Talk:Alepotrypa Cave/GA1

GA Review
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Reviewer: Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk · contribs) 11:30, 8 February 2018 (UTC)

GA review – see WP:WIAGA for criteria


 * 1) Is it well written?
 * A. The prose is clear and concise, and the spelling and grammar are correct:
 * There is some repetition in the lead, e.g "found". How does the "Mycenaean ossuary" relate to the whole site? "A link" is vague. What is this "Diros" and "mepotism"? I don't think that injuries "present" evidence, they are evidence. Also, I am not certain that " frequent violent confrontations" can be reformulated as " this period was particularly violent". In general, there are a lot of short sentences that could use being merged together.
 * B. It complies with the manual of style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation:
 * 1) Is it verifiable with no original research?
 * A. It contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline:
 * B. All in-line citations are from reliable sources, including those for direct quotations, statistics, published opinion, counter-intuitive or controversial statements that are challenged or likely to be challenged, and contentious material relating to living persons&mdash;science-based articles should follow the scientific citation guidelines:
 * C. It contains no original research:
 * Some sources are not accessible so I did not check them. I thought that 5,800 is part of the 5th millennium BC. I trust that source #11 speaks of the rarity of silver tools? Where do the coordinates and infobox information come from?
 * D. It contains no copyright violations nor plagiarism:
 * I am a little concerned about the similarity between little meat or fish, and that their diet was heavy in barley and wheat. in the article and ate a diet heavy in barley and wheat with little meat or fish.
 * 1) Is it broad in its coverage?
 * A. It addresses the main aspects of the topic:
 * No information on research history and the cave itself?
 * B. It stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style):
 * 1) Is it neutral?
 * It represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each:
 * 1) Is it stable?
 * It does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute:
 * 1) Is it illustrated, if possible, by images?
 * A. Images are tagged with their copyright status, and valid fair use rationales are provided for non-free content:
 * B. Images are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions:
 * 1) Overall:
 * Pass or Fail:
 * 1) Is it illustrated, if possible, by images?
 * A. Images are tagged with their copyright status, and valid fair use rationales are provided for non-free content:
 * B. Images are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions:
 * 1) Overall:
 * Pass or Fail:
 * 1) Overall:
 * Pass or Fail:
 * Pass or Fail:


 * 1) Regarding the main aspects - I've found a source for this and will try to flesh this out later tonight.
 * 2) "little meat or fish, and that their diet was heavy in barley and wheat" - changed to "farmers who inhabited this area ate mostly barley and wheat."
 * 3) I don't remember where I got the coords from but they were a little off, so I changed them based on Google Maps (location of the Diros Caves of which Alepotrypa is one).
 * Yes, the rarity of silver in this region is well-attested to - I'm not able to pull up the source right now but it's discussed elsewhere like in the Oxford Encyclopedia of the Near East Silver is extremely rare from contemporary sites in the Aegean; the only example known to date is a silver pendant from the Alepotrypa cave hoard in Mani, in southern Greece (Muhly, 1985a, p. 112)
 * 1) Regarding 4th millenium BCE the source says "from roughly 5800 years ago" - it was written in 2015 BC, this would place the date around 3785 BCE, which I think would be the 4th millenium...

Regarding criteria 1:
 * 1) I've tried to combine sentences, and I did see some redundancies which I've tried to combine and fix.
 * 2) frequent violent confrontations => violent confrontations
 * 3) Regarding "link" between Alepotrypa and classical traditions - I've made some changes and slightly reordered the paragraph. I've added a quote from Papathanasiou to clarify, "there's no direct evidence, but we can't rule out that possibility" - I have also tried to make this more clear in the lede by adding the reburial and links to Hades.
 * 4) Diros is explained in the article in the Overview section The Alepotrypa cave is one of the caves of Diros located in the Mani region of the Peloponnese peninsula. I will add some more detail about this, as disucssed above.
 * 5) Mepotism is a typo for Metopism, which I've removed because it is specifically about Ossuary II and I think that level of technical detail may be too much. I've rewritten the whole thing as "Based on evidence found at the site, archaeologists believe that the early farmers who inhabited this area ate mostly barley and wheat, and suggest that non-lethal head injuries found on the skulls may indicate violent confrontations."

Is this better? I will add some more background about the project's history also. Seraphim System ( talk ) 07:18, 9 February 2018 (UTC)

I added a brief summary of the Diros Regional Project's findings during the regional survey that was conducted before they published the findings of the cave excavation. I also added the wikilink for Diros. I think that covers all of the points you raised, but let me know if you see anything else. Seraphim System ( talk ) 10:16, 9 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Seems like most of the stuff is resolved, except that of the "main aspects". Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 11:01, 9 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Can you be more specific? Some of the details are highly technical - I could include them but they are things like what the terrain was like during the survey, or very in-depth bone analysis from Ossuary II and Ossuary I - I left these out because I thought it would make it overly detailed and less readable - I could possibly add Ossuary II and metopism back in - I didn't want to detract from the article's readability by making it too technical and adding every detail, so I tried to find a balance. Regarding the research history what I added was:

"Excavations led by Giorgos Papathanassopoulos began in 1970 and in 2010 the Diros Regional Project was founded to conduct a regional survey as the Alepotrypa excavation team began to prepare their findings for publication. Late Neolithic (LN) material has been found in the cave itself, but as of 2013 the survey team has only found material dating to the Final Neolithic (FN) in the nearby open-air areas." Seraphim System ( talk ) 11:16, 9 February 2018 (UTC)


 * I found another source and expanded some of the missing the "main aspects" - I think this was what you meant by main aspects and the research history? Seraphim System  ( talk ) 11:52, 9 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Aye. I was also thinking of explaining how the cave formed etc. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 13:11, 9 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Ok, I added this line "The Mani peninsula is mostly made up of Mesozoic carbonate rocks like limestone, which erode as a result of hydrogeological conditions on the peninsula and form karst caves like Alepotrypa." which I think covers the main points - the linked articles go into more detail. Seraphim System ( talk ) 14:13, 9 February 2018 (UTC)
 * One last question: Is there any discussion of geomorphic features such as stalagmites, stalactites and so on? Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 21:27, 9 February 2018 (UTC)

✅ I restored the stalagmite type marble idol, which I noticed has been published in quite a few sources. I also added stalagmites and stalactites to the image caption in the infobox, since the image has very good examples of these features. Thirdly, I found a source about recent research that has used the stalagmites to study climate variations, such as droughts, and human activity in the cave, which I also added. This is all that I was able to find on this outside travel guides (I checked gale, ebsco, jstor, also.) Seraphim System  ( talk ) 13:47, 10 February 2018 (UTC)
 * That seems good. Granted, there may be reliable sources among travel guides; but now I am wondering if I am asking too much with regards to criterium 3a so I'll ask for a second opinion. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 17:04, 10 February 2018 (UTC)
 * I don't really think you are asking too much exactly, but I think this can be resolved without a second opinion if you can just state clearly and specifically what is missing based on the available WP:RS. Having reviewed basically all the avaialble sources, I think it currently covers every major aspect without being overly detailed and technical. I've had to guess at what you think is missing, which is not the same as asking too much - but I haven't found any sources with more detailed discussion of stalagmites and stalactites - I can't add something I don't have sources for. I don't consider travel guides reliable sources, as they are largely promotional. Seraphim System ( talk ) 00:51, 11 February 2018 (UTC)
 * You are of course free to ask for a second opinion for any reason, but I really don't want to use travel guides as WP:RS. I don't think it will improve the quality of the article - examples of the discussion in the travel guides The crystal-studded stalactites (the ones hanging from the ceilings like icicles) and stalagmites (the ones rising from the cave's floor) are spectacular, in shades of rose, green, amber, black, blood red, and purple., "an entertaining and surreal experience" - this is not GA-appropriate stuff, and none of this is a "major aspect". I would really like you to be clear about what you want because I think the article has significantly improved because of your comments so far. Seraphim System ( talk ) 01:30, 11 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Yeah, if that is the standard of travel guide content then we can probably pass it up. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 17:00, 11 February 2018 (UTC)