Talk:Gusuku period/GA1

GA Review
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Nominator: 03:05, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

Reviewer: Kanguole (talk · contribs) I will review this, as it is adjacent to some topics I've worked on. I have access to all the cited sources. This is my first review, so I may be a bit slow and/or make mistakes. 23:48, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for writing this article, which I believe is broad and focussed. I have a few comments.

Lead

 * consider infobox archaeological culture? (not a GA requirement)
 * I forgot this was an infobox; thank you! - G
 * Mention namesake gusuku only constructed in second half of period
 * Done. -G
 * I was going to suggest just saying that the gusuku were fortresses, but I see that "resembled" is there because "castle" is linked to Japanese castle. Maybe that's a bit EGGy, but it does feel inelegant.
 * Fortresses is probably less ambiguous.- G
 * 3rd and 4th sentences: see comments on Language below
 * "at Kikaijima" -> "on Kikai"?
 * "emergence of the Proto-Ryukyuan language" isn't the right way to put it (see Language again)
 * Is "Widespread" justified?
 * Fair, that might be overstating the case. - G
 * re-arrange last sentence to start with "The Gusuku period is usually considered to have ended when ..."
 * Done. - G

Chronology

 * It might help less familiar readers if the article were to start with a very brief summary of the geographical context, e.g. that the Ryukyus are an island arc between Kyushu and Taiwan, that they're divided into northern (Ōsumi), central and southern (Sakishima), that the big islands Amami and Okinawa are in the central group, and there's a big gap between the central and southern groups. Maybe some idea of the size of the big islands too.
 * I was going to say that this works best in the next section, but then I realized that works better as the beginning of the article anyhow. Moved this around a bit. - G
 * Some indication of the sources of information on the period might be useful. As I understand it, this is mainly archaeology, with a few mentions in Chinese, Korean and Japanese sources in the final century and written histories of the late part on Okinawa from the 17th century. Perhaps expand the scope of the section to scholarship or something?
 * The definition in Pearson (1998) is not so much broader as later, namely 1200–1609. The shift, driven by new data in the 1990s and 2000s, is discussed at Pearson (2013) p145. This also explains how scholars initially tied the period to gusuku construction.
 * Could mention the Early/Late subdivision (Pearson 2013 p146).
 * "mid-Yayoi" -> "Middle Yayoi"? The dating is imprecise, but that's all the source offers.

Prehistory

 * The section title isn't quite right, as the Gusuku period is also prehistory, or proto-history in the later part. Maybe "Early settlement"?
 * I'm not sure about "Intermittent" and "began". The source would support saying there are modern human remains between 32 and 16 kya.
 * Add BCE to end of second sentence.
 * Done. -G
 * 1st para says "populate" and then "repopulation", begging the question of a gap and how long it was.
 * If Sakishima are also included, maybe there should be a paragraph on their settlement history. Pearson 2013 pp40, 71–80 discusses this.
 * I see that Pearson (2013) p10 answers these questions, though his dates are a bit different than Takamiya and Shinzato.
 * The first sentence of the 2nd para doesn't quite work grammatically. The easiest fix is probably to split it after "did not emerge".
 * Low populations are a direct consequence of carrying capacity, but this only one of four reasons advanced by Takamiya and Shinzato.
 * inconsistent number between "boar" and "mammals"
 * Combine the two citations of Pearson (2013) at the end of the 2nd para into one with all the pages?
 * "theorized" -> "suggested" or "proposed"?
 * "in lieu of" doesn't quite fit in this context. "in favor of"?
 * Pearson 2013 ref for cultivation should be pp102–103, 106–108
 * The statement about "lone unambiguous cultigens from the Shellmidden" seems to contradict the mention of "Agriculture" in the 800s. This is clarified on pp25–26 of Takamiya and Nakamura.

Agriculture

 * Takamiya and Nakamura say 10th century for the Okinawa archipelago.
 * Dropping the "Ōshima" after Amami (as done elsewhere in the article) seems more natural.
 * the 2nd para says "possibly beans", but the 3rd baldly asserts "Adzuki beans"
 * "at Miyako-jima" -> "on Miyako"

Trade and foreign relations

 * The first paragraph jumps around a bit. Since the new ceramics from China, Kyushu and Tokunoshima are key markers of the Gusuku period, perhaps it would make sense to split it into one on ceramic and soapstone vessels and another on other trade.
 * "Yayoi" -> "Yayoi period"?
 * the "import ... alongside" structure doesn't quite work: restructure?
 * "Korea, Thai, and Vietnamese" -> "Korean, Thai, and Vietnamese"?
 * Maybe a parenthetical on Dazaifu so readers don't have to click it to find out what it is?
 * "at Kikaijima" -> "on Kikai"?
 * sulfur: might be more accurate to say that sulfur exported from Japan to China is likely to have originated from deposits on Iōjima. In fact, Pearson's phrasing might even suggest direct trade with China.
 * "the" before "Joseon kingdom". Or maybe say "to Ming China and Joseon Korea" to assume less of the reader?
 * Hyōtō Ryūkyū-koku ki: isn't there some uncertainty as to what "Ryūkyū" refers to here? Akamine doesn't say Okinawa.

Language

 * This section is based on one research paper (Jarosz et al). Another source, such as Pellard 2015 (see below) might give more balance.
 * It seems to be the consensus view that the Gusuku population spoke predecessors of the Ryukyuan languages. Jarosz et al dismiss the trade-creole theory quickly (pp6–7) – it doesn't seem to have any support that would justify including it. They also point out (p15) that the dates don't work for the Hayato theory.
 * A proto-language is usually thought of as a formal construct obtained by working backward from contemporary languages, so one wouldn't normally talk about people speaking it. The issue here is how (and where) the Ryukyuan languages came split from the rest of Japonic. The archaeologists put forward the Gusuku as the only suitable migration, but the linguists thought the differences from Old Japanese implied a split early in the common era (Pellard p30). The consensus now seems to reconcile these, with an early split in Kyushu and later migration (Pellard pp30–31, Jarosz et al p18). Common Ryukyuan words borrowed from Old Japanese fit with this idea (Pellard pp22–23).

Architecture

 * Delete the comma after "posts", to avoid confusion about small houses?
 * Restructure the sentence about spacing so that ken is in parentheses after an equivalent English term?
 * 1 m rather than 100 cm?
 * Rearrange the "hearths" sentence to make the houses the subject, to match the second clause?

Gusuku

 * "placed" -> "established" or "built"? Maybe move the time to the front of the sentence to improve the flow?
 * Perhaps the first sentence of the 2nd para belongs with the first para, so it is clear which island is referred to. If that makes the 1st para too long, it could be split before the first gusuku sentence.
 * I would drop the Ōshima after Amami.
 * Use hectares instead of 10,000s of m^2?

Society and governance + Emergence of the Ryukyu Kingdom

 * While the earlier part of the article is mostly based on archaeological findings, the last two sections are based on the 17th century Chūzan Seikan, to some extent correlated with contemporary foreign sources and archaeological information (Pearson 2013 pp234–235 has a bit on that). It would be useful to identify the primary sources here. Smits 2019 pp3–6 has a list (with much more detail than needed here). This would also be a suitable point to talk about Shunten in connection with the parts of the Chūzan Seikan being discounted.
 * Akimine says the aji emerged and began building gusuku in the early Gusuku, but other authors say that gusuku building started in the mid 13th century. Akimine is pitched at a general audience and doesn't discuss what this is based on.
 * Smits 2019 chapters 4 and 5 tends to be a bit more cautious with the received histories.
 * In "limits the understanding of state and religion" I think understanding of the relationship between state and religion is meant.
 * "based after" -> "based on"?
 * Specify that Shun was a Chinese legendary emperor?
 * The image is said to be public domain because it is old, which is certainly true of the original painting, but we don't know the source of this version. Perhaps it's a scan from a more recent book, which could be a problem. In any case, an artist's impression from three centuries after the subject's reign isn't terribly informative. Perhaps a map of Sanzan Okinawa would be more helpful?
 * "in a common symbolic end date to the Gusuku period" might be misunderstood as saying the period existed at that time. Rephrase?