot of work, so if you ask any of them for help I recommend suggesting the most important articles. Which continent are you referring to? Nev1 (talk) 20:39, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

Just for the record, we're assuming you are meaning the Continent of Europe? --Saukkomies ^talk 01:53, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Actually I think he means the Americas. —Joseph Roe^Tk•Cb, 12:13, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Sorry for the lack of clarity, yes, I meant the American Continent. You may want so see some of my progress, check my contributions. For further clarity, some of the articles do no exist in English, and I already have the texts translated, what I am now doing, in addition to uploading pictures and editing a couple of books in WS, is reviewing texts and adjusting to meet WP requirements. The help I could use would be in proofreading the text, adding pictures, etc.--Raúl Gutiérrez (talk) 13:36, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Article structure

Do people think this section is particularly useful? I'm not sure what the purpose is (to provide a structured list of all archaeology articles? to provide a list of major articles that need to be written? to propose a category scheme?) and either way it seems to me to be doomed to incompleteness. I'm inclined to remove and archive it, but perhaps I'm missing the point. —Joseph Roe^Tk•Cb, 15:01, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

discussion on wikipedia policy re locations of archeological sites

There's a discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject National Register of Historic Places#"Address restricted" and pictures which may be of interest. --doncram (talk) 20:26, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

Images needed from The Children's Museum of Indianapolis?

I am currently interning at the Children's Museum of Indianapolis as their In-House Wikipedian and will soon be coordinating a Backstage Pass event for any interested Wikipedians. The participating Wikipedians are excited to go behind the scenes & take photos of nearly any of the museum's 110,000 piece collection. If there are any specific content or, more likely, image requests of archaeological artifacts you can think of, we'd be happy to help get it for you. They are in the midst of developing an archaeological exhibit featuring a mummy gifted by Zahi Hawass, an underwater archaeological site for the Captain Kidd cannon, and pieces from the Terra Cotta army. They also have a vast collection of fossils and taxidermy, among many other things. Please post any requests here and let me know if you have any questions! HstryQT (talk) 20:53, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Archaeology related AfD

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Göbekli Tepe script —Joseph Roe^Tk•Cb, 15:54, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Great Witcombe Roman Villa

I spent some time updating an article for Great Witcombe Roman Villa. Can anyone review and suggest further improvements? I'm looking to a few other Roman Villas in Britain which could use a better article as well and will hopefully have a chance to visit the British Library to go through some archaeological documents for Great Witcombe.Justexp (talk) 15:35, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

I've just done some minor copy-editing, but otherwise it looks good. There is a lack of inline citations in places and couple of prose ambiguities (which I have tagged). You might also add some information on when the site has been excavated and by whom and, if you're feeling very adventurous, a plan would really help make clear the layout of the villa as described in the text. Definitely a B-class article now, and I've reassessed it as such for this WikiProject. —Joseph Roe^Tk•Cb, 22:39, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Qumran and some help

I've been dealing with the Qumran article for some time, an article which I think should be a part of WikiProject Archaeology. I need an opinion, as I am having what is building up to an edit war over some external links. The article is about the archaeological site and its interpretation, but the links I've been trying to remove regard the significance of the scrolls and their context. I feel they don't belong in the article and they already appear in the Dead Sea Scrolls article. They are materials written by the poster, one of which has appeared in an academic publication.

First, can I get an opinion from any concerned individual, as this is a specialized field, which editors here should be able to appreciate?

And can the article be placed under the auspices of WikiProject Archaeology? The article is in a mess because it is a controversial subject and it needs some levelheaded input. -- Ihutchesson (talk) 05:38, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

You don't need to ask for an article to be added to a WikiProject, anyone can add {{WikiProject Archaeology}} to relevant talk pages. Regarding your problematic links, the editor in question hasn't got a lot of contributions - it's possibly they a) aren't aware of the talk page and haven't seen your attempts to open up a discussion there and b) don't know why some of their edits aren't constructive. It might be an idea to leave a message on their talk page brining their attention to the former and quoting some WP: explaining the latter (e.g. WP:CONS, WP:WAR, WP:EL, WP:CITE, WP:MoS). Their contributions do seem to me to be made in good faith (although I don't know enough about the subject to detect more subtle POV pushing) and it takes everyone a bit of time to learn the ropes. —Joseph Roe^Tk•Cb, 07:47, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for your response. I thought it would be correct etiquette to ask about adding stuff to the WikiProject.

As to my edit partner, I have been in conflict here with him on and off for over a year, as an earlier 3rd opinion on the Qumran discussion page will show. He doesn't talk to me. We've just had another round of conflict since my first comment here. Besides his links, there's now another inappropriate link, this time to an external site, which has a Wiki article (that I wrote) with the same external link, an article that's accessible from the Dead Sea Scrolls topic navbox on every related page. -- Ihutchesson (talk) 14:12, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

Comment: The opinion of many editors and reviewers is that "External links" often raise more problems and questions than they solve. Having looked at the article, I would suggest that you both consider removing that section entirely. If the material in any of those sites is notably relevant to the article, then use those sites as in-line references to the text they support. If they are not notable enough to use as references, then I would question whether the sites should be in an "External links" at all. External links are most useful when they provide direct information about the article's subject (e.g., a site's visiting hours, a real-time webcam picture of site conditions, etc.). It is also fine for the Qumran article to summarize content found in the main Dead Sea Scrolls article, but make sure that any new material is added there first, before summarizing in the Qumran article. Otherwise a reader clicking on the {{Main|Dead Sea Scrolls}} template link seeking further information will be confused if the information is missing there. I hope that makes sense, and that you can move the article forward—it looks promising. • Astynax ^talk 03:08, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

"External links" can be tricky. I've been trying to trim them down. At the moment it's limited to four scholarly discussions published at a reputable website (all quite useful) and a few others, two to do with visuals of the site. I'm afraid, nevertheless, that the editor I'm in conflict with doesn't see the suitability issues and will continue to post his material as external links. Thanks for your comments. -- Ihutchesson (talk) 14:52, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

Blombos Cave

"Archaeologists in Blombos Cave, South Africa, discover evidence of early humans using pressure flaking to make stone tools in 73,000 BCE, 55,000 years earlier than previously thought"

So does this earlier 55 000 year period have any effect on the evolutionary cycle of man? Does it lengthen the evolutionary requirements of progress. Or is it, in actual fact, simply an interesting observation but meaningless to the overall understanding of the evolutionary processes?Semperlibre (talk) 09:12, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

Early stone tools were made in the same way for very long periods of time (tens or hundreds of thousands of years), so when new techniques appear in the archaeological record it's thought that they must reflect some kind of change in biological terms. It's not like in later periods when technological change happens very rapidly due to culture alone. So, on the one hand, yes, the find shows that whatever advance in cognition allowed us to use pressure flaking happened 55000 years earlier than previously thought. On the other hand, the evidence for the Palaeolithic is so scant that things are always being pushed back 50000 years or 100000 years or a million years. It would be silly to assume that any given "earliest date" is anything more than a rough estimate, and the older the date the more rough it is. Personally I don't find such factoids especially interesting, but the media seems to really like them - probably because so many people think archaeology consists solely of trying to find the oldest example of X. I was slightly disappointed to see the Blombos story on the front page. —Joseph Roe^Tk•Cb, 09:39, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for your very swift response, Joseph Roe and I do understand your various points.

That said, I must be tedious and remark that media friendly information goes a long way toward enhancing the romance of archaeology when it comes to grants-in-aid and other fund-raising efforts. I am also aware that you are familiar with this process but wish it weren't so. But the fact remains - column inches are important - see how it assisted CERN with their funding.

Most of us, myself included, couldn't care less about any successes [or failures] on the archaeological front but I'm also very concious of its importance to the general scientific community of the future and thus I'd risk making a fool of myself by asking [stupid?] questions in an area where I have precious little knowledge. Left to my decision making I'd make sure y'all received an equitable portion of the available funding but sadly no one has asked me to be bursar in this regard! Cheers,Semperlibre (talk) 16:25, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

Common era or AD

I've recently initiated a discussion here Talk:Lake Jackson Mounds Archaeological State Park#Date style-Common Era or ANNO DOMINI and would appreciate any feedback or input, as this page is listed as part of WikiProject Archaeology. Thanks, He iro 03:45, 7 November 2010 (UTC).

I've responded on the article's talk page, although in general you're on a hiding to nothing in this kind of situation. WP:ERA states:

AD and BC are the traditional ways of referring to these eras. CE and BCE are becoming more common in academic and some religious writing. No preference is given to either style.

Do not use CE or AD unless the date would be ambiguous without it (e.g. "The Norman Conquest took place in 1066" not 1066 CE or AD 1066).
BCE and CE or BC and AD are written in upper case, unspaced, without periods (full stops), and separated from the year number by a space or non-breaking space (5 BC, not 5BC).
Use either the BC-AD or the BCE-CE notation, but not both in the same article. AD may appear before or after a year (AD 106, 106 AD); the other abbreviations appear after (106 CE, 3700 BCE, 3700 BC).
Do not change from one style to another unless there is substantial reason for the change, and consensus for the change with other editors.

The reason it opts for whatever the status quo is for that article as opposed to choosing one system for the whole of Wikipedia is that there's no consensus on which to use. Years ago there was an enormous debate on the issue which didn't lead really anywhere. Nev1 (talk) 18:29, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

Invitation to participate!

Hello! As you may be aware, the Wikimedia Foundation is gearing up for our annual fundraiser. We want to hit our goal, and hit it as soon as possible, so that we can focus on Wikipedia's tenth anniversary (January 15) and on our new project, the Contribution Team.

I'm posting across WikiProjects to engage you, the community, in working to build Wikipedia not only through financial donations, but also through collaboration in building content. You can find more information in Philippe Beaudette's memo to the communities here.

Please visit the Contribution Team page and the Fundraising page to find out how you can help us support and spread free knowledge. ⇒DanRosenthal ^{Wikipedia Contribution Team} 18:05, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Help! Michael J. O'Kelly

I have just written my first article. I apologize if this is the wrong place to ask this. I would like some experienced Wikis (?) to look at the draft and comment before I go further. Timothy Hawkins-Heathco (talk) 00:25, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Hello, my friend. Welcome to this assortment of world citizens. Well, I couldn't find anything on that page you linked above, but I did go to your User page and saw an article on American Reformed Irish Druids. Is this what you are talking about? Anyway, you really should be writing articles in your own Sandbox instead of on your User page. You will learn how to do all of this just as the rest of us did, by just investigating the different sources of help on Wikipedia. One place to look is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:About_the_Sandbox. Sincerely, GeorgeLouis (talk) 16:14, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

I saw the page before it was blanked, it was fine in terms of content, referencing, wikification, etc. It could have used some minor copy editing, and the tone was a bit more like a eulogy than an encyclopaedia article. Otherwise, a good article, you should go ahead and move it to the article namespace. —Joseph Roe^Tk•Cb, 18:20, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Unfortunately it looks like it might have been copied from here, although I've not inspected the situation carefully myself. Nev1 (talk) 18:26, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

I have to say I disagree with that review. The page cited was the article's main source, yes, but it wasn't used in a way the constituted a copyright violation, IMO. Timothy, if you want to resubmit it, be aware that you don't have to go through the Articles for creation process. You can just be bold and create the article, that way whether it is kept or not is subject to Wikipedia's normal peer review processes and not the judgement of a single editor. —Joseph Roe^Tk•Cb, 18:35, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

It's too closely paraphrased in parts, it has too much of the same structure and wording. Dougweller (talk) 19:39, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Thank you every one. I did substantially change the wording, and some content, where it was too much like the Newgrange website. I also tried to make it sound less like an euology. I left the structure the same -- born, educated, worked, died. I submitted the new article as M. J. O'Kelly. Timothy Hawkins-Heathco (talk) 13:39, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Alignment

Hello, my friends: A group of us are working on clearing the backlog at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Articles_lacking_sources_from_October_2006. The article in the above header has been without sources for the past four years and may be removed if none are added. I wonder if you can help do so. Sincerely, and all the best to you, GeorgeLouis (talk) 16:06, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

I assume you mean Alignment (archaeology) - I haven't been able to find any references unfortunately, but I've left a comment on the article's talk page. —Joseph Roe^Tk•Cb, 19:06, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Oops! Yes, I did mean Alignment (archaeology)! Sorry, and thanks for checking it out. I will adjourn to the talk page over there for more chit-chat. Yours, GeorgeLouis (talk) 04:52, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Maya stelae FA nom

I've just posted Maya stelae at WP:FAC and would like to invite any comments on the review page. Thanks, Simon Burchell (talk) 00:24, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

WikiProject Dacia

Hi! I created the Wikipedia:WikiProject Dacia and many articles have to do with archaeology. I think there is a lot of room collaboration. Happy Holidays!--Codrinb (talk) 21:05, 21 December 2010 (UTC)