Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Archaeology/Archive 7

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

←

Archive 5

Should we be using this source ?

Battle of Watling Street is on my watchlist (it wasn't part of this project, but I've added the template), and I've just discovered that an editor is adding stuff from a website there and to other articles. The website is run by an architect, John Pegg, and is http://www.craftpegg.com - interesting stuff but it is a personal website and thus we would normally not call it a reliable source, Pegg is not an archaeologist (although he is "Senior Lecturer at the University of East London, researching urban development, landscape and architectural design in relation to cultural heritage sites. " The link is to the pdf at [1](which is only a link to the pdf, not the pdf, although it is the pdf that is being used as a source. I'd be happy to include any 3rd party comments on Pegg's work, but what concerns me most is probably that I can't find any, and so I do not think it should be used in our articles about the Battle of Watling Street, Boudicca, Towcester, etc. Thanks. Dougweller (talk) 11:55, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

craft:pegg looks to be a legitimate architecture/urban planning company of which Mr Pegg is a director, rather than a personal website (see [2]). That means it's arguably not technically self-published, and Pegg is highly qualified (not in archaeology - but architectural history is not a million miles away). I know it's not unusual for commercial archaeology units to produce bona fide research to up their profiles, and this may be a similar situation. On the other hand, as you say, the article in question is not peer reviewed and does not have a proper bibliography, which would lead me personally to suspect it might be less than authoritative. Though, of course, you can say the same about plenty of sources that meet WP:RS. So I would say that the way it's used in Battle of Watling Street is okay (e.g. "this is a theory about the location"), but obviously saying "the Battle of Watling street definitely happened near Church Stowe" would require much higher quality and much more numerous sources. —Joseph Roe^Tk•Cb, 13:16, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

The thing is, is this a significant view meeting WP:NPOV? My opinion is no, since no one seems to have mentioned it. If it gets written up in British Archaeology, mentioned in a book, fine, but since it's apparently been ignored by the archaeological community I don't think Wikipedia should be promoting it. I'd still argue it is SPS, since it's his company, just as if the publisher of a magazine with no peer review publishes an article, that's still SPS. Dougweller (talk) 15:00, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

Maybe you are right - although it's worth noting it's only been seven months since Pegg's 'briefing' was written, so unless there happens to have been a review of the evidence published in the last few months, you wouldn't expect to see the claim taken up by archaeologists yet. But another thing to consider is the quality of the other references for possible locations in the relevant section on Battle of Watling Street: two are over twenty years old (surely there has been new evidence), two are based solely on newspaper reports (extremely unreliable for archaeology in my experience), and I've just removed one (Kings Norton) that was based on a misreading of a 2006 BBC news article. Perhaps there needs to be a discussion on the article's talk page about what constitutes a 'plausible' suggested location (i.e. a significant view in the context of that topic) before it is decided whether Pegg's meets that criteria. —Joseph Roe^Tk•Cb, 15:42, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

In general it would be the quality of the source that should determine whether or not we should include it. Dougweller (talk) 12:33, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

The Pegg paper is referenced in "Boudicca's Rebellion AD 60-61 - Dr Nic Fields" ISBN 978 1 84908 313 3. The text reads "....and most recently a good case has been made for placing the battlefield in the valley west of Church Stowe, Northamptonshire (Pegg 2010)". I hope this covers off Dougs point above ref "mentioned in a book". The paper remains the only serious attempt at nominating a site with apparent site specific evidence, although it is by no means conclusive it is as good a "proof" as any other produced for the other candidate sites. (Zepheria raven (talk) 14:01, 22 May 2011 (UTC))

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Khojaly–Gadabay culture

This AfD could use some comments from members of this project. LadyofShalott 23:18, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

GAR Akkadian Empire

An article that you have been involved in editing, Akkadian Empire has been nominated for a good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments good article reassessment page . If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status will be removed from the article. -- Zoeperkoe (talk) 22:45, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

Citation templates now support more identifiers

Recent changes were made to citations templates (such as {{citation}}, {{cite journal}}, {{cite web}}...). In addition to what was previously supported (bibcode, doi, jstor, isbn, ...), templates now support arXiv, ASIN, JFM, LCCN, MR, OL, OSTI, RFC, SSRN and Zbl. Before, you needed to place |id={{arxiv|0123.4567}} (or worse |url=http://arxiv.org/abs/0123.4567), now you can simply use |arxiv=0123.4567, likewise for |id={{JSTOR|0123456789}} and |url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/0123456789 → |jstor=0123456789.

The full list of supported identifiers is given here (with dummy values):

{{cite journal |author=John Smith |year=2000 |title=How to Put Things into Other Things |journal=Journal of Foobar |volume=1 |issue=2 |pages=3–4 |arxiv=0123456789 |asin=0123456789 |bibcode=0123456789 |doi=0123456789 |jfm=0123456789 |jstor=0123456789 |lccn=0123456789 |isbn=0123456789 |issn=0123456789 |mr=0123456789 |oclc=0123456789 |ol=0123456789 |osti=0123456789 |rfc=0123456789 |pmc=0123456789 |pmid=0123456789 |ssrn=0123456789 |zbl=0123456789 |id={{para|id|____}} }}

Obviously not all citations needs all parameters, but this streamlines the most popular ones and gives both better metadata and better appearances when printed. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 02:27, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Portingbury Hills

I'd appreciate other eyes on this, Leper Stone and possibly associated articles. They appear to being used primarily to point a minor fringe idea. Thanks. Dougweller (talk) 13:13, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

Buttermilk Creek Complex

This stub has been assigned a "low importance" banner on the talk page. I think you should revise that. Given the science article of MAR 25, it is the oldest site of human habitation and tool making in the Americas, pushing the time of the first migration up, and therefore giving people more time to settle the whole continent. And it is another confirmation of the pre-Clovis-theory, with the proof that the Clovis technology was developed in America south of the laurentidian ice shield. Go for the stories. The science article is really really good and an excellent source to improve this sad stub. --h-stt !? 16:26, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Agreed, but it might be difficult to write a balanced article at this point. Pre-Clovis sites aren't as controversial as they used to be but such an early date in the middle of Texas is bound to attract scrutiny, and there hasn't been enough time for anyone to respond yet. —Joseph Roe^Tk•Cb, 16:56, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

That should not stop us from raising the importance class. Whether or not this find will change the known history of populating the Americas or not, it will be debated hotly, and as such merit a higher importance category. Petter Bøckman (talk) 18:02, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

I've already changed it to high. —Joseph Roe^Tk•Cb, 20:30, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

THX. If one of you needs the Science article to improve this stub, just send me a Wikimail and I provide you with a copy. And you might want to take a look at BBC and NYT, though both lean too much to the "pre clovis" side of the story. --h-stt !? 12:32, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Culture.si - 2000+ free text articles

Culture.si This is a portal by the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Slovenia with over 2000 articles about Slovene culture. The text is under the same license as Wikipedia; you have to atrivute the source. Just wanted to let you know about this. --U5K0 (talk) 13:13, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

Article rename discussion for Jerusalem during the Persian, Hellenic and early Roman Periods

The article Jerusalem during the Second Temple period was recently renamed to Jerusalem during the Persian, Hellenic and early Roman Periods. There is an ongoing discussion regarding the proposal to rename it back to its original title. This article is listed as part of this WikiProject, and comments may be left at Talk:Jerusalem during the Persian, Hellenic and early Roman Periods#Requested move. • Astynax ^talk 19:03, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

Megalithic Yard

This and Measuring rod need attention. Dougweller (talk) 04:52, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

They really do, but I'm having trouble finding sources to balance out the fringe-y stuff. It seems like the mainstream has just ignored Thom rather than criticising him (in print, at least). —Joseph Roe^Tk•Cb, 07:43, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

If you see the MY talk page, I've a quote there that says it's been basically ignored. Measuring rod should probably be merged with Ruler as is being discussed at Talk:Ruler#Merge discussion (where there are now 4 editors agreeing to a merge) and certainly shouldn't be used to discuss claims about measurements, which is another topic. We have a real problem with fringe archaeology articles as we have so few editors interested in them. Dougweller (talk) 08:27, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

I have cleaned up the section on the megalithic yard, added some more relevant references. I have also restructured the article and added a section on the roman decempedia. I hope measuring rod now can stand on it's own feet. Petter Bøckman (talk) 13:05, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Dalmore bone

I've taken this to AfD . It's one of 3 articles including Dalgety bone bead and Patrickholme bone bead about very minor artefacts, all created to promote the Megalithic Yard (now at DYK which is being used to promote fringe ideas). Dougweller (talk) 00:16, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

Help with article

Hi all, I'm helping work on an article on Larry Geraty, a former President of American Schools of Oriental Research, La Sierra University and a versatile archeologist at WP:SDA/Larry Geraty. The section on archeological work is lagging behind the other sections in development, a crying shame since that is his most important work. If anyone from this project has experience and is willing to help develop this article, you would be greatly welcomed! Thanks! BelloWello (talk) 16:38, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

Bremetennacum

The present text says:

'The first Roman activity on the site was the establishment of a timber fort believed to have been constructed during the campaigns of Petillius Cerialis around AD 72/3. The fort fell into decline until around AD 70 when it was renovated.'

If it was constructed in 72AD, how could it fall into decline two years earlier?! The 'AD 70' part of the entry must be a mistake. 87.115.126.134 (talk) 12:13, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

Corrected. Looks like it was meant to be 170, but the source I looked at didn't mention a specific date or anything about it being abandoned between the first and second centuries so I just took it out. —Joseph Roe^Tk•Cb, 12:38, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

Mucking excavation

Does anyone have time to review Mucking excavation article? Rjm at sleepers (talk) 07:38, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

I've rated it B-class. They're are some minor MoS issues (like inconsistent placement of inline citations and referring to Jones as Dr Jones throughout) but that's about it. Some more images and a fuller discussion of the actual results and you could probably go for GA.

Just the other day someone mentioned that we have few articles on excavations, and I think this is a good model for those. Although it does raise some questions regarding articles about excavations vs. articles about sites (when should we have both, what kind of material is appropriate for each, etc). —Joseph Roe^Tk•Cb, 16:17, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

Thanks again - I'm afraid people of my generation find it difficult to refer to a woman by her surname alone. My problem. Rjm at sleepers (talk) 16:49, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

Input needed on theoretical debate

The talk page of the article on the three-age system has degenerated into a theoretical dispute. One editor is arguing that the three age system (Stone Age, Bronze Age, Iron Age) is the mainstream cross-cultural model in archaeology, while I'm arguing that it isn't. The resolution of this debate will affect the tone of the article, so we really need some outside mediation. Preferably, we need somebody with experience in archaeology that has access to good quality sources on current theories and paradigms. Snickeringshadow (talk) 12:18, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

Hi, first of all, I have to say that the article itself is not bad and well documented when we have to talk about the concept of '3 age system'. The main criticism is exactly the eurocentrism, as it was done in Europe for Europe (and the Mediterranean). That is not a current discussion anymore, as archaeology in different regions of the world is following their own tables (America, Africa and Asia). Current debates are back in Europe as the 3AS does not correspond with current data. I am not sure if there is any accessible reference about it, but it is a fact that many archaeologists are not very happy with it. Anyway, is in some way true that we still use it and categorize sites and finds according to it (the current 'extended' version that is not 3 ages anymore). I'm going there anyway to see your discussion... --JAS 16:23, 26 May 2011 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jascabaco (talk • contribs)

Wikipedia:Good article nominations currently has a backlog!

All editors willing and able to review articles are needed! Please contribute to the consensus of these articles by choosing 3 or more nominations to review in any of the catagories of interest to this project!

Please visit Wikipedia:Good article nominations now and begin! Thanks you! --Amadscientist (talk) 03:35, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

AfD for Scroll Trench

See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Scroll Trench. The response from the article's creator is, er, interesting. Dougweller (talk) 06:20, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

Scroll (Arc) Trench of Stonehenge (UK) duly Filed and Recorded in Deed Records and Official Public Records of Archer, Baylor, Hampshire, Wiltshire, (etc) County courthouses (Just to name a few); Therefore any such re-Publication of said Scroll (Arc) Trench of Stonehenge (UK) hereinat Wikipedia not required. Thank you. Garry Denke 01:00, 20 July 2011 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Garry Denke (talk • contribs) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.184.189.94 (talk)

Colllaborations with the British Museum re the Bronze Age and Ice Age art

As part of our wider collaboration with the British Museum, the UK Wikimedia chapter are planning special drives or projects beginning after the summer to improve our coverage of the Bronze Age generally and of "Ice Age art", the latter planned to be the subject of a BM exhibition in 2013. Could people potentially interested please sign up on the sub-pages linked below as I have done, ideally giving an approx usual location as there should be some physical events at the museum in the programme. Thanks, Johnbod (talk) 14:23, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Bronze Age

Wikipedia:GLAM/BM/Bronze Age now updated, PDFs available etc

Ice Age art

Wikipedia:GLAM/BM/Ice Age art

Khirbet Kerak / Bet Yerah / Al Sinnabra

The article Al-Sinnabra has been proposed for merger with Khirbet Kerak (Discuss). Archaeology-minded viewpoints would be quite appropriate here. --Sreifa (talk) 05:24, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

al-Maqar

I've just come across an an AfC submission about the site of al-Maqar, which has been in the news because someone (I can't quite figure out whether it's the excavators or someone from the Saudi government) is claiming it's a new culture/"civilization" and has evidence of horse domestication in Saudi Arabia c. 7,000 BCE. Now, obviously the article isn't quite ready for mainspace as it stands, but in principle, whether there turns out to be anything in the claims or not (personally I'm sceptical), we'll probably want an entry on the site at some point. I'm just wondering whether to accept this submission and work it into a neutral stub, or hold off until there's something peer reviewed published on the site and therefore something substantial to write about. joe•roe^t•c 20:23, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

FAR notice

I have nominated Homo floresiensis for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Delist" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Dana boomer (talk) 13:14, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Prehistory templates and categorisations

I'm going to begin making significant changes to the templates and categories for Prehistory. If anyone would like to help/provide constructive criticism that would be most welcome. The key existing templates are currently found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Historical_period_templates It may even make sense to create a new category for them. What do people think? PatHadley (talk) 20:26, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

I think those would be long-needed changes. Looking over the templates in that cat, there seems to be a lot of overlap, e.g. {{Human history}} and {{Human history and prehistory}}, which could be simplified. Also, the majority are side boxes which seem to have fallen out of use in favour of navboxes at the bottom of the page (or at least that's my impression). Perhaps they should be replaced by navboxes? joe•roe^t•c 08:00, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

Assessment drive

I think this project needs an assessment drive. But before that someone needs to spell out the importance criteria a bit better.

what's important for each of the various categories - processes, finds, sites, ongoing digs, (other stuff?). Also need some guidance on when to tag it as WP history - for things that are old but not archaelogy and (I guess) some guidance on when to tag it WP paleontology - for things that are really old and in the ground (Pompeii for instance seems to have 'fossil' humans, dogs etc - but I'm guessing that's not tagged for paleontology - as they are not presumably interested within the historic period)? Wow it doesn't even have WikiProject Archaeology - perhaps I'm barking up the wrong tree here? Is that not in the 'scope' of this project ?EdwardLane (talk) 11:10, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Pompeii is definitely in the scope of this project, I've just tagged it.

You're right, there's a massive backlog of unassessed articles and also, I suspect, a significant amount of articles in our scope that aren't tagged. I made a bit of a dint in it last year, just assigning importances ad hoc. I wouldn't know where to start in 'codifying' it. Do other projects have more detailed guidelines for importance? I don't know.

There is a significant overlap with WP History. Off the top of my head: anything concerning prehistory is automatically in Archaeology's scope; and anything to do with Ancient Egypt or the Near East, classical civilisation (Greece, Rome), or Mesoamerican civilisation, is likely to be unless the article is about a particular historical figure or battle or something. But the latter list all have dedicated WikiProjects too. Beyond that I would say leave everything old to WP History alone unless it's explicitly about an archaeological site or monument.

Palaeontology should be quite clear cut though. We're not concerned with fossils. Even human ones would be better tagged with WP Anthropology than WP Archaeology. The remains at Pompeii aren't fossils, btw. joe•roe^t•c 11:39, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Some wikiprojects have reasonably detailed definitions of what to class at what level of importance - for example Wikipedia:WikiProject Volcanoes/Assessment#Importance_scale

I'm not saying this needs a high level of definition but I can't assess an article unless I know what is important to the project - obviously I know if soemthing is very important or very trivial but the middle ground is a bit more tricky. Each site/find is obviously one of a kind in some way.

How about

Low for all sites that have not been studied,
mid if they have been dug, but nothing notable (with it's own WP article) was found
high if there were notable finds,
top if there were multiple notable finds

then you need some assessment for finds high importance or better probably if its got a wikipedia article about it?

what else needs covering ? various techniques - dating, stratigraphy, conservation (or is that WP museums?) as a rough guess that might cover physical archaeology but not archive searching archaeology (is there a proper word for that ?)

If you get the list spelled out like that then you could get any old volunteer to start assessing articles. I'd guess many that have been assessed might need reassessment once you have a scale. I gather you could then advertise an assessment drive in signpost or something similar, and might get some assistance that way. Just a thought anyway :) EdwardLane (talk) 23:58, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Hmmm just testing how that fits for my perceptions so I had a look at Stonehenge it has one 'notable' find mentioned in the article Stonehenge Archer so I think I'd probably tag that as high (but not top) importance to archaeology based on the scheme above, and I think that's fair - what do you think ? Perhaps unesco status should promote any site to top importance? EdwardLane (talk) 00:06, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

It's a start. The archaeology of standing buildings will have to fit in somewhere. Nev1 (talk) 00:14, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

Just wrote a long reply to all this but I'm on rubbish train wifi and it got lost! I'll rewrite soon! Loving the enthusiasm! PatHadley (talk) 06:53, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

I don't think those criteria will work, we have very few articles for individual finds, and in any case that's not really how the importance of sites are judged. It would have to be something like this:

Low for most sites
Mid if they're the type site of a major culture (e.g. Vinca-Belo Brdo), have been excavated several times (e.g. Varna Necropolis) or are otherwise very significant in a particular specialist field (e.g. Star Carr)
High if they've been investigated by large scale, high profile excavations (e.g. Catalhoyuk) or have had a major impact on our understanding of the past (e.g. Monte Verde)
Top if they meet the above and are iconic outside the field (e.g. Stonehenge, Palace of Minos)

But I understand how it would be difficult to apply those just looking at the articles without any background knowledge. How can we fix that? joe•roe^t•c 08:30, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

ok some interesting points raised there - and I don't know the answers. If a site has a series of high profile excavations it suggests to me that there is a high likelyhood of there having been interesting things found at the site. And if there were no interesting things found at the site - was the high profile of the dig just a 'bunch of hype'? I personally feel that the 'media profile of the dig' is probably not important to archaeology in and of itself (except I guess that it inspires people toward becoming archaeologists).

I think most of the 'iconic' things are unesco sites - so it was suggested they get top billing anyway, but sites having major impact on our understanding presumably had some 'notable' discoveries?

High profile in scientific journals suggests something has been found/discovered/confirmed/denied - and perhaps in all these unassessed articles there are those articles on the finds/discoveries that should be linked to articles?

If there is an article about a site that by my scheme above would only rank 'medium' and you think it deserves 'top' what makes that site 'very significant' - is it the scale, the age, the number of times it have been studied/dug? Should the things that were found have a redlink at least?

The idea (as I understand it) of these assessments is to encourage people to expand/improve articles on things that ought to be expanded - so yes I think my scheme falls down if notable finds/discoveries don't have articles. Perhaps redlinks to notable things should count toward the assessment - even if no one has actually created the article.

EdwardLane (talk) 09:18, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

Okay there might be some crossed wires here. When you say "finds" I take that to mean individual, tangible objects. So notable finds are things like the Rosetta Stone or the Vindolanda tablets. We do have articles on that kind of thing (increasingly, thanks to WP:GLAM/BM) but not very many and the importance of a site isn't measured in the amount of spectacular objects found there. Discoveries is a better word because it also covers discoveries in the scientific sense, like how at the Talheim Death Pit it was discovered that the Neolithic was really quite violent. But, still, that kind of scientific discovery generally isn't the subject of its own article, and for a lot of otherwise important sites, like Catalhoyuk or Star Carr, it's hard to point to individual discoveries, they just on aggregate have contributed a lot to our understand of X period and Y region because they've been thoroughly researched. Which is, by the way, what I meant by high profile – scientific not media. joe•roe^t•c 11:59, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

Some crossed wires but not completely crossed :) I do tend to mean tangible objects or tangible bits of information. I think that archaeology produces information which lets us work out history. So finding the information is archaeology, and the things that are found out are still archaeology, but once it's it all hanging together it is history (or pre recorded history) in my mind. Take the Talheim Death pit example you gave - I don't know anything about it - but to find out that the neolithic was violent - they must have found wounded bones or weapons or something tangible. I've just read the article - and that seems correct. According to my suggested assessment it would rate as 'medium' but it's currently listed as 'low', mass graves are probably not that uncommon (sad to say), so perhaps many of them would be low inmportance, ones that got investigated should be mid, and (inconveniently for us trying to work out what is 'important') all of those would have allowed researchers to draw new conclusions - so deciding the significance of those conclusions for any given dig (which might even in some cases be wrong) is probably difficult. So I was inclined to just go on 'tangible' finds in the hope that 'important discoveries' would mostly be based on 'tangible finds' and that if they were 'really' significant that the finds in their own right would probably have a stub article, probably over optimistically simplified view things, but I was going for a broad strokes approach. EdwardLane (talk) 15:06, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

Heh, that's not a view of archaeology's relationship with history that most archaeologists would agree with :)

Perhaps the best thing to do is to just get down some very rough guidelines, press on with assessing articles, and refine them as and when we find tricky cases. Examples will probably help more than verbal guidelines anyway. Something like:

Low A site or standing monument that has been surveyed or recorded but not investigated in depth (not been studied = no coverage in RS = we shouldn't have an article on it!)
Mid A site or standing monument that has been excavated or otherwise investigated in depth
High An investigated site where significant discoveries have been made
Top An investigated site where significant discoveries have been made and that is widely known (e.g. has UNESCO World Heritage status)

Regarding other categories of articles that could use guidelines, off the top of my head we have: prehistoric cultures & archaeological civilisations (e.g. Cucuteni-Trypillian culture, Sumer), periods (e.g. Neolithic, First Temperate Neolithic) fieldwork concepts and techniques (e.g. feature (archaeology), radiocarbon dating), theoretical concepts (e.g. archaeological culture), specific artifacts, specific archaeologists and probably several more. joe•roe^t•c 16:30, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

that sounds good to me (but I'm not an archaeologist just an amateur interested in things - so I'm not surprised my view is a bit off centre). EdwardLane (talk) 22:20, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

Years in archaeology

The first couple of hundred articles in Category:Unassessed Archaeology articles are years in archaeology articles (Category:Years in archaeology). Is it fair to say these can all be assessed as "List" class and "Low" importance? User:EdwardLane has pointed out that we can use a bot to do this sort of thing automatically. joe•roe^t•c 11:41, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

Sounds like a good suggestino to me. Nev1 (talk) 11:55, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

Ivory pomegranate

The ivory pomegranate may be a hoax or it may provide evidence for the existence of Solomon's Temple. I'm hoping someone can check a couple of edits that use this report to move the articles away from hoax towards genuine: diff and diff. Johnuniq (talk) 01:08, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Bold proposal to reorganize Template:Ancient Mesopotamia

I have made a proposal to reorganize Template:Ancient Mesopotamia. See here for the discussion; see here for the actual new draft. Your input is appreciated!--Zoeperkoe (talk) 19:01, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

Manis Mastodon Site

Hey folks, so, I did this article years ago, an just this afternoon heard a story on NPR talking about a bunch of scientists finally figuring out that the theory of the original archaeologist of this site were right. The findings were published in the journal Science (here if you have a membership or whatever), and its getting tons of press (here and here], since it kind of threw the whole Clovis first theory out on its head decades ago, but people ignored it. Anyway, this seems like a really good opportunity to get an important archaeology article up to good or featured status. And yeah, I know, SODOIT and all that, but I just don't have the time to delve back in to wikiland. So, just consider this a friendly prod! Murderbike (talk) 05:24, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Praeneste fibula, help with Italian-language source needed

Can anyone help with Praeneste fibula? The Italian version cites a newspaper article (available online) which reports new research apparently indicating that the inscription is genuine after all (as I'd already suspected given the vagueness of the indications in favour of a fake, and the improbability of devising a still convincing forgery of an Archaic Latin inscription in the 19th century), but my Italian is rusty, my technical vocabulary even more limited, as is my understanding of the technical details involved. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 19:12, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

Attilios (talk · contribs) or GiacomoReturned (talk · contribs) might be able to help or put you in touch with Italian-speaking editors. Nev1 (talk) 19:16, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

Naming Dispute over History of Pottery in the Southern Levant

Recently, the article History of Pottery in the Southern Levant was moved to History of Pottery in Palestine. It had been under the title History of Pottery in the Southern Levant for around 5 years, and it had been my understanding that this was in order to keep the article NPOV. I am currently in a dispute with the editor who moved the page on the article talk page and was wondering if anyone would be able to assist regarding the proper naming of the article. Thanks Drsmoo (talk) 00:48, 8 December 2011 (UTC)