Talk:Pre-modern human migration

Why
There is nothing about why this happened, though.

This article talks endlessly about the complicated pattern of Indo-European migrations, and barely (if hardly at all) even mentions human settling of the rest of the world.

Horrible Title
Doesn't anyone think this should be PRE-historic migration, or something along those lines?


 * The title appears confusing and not obviously distinct from Human migration. The word "history" can be used in the general sense to include prehistory. A more well-defined article title may be "History of human migration" or "Timeline of human migration" (as in Timeline of human evolution). Shawnc 23:59, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Actually it very definitely should be HISTORIC migration as it is. There is another Wikipedia page with excellent detail on EARLY HUMAN MIGRATION, i.e. prehistoric. The real problem is that the first section has no business on this page. "Historic" generally implies time periods sense the development of written records, even if other tools, like archeology, are also useful. "Pre-historic" studies examine events exclusively through forensics because no historic records are available. So this entire article should only address the migrations that have occurred since the dawn of written history, leaving the other migrations to the early human migration article. A tricky issue would be where the case of major migrations should be discussed if there was no written record of the migrations, but they clearly occurred after many or most other civilizations had developed writing, for instance the Polynesian migrations. I would suggest that to avoid too much confusion, those migrations knowable only through archaeological, linguistic and genetic studies should be covered in the early human migrations article and those migrations knowable from records should be discussed in this article, historic migration. A final quandary arises from migrations related to civilizations that clearly had records, but whose records are not decipherable. I would argue that they should remain in the early migrations article until such time as we are able to decipher them. If a decipherment of the Harappan script answers questions about the Indo-Aryan migration or of Linear A answers questions about the early peoples of the east Mediterranean, then those would be moved into the historic article only at that time. Just a suggestion. Ftjrwrites (talk) 20:49, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

The maps of early migrations
I can't see the reason for a lot of the dates in these maps. While it is true that the order of the divergence in the genetical markers can be statistically defined and rreasonably accurate, the timing of these divergences is not very accurate (as more data is acquired the accuracy gets better, i guess). Maybe a map just with the arrows would be better? The later migrations seriously challenge these models, too, and the subject will be under research for a long time. Additionally, the maps are not in all places in accordance with the National geographic map (which I guess should be somewhat better verified). Add to that, I'm not for the deletion, but the maps on this subject should be marked as models, always, until somesort of consensus is reached. 91.153.56.195 04:25, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

history stops in early modern times???
Why does it stop with early modern times?


 * I cannot see how that is justified, since the amount of large-distance migrations has increased greatly since then, reaching peaks at the turn of the twentieth century and just now.


 * Moreover, I believe a text on this existed half a year ago (I contributed to that...) It seems to have been deleted without a comment here... strange... Tam 16:22, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Forced migration is typical for the 20 th Century. After the lost wars the victors expelled the losers after the 1. und especially after the 2. World War to get ethnically homogenious national states. In times before just the rulers of a country had changed, the people could stay in their home countries.--Wurzeln und Flügel (talk) 16:16, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

Map request
A map for the section "Medieval and Early Modern Europe" would be helpful. -- Beland 04:06, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Expanded detail on American colonization
The previous commentary on the settlement of the English colonies of North America in the colonization section was both inadequate and incorrect. It previously stated that the state controlled migration during the 17th century and religiously motivated migration increased during the 18th century. The opposite is the case. The major haven for religious dissidents in the English colonies, the New England colonies beginning with those that evolved into Massachusetts, saw the bulk of migration during the 1630s with periodic waves thereafter. This had everything to do with the conflict between these people, mostly Puritans, and the High Anglican Stuart monarchs. Once the monarchy was overthrown in 1648, and a Puritan dictatorship set up in England through the 1650s, the level of migration tapered off. Only to pick up again after the Stuarts were restored and then really take off when the unpopular James II came to the throne. The so-called Glorious Revolution settled the religious question amicably enough for most parties, but William III staged a major power grab in the colonies after intervening in conflicts with the Algonquins in the northeastern colonies and helping to put down the related Bacon's Rebellion in Virginia. This much detail wasn't necessary in the main article here, but the point is that the facts were quite opposite of those stated, at least for England. And England was the major source of emigration to the Americas with a colonial population of Europeans in the New World that exceeded those of the other major players. The Spanish came to conquer, the French to trade, but the English came to stay, resulting in a very different type of colony. This much detail on the English colonies in North America might seem unwarranted if they were not so significant for the future history of the world.Ftjrwrites (talk) 20:59, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Merger proposal
Looking at this talk page it is obvious many before me have noticed that this article is mostly not about historical migration at all. I didn't at first sight see anyone mentioning that another article exists with very similar content: Early human migrations. I have proposed a merger.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 13:13, 24 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Andrew, I think the merger idea is good, but only if the all the pre-historic material from Historical migration is merged into Early human migrations. Then leave the rest of the material here and let it expand. Also, both should be WP:SUMMARY-ized at Human migration.--Carwil (talk) 12:17, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

The map is wrong
On Thracian land it says "Illyrians" and not Thracians - what the????!!!!It should be Thracians. It is accepted knowledge that there were Thracians there, it was Thrace.

Move mistake ??
I think someone made a bit of a mistake....moving the article to "Pre-modern human" as the page clearly deals with Anatomically modern human. I assume all would agree that modern humans were around during the Iron and dark ages....that this article talks about. Only briefly does it mention other Archaic humans from before 200,000 - Moxy (talk) 12:55, 19 July 2015 (UTC)


 * I think that two different usages of the term "modern" are at stake here. As used here, it refers to the (veeeeeeeeeeery long) period before ca. 1500 CE, not to the whole period of the anatomically modern humans. When taken literally, "Historical migration" would refer to all the migrations which took place in the "historical era," that is, the period for which written documents exist. Best regards,  Joshua Jonathan   -  Let's talk!   14:00, 19 July 2015 (UTC)
 * so clearly the new title is confused..--Moxy (talk) 15:36, 20 July 2015 (UTC).. this should be amended.

Organization of articles about the human migration timeline
Reviving the discussion about mergers/moves... I think the problem with all these articles is the use of vague terms in the titles like "early" and "pre-modern" which have different meanings among the various disciplines that are covered by the scope of human migration (history, archeology, biology, anthropology, geopolitics, etc.). I suggest renaming the articles based on universally recognized time periods, e.g., pre-historic/historical; paleolithic/mesolithic/neolithic; copper/bronze/iron ages; or some other defined time periods. (copper/bronze/iron ages is probably less useful because the periods are different for different parts of the world).

For reference, I've found the following extant articles related to human migration: Human migration, History of human migration, Early human migrations, Pre-modern human migration, Immigration, Emigration, Migrant, Diaspora, Migration studies, Mass migration, Irregular migration, Existential migration, Religion and human migration, Economic results of migration, Economic migrant, Environmental migrant, Forced migration, Population transfer, Human settlement, List of Neolithic settlements, Middle Bronze Age migrations (Ancient Near East), coastal migration, Transatlantic migrations and a host of other articles about specific migrations to/from particular countries or regions ( the disam at Great_Migration lists a few).  Sparkie82 ( t • c )  01:11, 20 January 2017 (UTC)

Language spread vs. population migration

 * During the Holocene climatic optimum, formerly isolated populations began to move and merge, giving rise to the pre-modern distribution of the world's major language families.

Much of the article continues in this way, describing the spread of languages, rather than people. Obviously the two are correlated (and the pre-modern distribution of languages is one of the key pieces of evidence for migration patterns)—but they're not identical except in rare cases (e.g., Polynesian), and in some cases they're not related at all (e.g., there was no mass migration of English-speakers to India). This isn't explained anywhere; it's at best obliquely hinted at in the paragraphs on Indo-European, Sami, and tropical Colonialism.

But I think before trying to fix this, someone needs to figure out the division of the subject into separate articles, as mentioned by the two-year-old comment above. Much of the same material is covered in the Holocene section of the early human migration article (which goes all the way up to the Inuit and Polynesian migrations), with different strengths and weaknesses, and it seems like it would be silly to try to fix either of them independently rather than sorting things out so they don't overlap. --157.131.201.206 (talk) 19:36, 24 February 2019 (UTC)

BC vice BCE?
As the article title says, this is about pre-modern migrations. And such a topic expands well beyond AD and BC era designations. Accordingly, we ought to use Common Era (CE) and Before Common Era (BCE) designations. Thoughts? – S. Rich (talk) 05:06, 3 July 2024 (UTC)


 * I don't understand the argument there. CE and BCE cover exactly the same time periods as AD and BC. If the point is that this extends so far beyond AD/CE that a different system should be used, the argument would be for using BP instead. See MOS:ERA. If sources are using BP, then that would be a logical change. I don't think they are though. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 07:37, 3 July 2024 (UTC)
 * As MOS:ERA says, the article context is the deciding factor. Since this article is about "pre-modern" migration", Before Christ" does apply. The article Recent African origin of modern humans manages (almost) to avoid using "BC". I think this article can do so as well. – S. Rich (talk) 17:40, 3 July 2024 (UTC)
 * It appears your objection is not the one you stated. Again, if it is pre-modern, it is BC just as much as it is BCE. What that is before is irrelevant. It is still before something. But in linking to Anno Domini with that alt text, I think your objection might be more in line with this failed proposal: Neutral point of view/BCE-CE Debate. This is a stable AD/BC page, and there would need to be a good reason to change it beyond "another article uses it". Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 19:19, 3 July 2024 (UTC)


 * Christ has nothing to do with Stonehenge pre-modern human migration, so why would we use an outdated belief as the measure for time? Joshua Jonathan  -  Let's talk!  21:07, 3 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Not an issue for this page. The meta question would need an RfC regarding changes to MOS:ERA. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 21:40, 3 July 2024 (UTC)
 * It surely is. Why should we impose an Eurocentric religious belief on Bantu migrations or South Asia? Joshua Jonathan  -  Let's talk!  03:42, 4 July 2024 (UTC)
 * MOS:ERA says "Either convention may be appropriate for use in Wikipedia articles depending on the article context (italics added).” This guidance answers our question. The context of this article is Pre-modern human history throughout the world. Accordingly, BCE is the appropriate convention. (An RFC is not needed.) – S. Rich (talk) 21:58, 5 July 2024 (UTC)
 * We are not imposing a religious belief. It is an abbreviation. And MOS:STYLERET indicates we retain the status quo as per the initial page creators choice, unless there is good reason to change. The arguments here are along the lines of you don't like what the C stands for, but you are still happy to go with euroecentric dating system that starts at exactly the same point. It isn't the dating you have an issue with, it is the labelling. If you were concerned about Bantu migrations, wouldn't you want to use their dating system? Isn't it imposing a Eurocentric POV to avoid using the Islamic calendar? or the Korean one? We can call the Christian era the Common era, but we still date it from the Christian meridian of times. So none of these arguments make any sense. There may well be a very good argument for changing the dating, but this is not it. And I specifically said the RfC would be needed for the meta discussion, which would be resurrecting the NPOV/BCE-CE Debate proposal. Whether an RfC is needed on this page is not yet clear, because we don't have a very clear proposal yet. I certainly hope that we might have input from more editors though. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 22:25, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

In my comment above, I say there may well be a good argument for changing the dating, but this is not it. So what would be a good argument? As always, it is all about the sources and the standards of the field. If sources universally used one abbreviation, there would indeed be a strong argument for over-riding page creator preference. But that is not what we have here. I have been through all the sources on the page. I didn't look exhaustively at all the references. Some did not obviously use any dating, and so I have ignored those. I also didn't access references not available online. However, here are all the ones that I could see, and they give a very mixed picture. In my list I include a word or two about what or where the source is about, in case any patterns emerged. Hard to see one: So in this survey of sources, we have 5 BCE sources, 9 AD/BC sources, and 3 that use BP, although only 1 uses BP exclusively. It is not a scientific sample of the literature, so I won't make too big a thing of the majority for BC, but it is indicative that there is no argument that the subject matter of this field uses BCE exclusively, nor nearly so. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 18:29, 6 July 2024 (UTC)
 * China: BP - Yes this one eschews European dating for BP
 * Britain: BCE
 * Europe: BCE
 * National Geographic, Europeans: BC
 * Europe: BCE
 * Genetics: AD, BP (interesting mix)
 * Genetics: BC
 * Europe: BC
 * Africa: BCE
 * Britain: BCE, BP
 * Ethiosemetic languages: BC
 * Eurasion DNA - BC
 * Austro-Tai Hypothesis - BC
 * China: - AD/BC
 * China: BC


 * And one more, since Bantu was specifically mentioned, I accessed that source through my institution, even though it was not readily accessible otherwise.
 * Bantu BC
 * So yes, even that paper uses BC. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 19:14, 6 July 2024 (UTC)