Talk:Stone Age/Archive 1

Inconsistency
i think at one point in 3rd paragraph of the modern use of the term section it says that "the Stone Age was followed directly by an Iron Age" then later on it says that the stone age is followed by the bronze age. which is correct? and one needs to be changed.

Page initiated
In the first paragraph there is an incomplete sentence beginning by "but". -- Andres — Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.35.251.42 (talk) 17:48, 23 July 2003‎
 * I think it's complete now, just read it. -k_dhillon — Preceding unsigned comment added by 165.21.154.13 (talk) 03:29, 16 June 2004‎

COTW
This article is certain to become COTW Sunday evening, and as this is a particularly interesting topic, it would be nice if everyone who voted for it contributed. Phoenix2 01:58, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Cultures by region
I'm not familiar with the stone age but shouldn't their be a section on ceartain types of cultures by region. I would think their would be different culturual developments in the Northern Heimishphere, Africa, Europe etc. Or is their not much info on this. Falphin 01:19, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * There's certainly plenty of info, we have a few dedicated regional articles like Japanese Paleolithic but a lot is missing especially in the Americas. Structuring this article is going to be a task in itself, after all we are looking at a 2.5 million year time period spanning the whole world. Articles like Iron Age have broken things down by region but and could be model for this one. Category:Archaeology and the various sub categories give an idea of what we have already and some of this text could be summarised and worked in. adamsan 12:48, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * I do agree, really a challenging assignment for all, but interesting too...--Bhadani 15:34, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * Given the immense time-span, amount of major subdivisions and overlap between regions, I wonder whether it would be best to leave the discussion in chronological order, and start off each subdivision with a general introduction and then add details about regions of the world. So, for example:
 * The Epipalaeolithic
 * This period is characterised by microliths.
 * In the Near East it lasted from x to y and includes the important sites of ?.
 * In Europe it lasted from z to aa and is mostly known from site ??.
 * Does that make sense and do people think it's a good idea? --G Rutter 20:26, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Food and Drink
The Food and drink section currently being added by an anon is a cut and paste from the Anne Collins diet site. Also, the quote about wine is based on research on the neolithic eg the vines at Hambledon Hill, not palaeolithic This is a valid section but not as it stands. adamsan 17:23, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * Actually, anon has corrected some mistakes in spelling, the section was originally added by me and sourced to the sites. In case, mistakes are there, suitable changes may be made. In case, the texts are found not suitable, it can please be deleted. --Bhadani 17:52, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * My concern is that the text is copyrighted though. adamsan 17:55, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * Hello, perhaps, you are right, but I have tried to change the style. In case, if so required, a complete "rewrite" may be done. I feel this is an important section and issue, and requires to be dealt with in some form or the other.--Bhadani 18:03, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * My concern is that the Anne Collins site is a diet site, not a scientific site, and doesn't cite sources. She says "Latest studies" and "Fossil evidence" but then doesn't offer support (such as studies in peer-reviewed journals). I would especially question the Omega6/Omega3 ratio; and the assertion that "nor did they eat high carbohydrate foods such as legumes or yeast-containing foods, or cereal grains", considering that those could be collected the same as any other plant food, and that yeast is naturally-occurring (that's where natural sourdough starter gets its yeast). Mbuhtz 21:27, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Isn't the statement that hunter gatherers ate mostly meat and very few plants or dairy products, in the Food and Drink section lines 4-5, blatantly false? In D.C. Heath's "World History", on page 20, it claims that gathering yielded most of a groups carbohydrates, and hunting was mainly important for the protein.--70.15.4.226 (talk) 20:15, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Images

 * Perhaps 2 / 3 images will do good. I donot have any impages.--Bhadani 02:30, 7 Jun 2005 (UTC)

A Supposed Misconsception and Beliefs of that Age
In the last section of the article, gentlemen, it is written, "There is an old misconsception...that human [being]s and dinosaurs existed at the same time during the Stone Age...There are...creationist theories...perpetrating this misconsception." It is unadviseable to call it a misconsception. There is a possibility that the carbon-dating system could be inaccurate. In addition, it is "against neutral policy." --Anglius 02:33, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * No, it is a fact that humans and dinosaurs did not coexist. Stating so is no more "against neutral policy" than stating that Santa Clause is not real. --Osmodiar 13:48, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * As I have already mentioned, sir, it is possible that carbon-dating is inaccurate. --Anglius 18:25, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * It's more the laws of stratigraphy and various geological dating processes rather than C14 that separate us from the dinos but I take your point that the Creationist view probably contradicts much of this article's content. I have no idea how we er..'manage' that whole side of things. I did read an announcement somewhere that we are supposed to mention these ideas if only to immediately debunk them. What do the religious think about the Stone Age anyway? I know Father John MacEnery had a pretty difficult time of it. adamsan 19:10, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * Perhaps you had a particular religion in mind when you spoke of "the religious" above? There are, after all, many religiouns with varying viewpoints. Let us not create a false dichotomy. -- Osmodiar 19:32, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * Nope, I meant all religions, forseeing them all casting their ideas into this general pool of prehistoric thought, hence the need to manage it all whilst keeping the article on track. Hang on though, I now see that Palaeontology hasn't got anything about how God put the fossils there to test our faith or any other alternate theories. What gives? adamsan 19:55, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * I've now rewritten this section anyway- and I've included a reference to the beliefs of those creationists who don't also accept archaeological results. I think that should be sufficient for this article. --G Rutter 20:37, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * I appreciate your effort, Mr. Adamsan and Mr. Rutter. --Anglius 21:05, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * Well, I would like to discuss a few points. Firstly, science usually deals in theories, not facts, the relevance of this will become clear in the following point. Secondly, the label dinosaur changes its meaning as the scientific theories behind it advance; lately the theory which classifies birds as dinosaurs has become quite accepted. Thirdly, even though the "dinosaurs" of pop culture were probably quite extinct (if they ever existed 8-D) by then, to consider this a fact (as in: directly measured in a lab, or some such) would imply the completeness of the fossil record. Apwith 08:11, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
 * It sounds like you don't know what a scientific theory is. And no, your point would not imply the completeness of the fossil record. A lot can be (and has been) derived with a partial record -- and how would you ever know when the record is complete anyway ? Obviously you wouldn't, since there's no blueprint or whatever to compare it to. And by the way, fossilization is relatively rare so the record will, in fact (!), never be "complete". 76.113.104.58 (talk) 18:37, 23 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Birds are possibly descended from dinosaurs, not dinosaurs themselves. That is like saying that since humans are descended from chimpanzees (if they are) that humans chimpanzees, or that dogs are wolves, or elephants are mammoths. Classification changes with the time period, and while birds may be descended from dinosaurs, they did not live at the same time, and since dinosaurs are almost certainly extinct, birds fall under the classification of birds, not dinosaurs. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.15.4.226 (talk) 20:24, 30 December 2007 (UTC)


 * You are, of course, right when you point out that any species alive today is a descendant of its ancestors. Thus, for instance, neither humans a descendants of chimpanzees, nor viceversa; rather, both are descendants of a comon ancestor. So, if birds are descendants of dinosaurs (a class of species, not a specific species), the question of whether they are dinosaurs or not, depends on how you define the term. If you define it to be the smallest possible clade containing certain species, then yes, it does include birds. Apwith (talk) 19:57, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

As for "The Stone Age Society," there is no evidence that all men during that period were either nature-worshippers or pagans. What about Adam or Noah? --Anglius 02:54, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * Is there any evidence that Adam and/or Noah are men? There is ample evidence that they are mythological entities, but that does not necessarily imply that these myths are based on actual individual human beings. For instance, there is a day of the week called Wednesday, which is named after the mythological entity Woden. Was there ever an individual of this name who generated this myth? If you take your own myths as fact, or even as valid theories, then in order to preserve neutrality, you would have to grant the same validity to other mythologies. Apwith 08:11, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

The Stone Age society
I've removed the section entitled "The Stone Age society" which can be seen on this old revision for a number of reasons. First, it only deals with parts of the Stone Age- there were lots of different social structures in 2.5 million years! Also, a lot of it is unverifiable and seems to come from this rather dubious source. Obviously it's important that we discuss the societies of the Stone Age, but I think that can be better done in the "Human development in the Stone Age" section, as we can then discuss how the societies changed. --G Rutter 13:40, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * I had misgivings about this text too. I especially noted the the fact that it contradicts itself about mobility and settlements more than once. I suspect it is trying to overgeneralize and compress too many variations into too small a text. Rmhermen 14:15, Jun 8, 2005 (UTC)

Nice info chart
I think a chart à la Human evolution-style (Human "family tree".) would be really cool. By continent/region, all the periods, ages (or how are these called; Mousterian, etc.). Should have different scales for Paleolithic and Neolithic probably. Any tech-savvy archaeologists in the house? Phlebas 16:03, Jun 8, 2005 (UTC)
 * That would be contradicting 'Creationism' and, therefore, would be "against the neutrality-policy," "Phlebas." --Anglius 18:25, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * Actually, no it wouldn't. As virtually everybody who studies these things (bar a minority) does not accept the view put forward by Young Earth creationists, etc. a fair representation of their views is expressly called for by NPOV, which requires it to be given the most space in this article. Besides, evolutionary creationists (such as myself) accept the long time spans, human evolution, etc., so please don't lump all creationists together!

I apologise, sir, for my apparent error, but I would prefer not to argue at the present. --Anglius 21:05, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * Phlebas- I like the idea, but although I'm a reasonably "tech-savy archaeologist" I'm not sure I'm up to it! I'll try and have a play, but if anyone more competant than me can have a go, please do! --G Rutter 20:14, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * To maintain a NPOV, you should simply state that although the majority of scientists support this, some people do not support this view and instead may support Young Earth Creationism --70.15.4.226 (talk) 20:30, 30 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Only if the article on the Earth mentions that some people think it's hollow. You know, to keep it NPOV. 76.64.156.13 (talk) 17:26, 2 August 2009 (UTC)


 * How can it be hollow when some people think it to be flat? Their view deserves representation too for NPOV. 71.206.191.50 (talk) 19:21, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

Thanks
I have edited/will further edit the article. I am not an expert on the subject, and please feel free to correct/re-edit my edits. I also thank each one of you for correcting my earlier edits. We all are working with a common aim - to make this article great! --Bhadani 02:45, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * In contents (sections), both 'The Stone Age' and 'Stone Age' have been used. I feel either of the one would look better.--Bhadani 14:48, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * Perhaps I am not sure-both appears ok.--Bhadani 17:29, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Template:seemain or Template:main?
It's my impression Main should be used when fleshing out an article in its subarticles (when those are newly created). This is not the case here, we're trying to integrate all articles better into this one (which was a mess to start with). Or should Template:Seesubarticle be used? Phlebas 18:27, Jun 9, 2005 (UTC)

Stone Age newslines
What do other people think about this section? Personally, I wonder whether it would be better to have these links with the other external links at the bottom of the article. What do other people think? --G Rutter 20:57, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * Unless they directly apply to the very general points we're making in the article I say lose 'em. adamsan 21:17, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * I disagree, Mr. Adamsan, for they are relevant, and some people would enjoy reading them. --Anglius 21:49, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * I think Stone Age related findings and studies shall continue, and in future, apart from physical and material aspects of the Stone Age, social, mental and psychic aspects shall get predominance: a set of newslines, from sources like BBC, are indications towards that development. Moreover, for an article dealing with pre-historic period, any fresh insight may be valuable. As I have placed the Newslines, I would not comment further on the issue. Keeping or removing is a matter of choice – keeping would be fine, if consensus is to remove them, ok, that would also be fine.--Bhadani 13:40, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Moldova/Ukraine
The "Shelters and habitats" section says: "A hut made of mammoth bones was discovered at Moldova, Ukraine." But Moldova and Ukraine are to different countries. Probably only the country where the hut has really been discovered should be referenced. Conscious 16:42, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * Dear User:Conscious thank you, you are really so conscious that I envy you! Corrections have been done. Thanks. Mistake had arisen due to older references when USSR was in existence, and Moldova and Ukraine both were parts of the USSR.--Bhadani 18:37, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)

You're welcome. Conscious 06:17, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Moldova is possibly also a village in the Ukraine. This site uses Moldova, Ukraine:. Phlebas 13:55, Jun 11, 2005 (UTC)


 * According to a abstract of a paper presented at the 3rd International Mammoth conference May 2003 (!), mammoth bone huts were found "especially in the Dniepr river valley of Ukraine but also in Moravia (Czech Republic) and Southern Poland." I've changed the article to reflect this info. --G Rutter 15:11, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Good Article assessment
I have noted this as a Good Article for a big concept. Some more references in the upper 2/3rds of the article would help improve the article. &mdash; Rob (  talk  ) 18:22, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

--12.17.175.131 17:36, 20 May 2006 (UTC) Um, I'm removing the link at the bottom. it bears no relevance to the article and is basically hawking some guy's book.

End of stone age
I just made a change to the bit about cultures outside Eurasia/Africa that hadn't developed metal-smelting technology yet, to make it less condescending. But the time periods got me thinking. Stone tools came about 3 million years ago and metal tools a few thousand years ago. That's a ratio of about 1000:1. So, in terms of its total duration, the stone age ended pretty much just now. Also, most cultures that had the technology probably didn't invent it themselves, but learned it from others. I believe there was quite a bit of cultural exchange over long distances, so it may have taken just one person somewhere on this landmass to discover metal-smelting. After that, a few thosand years was plenty time to spread the knowledge. But not across some oceans. So maybe the text could be changed to something like this:


 * Metal-smelting technology spread through Eurasia/Africa a few thousand years ago, which is very recent in comparison with the 3 million years that stone tools were used. However, it was not developed independently outside that region, meaning that the stone age continued there a bit longer until the technology was introduced when European cultures spread throughout the world, just a few hundred years ago. There are even now still some peoples (eg in the Amazon basin) who have had little or no outside contact and effectively still live in the stone age.

However, I'm no expert on the subject, so I'll leave the actual edit to someone else. DirkvdM 08:23, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Animals?
Should we do a section on what happened with animals in the Stone Age?

First paragraph?
I don't get the first paragraph:

"The period encompasses the first widespread use of technology in human evolution and the spread of humanity from the savannas of East Africa to the rest of the world. It ends with the development of agriculture, the domestication of certain animals and the smelting of copper ore to produce metal."

Shouldn't the period start with the utilization of stone tools? The paragraph talks about technology and the spreading of humanity, but nowhere it says it started when the first stone tools were made.

Shouldn't it end with the first utilization of metal tools? The Yanomami had a perfectly viable slash-and-burn agricultural system and yet only used stone tools by late 20th Century; likewise the Maori used stone tools by 17th Century, but yet they knew agriculture for 10,000 years already. Isn't it correct to say that both groups were in Stone Age (something akin to Neolithic) as they only used stone tools?

In the same way, by 8000BC mankind had domesticated cows, goats, sheep and pigs, but yet it would be 4,000 years (or 6,000 years more, depending on the region) before the same groups moved out of the stone age. Which "certain animals" are those that define if a group moved out of the stone age?

Also, the phrase "first widespread use of technology" is terribly vague. Which of the several definitions of technology is this phrase based upon? What about knowledge about plants, animals, techniques and practices that early hominids probably learned to pass from generation to generation? They certainly had such knowledge and probably could teach them to offsprings, as it is improbable that the very first practice that produces hard artifacts (stone tools) was exactly the first one that young hominids could learn from their parents. Therefore, depending on how you defined "technology", stone tools were not the first technology from one view, or were not technology at all from other points of view.

Finally, did the article forget about the Paleolithic? The Paleolithic covers 99.996% of the Stone Age, yet the first period the article talks about is the Epipaleolithic/Mesolithic (a denomination that some archaeologists dropped completely as it is very poorly defined).

Best regards, Fbs.

I am brand new to this, so I do not know how to add my comment. It is a simple one. I note that under palaeolithic/mesolithic the end of the lats ice age is given as 10,000 to 6,000 years ago, while under the heading concerning food and drink, it is given as 15,000 to 9 years ago. Is the 9 supposed to be 9,000? Neither corresponds with the information presented earlier. I suggest a clarification of the intended period and a verification of the dates given, with any corrections needed. Thank you. JdF 14:27, 28 October 2006 (UTC)
 * This is an old set of comments now but I am going to answer it anyway. I really find this interactive education quite interesting. You could have looked it up in any textbook but you chose WP instead. I guess you feel more comfortable with Internet. No one has abolished the Mesolithic. You are receiving images from an old controversy, whether the Mesolithic was transitional or whether the Epipleolithic continued the Old Stone Age. It was never resolved so both words are used. The Three-age system now covers this topic. For the dates, well, you know, these periods are a relative chronology. The absolute dates vary from region to region. Moreover, they are not so easy to set, so you will find considerable variation. What the conventional dates are to be, most scientifically that would be a matter of statistical analysis following on some statistical definiton but you know, most of the savants aren't that savant. As long as you do not expect consistent dates or precise dates you will be happy about it. It's a matter of education - yours.Dave (talk) 15:50, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

Time periods
Article needs to give the approximate time periods associated with each age. Norm —Preceding unsigned comment added by Special:Contributions/ (talk)

Vandalized
Hey everyone. The last sentance under "Refrences" reads: "the stone age people are gay!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" I tried to edit the page to remove it, but I can't find the offending text in the edit view. (Shouldn't be easy to miss with all those !'s). Maybe someone who knows what they're doing wants to take it out? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.195.193.191 (talk) 06:54, 29 January 2007 (UTC).

Use of "Stone Age" to describe living tribes
The article states twice that anthropologists warn against using "stone age" or "primitive" to describe modern-day people, but without suggesting an alternative. Maybe someone with the required knowledge could suggest an alternative in the article?Tt 225 11:08, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
 * You ask too much. You want WP to be some sort of anthropological academy setting the standards of usage for English technical words. It isn't that, can't be made into that, will never be that. Does your mirror tell you how you should look?Dave (talk) 15:53, 23 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Then it should be removed. Certain societies did not progress beyond the Stone Age until very recent times. No euphemisms can change that.72.224.126.241 (talk) 04:56, 6 March 2012 (UTC)
 * No direct alternative is necessary. People do not need to be classified by anachronistic technological terms. The Stone Age was invented as an explanatory term to make comparisons between ancient peoples in Europe and those that Europeans were encountering in their exploration and colonisation. If it had less conceptual inertia many archaeologists would prefer to abandon it in favour of a fixed chronological framework based on radiocarbon dates. If this explanation needs to go in the article I can add it. PatHadley (talk) 09:28, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

Disputed / Dubious claim
This sentence appears in an image caption: "Japanese Jomon pottery is the 2nd oldest in the world. Recent pottery finds in Hunterdon county, Musconetcong River area, NW NJ have been dated to be over 12,000 years old." I did a pretty good Internet search, but could not find any evidence for the existence of a recent find of 12,000 y.o. pottery in New Jersey. Can an expert either delete this claim (and restore Jomon pottery to its "oldest" status), or provide a citation to supporting evidence? 198.62.10.11 17:34, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Cultures by region 2
As suggested in 2005 (see thread above), I think it would be a good idea to have a short description of the cultures in for example Europe during the different periods. I believe many readers, like myself, are mostly interested in the cultures in a specific part of the world. As far as I know, there does not exist any such overview articles, making it very hard for an uninformed reader to find the more detailed articles about specific cultures. Some of the articles, such as Funnelbeaker culture, has some information about contemporary cultures. There are also efforts such as the Nordic Stone Age to describe the cultures in a specific area. But I still believe a high level overview, starting from this article should exist. Unfortunately I do not have the knowledge to contribute to this work. Labongo 15:43, 24 September 2007 (UTC)
 * It seems as nobody is interested in doing this work, so I will give it a try myself. I was thinking about organizing this information as follows. First, the cultures are divided into tables for each continent. Each table then has columns for the different time periods, and rows for sub-regions within each continent (such as the Nordic countries). Any comments?Labongo 16:39, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

GA Delisting
In order to uphold the quality of Good articles, all articles listed as Good articles are being reviewed against the GA criteria as part of the GA project quality task force. While all the hard work that has gone into this article is appreciated, unfortunately, as of December 24, 2007, this article fails to satisfy the criteria, as detailed below. For that reason, the article has been delisted from WP:GA. However, if improvements are made bringing the article up to standards, the article may be nominated at WP:GAN. If you feel this decision has been made in error, you may seek remediation at WP:GAR. Several issues with this article, but the two most pressing are broadness of coverage and referencing. For the former, I feel like an entire era deserves more justice than has been done to it in this article. The large headings are little more than a selection of scattered facts in most cases, and the summaries of the era articles are wholly inadequate. I'm sure that more has been written on the Stone Age as a whole than is being done justice to in this article. Stemming from that is my second concern, the amount of referencing and inline citations in this article. The entire referencing structure for this article consists of three references and two books under the "notes" section. Aside from the citation needed tag, large paragraphs remain uncited and even the direct quote under "Food and drink" is not properly (just vaguely) attributed. The article will need significant work with expansion and referencing before it can be listed as a Good Article again. Cheers, CP 00:01, 24 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Whether the article will ever live up to your high standards is questionable. You seem to want a complete book but all we have space for is an article. However I am improving it by quite a bit, especially in the references area. One thing we want to be careful not to do, in my opinion, and that is to cite a main article and then go ahead and develop the cited topic as though IT were the main article. Cross-linked topics is one of the strong points of this encyclopedic blog. We don't want to cross-link to the same write-up paraphrased or copied. The idea is to offload the topic to another article.Dave (talk) 16:00, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

the stone age
the story needs more details on how they used there tools —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.23.213.19 (talk) 20:43, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Stone Age rituals and beliefs
Huh ? I'm no archaeologist but I find it hard to believe that we know anything about the religious beliefs of pre-historic stone age peoples. To state that they believed in a flat earth and that things moved by will seems to be out of character with the rest of this article (and, indeed, the concept of an encyclopedia). Here is the text I have cut.....

Stone Age people believed that they were living at the center of the universe, that the earth was a small disc extending not far around known neighbors, mountains, or shorelines. They believed that all movement was of will. They saw insects moving by will. They saw the sun, the moon and the stars closer and they were and moving by will. For Stone Age people, will was spirit, and they saw their world as filled with many spirits. (or to use another word gods) This was the original polytheism. When a person saw his reflection in the water he believed he was seeing his spirit the invisible would be made visible by the magic of the water.Seeing the lifeless bodies of those who had died. People believed the spirit of that person had left their body and gone to an invisible world where the spirits of the dead were not to be seen. They belived spirit lived all around them. Yeah the stone age was a very religious time. Garry —Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.54.232.212 (talk) 09:47, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Language
How come there's absolutely no information in the article on theories regarding Stone Age language? LokiClock (talk) 14:55, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
 * That looks as though it would be a different article. It is an interesting point. The "how come" is the usual: no one of any real credentials cares to work on this phony encyclopedia and all the rest of us have to start from scratch. Let me throw it back on you: how come you don't do an article on stone-age language? Don't you like to contend with ignoramuses or what? Well what do know, Joe, I don't know nothin, what do you know Joe, I don't know nothin. I don't know a thing about art, but I know what I like. Etcetera. No, seriously, anyone determined and enthusiastic enough can undoubtedly do a good article on it. We the people have to have to help ourselves. Did not the animals take over Animal Farm? So, feel free to take this aspect over. Step right in, step right up. Dance the dance, don't just talk the talk. Hollywood has enough stuffed lions already. I look forward eagerly to seeing such an article at least started by you on WP. At that point I will be able to link to it. In my improvement of this article I am concentrating on the basics for now and my plans do not include language, at least for a while.Dave (talk) 11:43, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

What period?
"The period from 2.9 million years ago (Mya)[1] encompasses the first use of stone tools in Gona, Ethiopia and its spread and widespread use elsewhere soon thereafter.[1]"

What period? Too condensed. A lot of periods start there: Oldowan, lower paleolithic, paleolithic, stone age. Also the source is not quite understood. The date is 2.6. From that time some unequivocally worked tools are seen at Gona. The title of the source means, all of a sudden well-developed tools appear, without the ambiguity of possibly being formed by nature. The authors conjecture that because there is a gap in the layers from 2.9-2.6 the tools begin much earlier, as early as 2.9, but the evidence is not at Gona. There is none yet. So, when summarizing, the other authors use 2.6. There are no tools yet from 2.9. Even so the remarkable aspect of Gona is that it puts tools into the late Pliocene where before they had been thought to be only Pleistocene. Also the ref is incomplete. It refer to an article in another book. Page numbers are needed. I'll fix it pretty soon, but anyone else can if you like. The bottom of the article is in disarray. It uses harvard ref with no bibliography. A little reorganization will fix it. We'll have this back in the good article category in no time.Dave (talk) 05:35, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Smelting of copper ore
Nope. The smelters lived in the copper age, the initial phase of the bronze age. I went over this in my comments in the box discussion. This article's mention is too condensed and the box is misleading. The ending with the smelting is non-inclusive. The stone age is followed by the copper age. In a lot of places the copper age and early bronze age differ from the stone age in only a few pieces of metal, but it is still the age of metals and not the age of stone. There is no metal at all in the stone age, but there is plenty of stone in the metal ages.Dave (talk) 05:46, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

A stone age vs the stone age
The author of this section proposes we use a stone age instead of the stone age. This is an innovative change; the field never uses it that way. It isn't clear to me why he would want to make such a change anyway. It goes counter to general English usage. For example, "the Renaissance" out of context refers to the usual main renaissance. With reference to other renaissances you would use "a renaissance" only in defining which one. Thereafter you would use "the renaissance" meaning the one you just defined. You would never use "a renaissance" to mean the main renaissance. Similarly it is wrong to use "a stone age" to the exclusion of "the stone age". Maybe you don't like the English language here. Too bad. This is not the place to redefine it. Native speakers have no problem knowing when to use "a" and when to use "the". I'm going to restore the English here rather than start using "a paleolithic" for "the paleolithic."Dave (talk) 05:05, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

The opinions of 'the stone age in archaeology'
Is there anything else for the stone age to be in? I thought the whole thing was archaeology. The section seems to be about everything else but. The titles do not match the content. One section purports to bring us up to date on the modern uses of the term, but this contains only the opinions of the author and such opinions as he may have heard (hearsay). There are no relevant references on those opinions. The one reference given is to an article in Radiocarbon magazine that discusses the radiocarbon date of a Viking site in North America. I cannot imagine why it is there. The arguments are pseudo. The conclusions do not follow the logic; in fact, there is no logic. No references, no logic. This will have to come out. I need a vacation. This is something I have to work up to. I don't see why the section is there. Whether I can kluge something up piecemeal or just have to take it out is being pondered by me.Dave (talk) 05:41, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Neolithic Vinca
Don't get too carried away by the title of the newspaper article. Them reporters will say anything. The article clearly states that the discovery of the furnace pushes the Copper Age back by 500 years even though the title implies that now the Neolithic includes metal-working. The Copper Age was Neolithic-like except for the metals.Dave (talk) 11:46, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Tasic 1995
This is an example of a Harvard ref gone wrong. There is no cited work by Tasic in 1995 or any other time. Moreover, none of the other articles have it either. The refs were copied from the quoted journal citations but unfortunately they don't have it either. The only article that might possibly be it requires a subscription or a payment. But, we don't know if that is it. I got no choice but to remove this cite. There is a blue link to the mine, but that article has the mysterious Tasic 1995 also. However that one is not this one. I defer to that one. YOU handle it. We don't need it here, the first cite takes care of it. The mine is generally in the same millenium; no one doubts that.Dave (talk) 12:41, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

The leaves and the roots
"They consumed little dairy product or carbohydrate-rich plant foods such as cereal grains. Rather, they ate leaves and roots."

In the very next sentence we say they DO eat the legumes and they DO eat the grains. The part that breaks my credibility is the leaves and the roots. Man has never been a vegetarian, and his closest relatives, the chimpanzees are not vegetarians either. The mighty gorillas are vegetarians. They are mighty to rip up the branches. The chimps are bloody meat eaters and sometimes cannibals. They rip up other animals and they will gnaw your face off if you go believing the myths of the animal activists (who often have a short life in the wild). Louis Leakey had his kids running around catching rabbits and such with their bare hands. Of course, I am sure they did not rip them up and devour them raw, but you can ask them. Moderns do eat raw meat from time to time under various circumstances. If you plan on eating very many raw leaves and roots, better make arrangements with a hospital. I used to chew wild mint growing in my back yard, but it was not very nutritious. The fact that we are here indicates the Palaeolithics did not go in that direction. Let's not get carried away by the myth of the noble savages living an angelic life in the wild not killing a single living thing and being close to God. Bah, humbug. You need meat or its equivalent and if you do not get it you are going to starve to death. If you want to be a vegetarian better consult the physician. I do not believe Palaeolithic man lived on leaves and roots like a monkey and I demand to see a credible reference with some evidence of that speculation. Mwanwhile this statement comes out.Dave (talk) 22:40, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

The bronze in Megalithic tombs
" Several tombs with copper and bronze tools have also been discovered, illustrating the problems of attempting to define periods based on technology."

They aren't Neolithic. That type of tomb spans the Stone Age/Bronze Age border, a common phenomenon. It is a useful one, as the same type of object in both ages demonstrates continuity.Dave (talk) 23:47, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

Amend and comprised of
Bryan! How are you? You seem to be in my business. I got no problem with the way you made article text. But then, what I had was correct also. I read your long and interesting account of your crusade against comprised of. But first - amend and emend are equally correct. I go by the dictionary. Now, for the crusade. Excuse me, I don't wish to pull your chain, but I think you should give up your crusade, and I will tell you why. You cannot "prove" by some theory that anything whatsoever in English is right or wrong. It is not a mathematical or physical phenomenon. The sole standard is usage. If the English should start using I for the objective case of the first personal pronoun, then it would be correct. But they don't. They use me. Of course there is that famous example from Shakespeare, "the most unkindest cut of all." This is a double superlative, clearly theoretically wrong. But, whose theory? Theories are only rough guidelines. The language is alive, lives, breathes, moves, changes, practically day to day. There is nothing whatever wrong with comprised of. I shall certainly go on using it, and I AM a writer. The usage is well-established. Now, for your crusade on WP. This is not MY article. I am not interested in STOPPING you. Make whatever change you like as long as the meaning is correct and the grammar is correct. I do think, however, that a crusade to make hundreds of thousands of editors of three million articles all not use comprised of is a gigantic waste of our collective time and impossible of realization. I can't see how it amuses you, but then I'm not you. You are trying to force the English-speaking population to speak English YOUR way and that is clearly wrong. I am going to leave it up to you to mull it over and decide you were a bit hasty in this crusade. I hope you do not take this personally. I am a senior writing and editing professional. My brother was an English professor and a published author (minor, however). We have had many a conversation on such topics. I have seen a good many writers take such an arbitrary stand on various aspects of English and to no avail. It caused strictly local conflict and unnecessary hard feeling for a while, that is all. They did not succeed in changing the English language and neither will you. It is and will remain as we speak it.Dave (talk) 11:39, 7 March 2011 (UTC)


 * I don't believe usage is the only determiner of correctness. There are varying views on what it means for language to be "correct," though I agree that the idea that whatever people speak is correct is one of them.  But that point is moot, since I don't claim "comprised of" is incorrect.  "There is nothing whatever wrong with comprised of" is an overstatement.  There are clearly many things wrong with it, including that some people don't like to read it (you've seen this list on my essay on the topic).  What you mean is that it is not wrong overall.  Which of course is an opinion not everyone shares.


 * You've imagined several goals that I don't actually have: 1) to make all Wikipedia editors not use "comprised of"; 2) to force the English-speaking population to speak English my way (or even to force it to avoid "comprised of."); 3) to change English.  So there's no need to argue against those goals.


 * I do appreciate that you recognize that I have as much right as anyone to choose the wording of this article; some people who write "comprised of" because they find it perfectly acceptable regard my change of it as a personal insult and revert just as a matter of vengeance. Bryan Henderson (talk) 18:05, 7 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Ok, we aren't going to agree on everything. I appreciate your views. I'm mainly interested in content and general layout. I got no objection if anyone says it a little differently. Strictly speaking none of us have any "rights" beyond what the owner or owners of the site choose to give us (except for our legal rights, of course, such as the right not to be harassed) and sometimes those are pretty highly selective. We are all equal but some are more equal than others, I fear. I would rather talk about something like ethical mandate. I think we have an ethical mandate to be accurate; after all, though privately owned, this is a public resource. Food companies, for example, are private, but they must provide safe food to the public. There is a growing legal tendency to legislate that what goes on the Internet must be true and verifiable. WP sure falls a long way short of that goal. But that is neither here nor there as far as the matters we are discussing are concerned. I suppose you have as much mandate as I to determine the wording, snd if I seriously objected to your wording I would put a tag on. No problem. You're the first person in a long time to take an interest in this article. I would not wish to frighten you off.Dave (talk) 19:14, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

Copy editing
I see we have a genuine copy editor aboard. Welcome. I never argue with real copy editors. I used to long ago before I knew better.Dave (talk) 19:16, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

Giraffedata
All right. You seem to have some skill at organization and condensation. I'll be adding more - I work very slowly - a second pair of eyes is welcome. I just want to get the main definitions and details in so the reader can acquire an overall sense.Dave (talk) 11:52, 13 March 2011 (UTC)
 * PS I still think you ought to give up that "comprised of" crusade. And you ARE trying to get our English to conform to yours. But, let's get on to other things.Dave (talk) 12:33, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

Humans
The Stone Age as a prehistoric period of "humans" does not do it, as most of the Stone Age did not belong to humans. I was hoping the human article linked would get us out of this predicament but it goes ahead and defines humans as Homo sapiens sapiens, who comes on stage in the last act of the Stone Age passion play. So, I will have to modify references to "humans" a bit.Dave (talk) 01:23, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

Maori
Hello there. Let me welcome you to WP. If you register as a user it will be easier for us to communicate with you. On the positive side WP is a public service to which it is often fun to make contributions. On the negative side it is a very contentious and often insulting place. I don't know anyone whose initial contributions were accepted as such. That having been said, let me tell you why I put the tag on your section.

WP does not accept original creative work, except the writing and presentation itself. In fact, if you copy someone else's work that is regarded as a flagrant violation, so they want the writing to be original. I checked out a phrase or two of your writing on the Internet and it checks out at least cursorily. However, you are presenting the Maori as the last stone age population. If you put that in a book of your own everyone would accept that as your opinion but possibly true. This is not an opportunity to write a book of your own. WP is only a presentation of the ideas of others, preferably accepted authorities or those who use the work of accepted authorities. The title sounds pretty dramatic, like "the last puritan" or "the last capitalist."

It isn't too professional, however. For one thing, I don't think you understood the gist of these articles. Early anthropologists tagged various cultures as examples of different periods of the stone age. That is not being done any more; furthermore, doing that is considered prejudicial. All modern cultures are modern, they are not stone age. The stone age is owned primarily by other species of the genus Homo, but not by man. You are in a sense implying that the Maori were stuck in some sub-human stage and failed to develop into full moderns. The last peoples to almost get away with that were the British colonials in what is now Kenya and the white South Africans in South Africa. Why don't you try going down among the Zulu people and telling them all about the Stone Age and their ancestors? We don't have any stone age men today. Anthropologists are being trained not to use that concept. Read the article to which you are trying to contribute.

But, maybe I am wrong. Maybe someone does advocate that view. It is not general knowledge. Therefore, you do not get to advocate it on your own. If some authority holds that view, then you must cite that authority and considering the controversiality of the view I think you need to present it as his/her view or one view. That is why I am asking for references on that. Credible references, please, not student or amateur ones. If you can find where Richard Leakey or the equivalent calls the Maori stone age, then I would have no problem with that. Otherwise, it is coming out! Our brothers in New Zealand may once have lived a simple life similar in some ways to life lived earlier in human history but they were not stone age men, did not look the same, and did not live the same.

If you have any trouble with the formatting, such as citing references, let us know, will you? Right now some of us are trying to improve the article, me especially. If we cannot find out whose opinion this is by the time I finish I plan to take it out. This is standard WP procedure, nothing to get upset about. We've all had a lot of stuff removed or altered. I don't find what you said professional in content. I'm giving you a chance to prove it is. Best wishes; don't forget to register as a user.Dave (talk) 17:56, 17 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Kia ora David.You may well be an expert on the stone age,but I think you need to go back an read the section again when you are more calm.I dont know where in the world you are but anyone in Nz would recognize the section as a factual statement.You can see in the text I refer to Catain Cook as a source-he was a truely gifted individual in 1769.The population data comes from Prof Ian Poole recently retired demographer from Waikato University.He is Nz's leading authority on all aspects of population.Foss and Helen Leach have done a life times work on Maori in the central Nz rohe especially Palliser Bay.Bruce Mcfadyen is another you should read.Some of the data cames from the NZ census and the remainder from various books on the Musket wars such as Ballara and Paul Moon who are all well known professional writers.


 * Most serious studies of Archaic Maori refer to them as early Neolithic ,in terms of the normally accepted taxonomy of human development. Everything written is 100% varifiable.It is true that Maori have retained  something of their early culture and it has been incorporated into mainstream Nz culture-the language for one thing- there are quite a few fluent Maori speakers  and most Kiwis use about 50-100 Maori words in there normal everyday conversations-and they understand alot more. Maori tourism relies heavily on showcasing their traditonal culture.Traditional songs are well known in Nz -many thousands of Pakeha know the words and actions to E papa.The Nz All Blacks use the famous haka of Te Rauparaha at the start of most of their rugby games.He was a blood thirsty, warrior cannibal general who would give Ghengis khan a run for his money. Maori still cook food in a hangi when they have a big celebration. Waka races are still run as huge annual events. There are thousands of marae around Nz-after the recent earth quake they were used to house refugees whose homes had been damaged. Many schools in Nz use Maori kawa (protocol) as a matter of course and of course the Kura (Maori immersion schools) are flourishing. All of these traditions go back to 1280 and even before in East Polynesia. There are a handful of cultural events or artifacts that that seem to go back beyond this to Melanesia reflecting the distant Maori past about 5000 years ago.
 * You seem to have made the classic mistake of thinking that eveything stone age is "bad".One of the strongest traditions of Maori is to acknowledge how much they owe their ancestors.A standard feature of all Marae powhiri(welcomes) is to pay homage to those who have gone before.It is taken as a mark of respect. Maori retain those aspects of their culture past they think are valuable for modern life. Waikato University has a huge School of Maori studies and the University has very close links with Tainui, the local iwi( Tribe) who are a major player in the local economy-they own The Base -the largest shopping centre in NZ. At the entrance are as a range of traditional artifacts and at the font of the  brand new mall is atraditional marker -a pou.So I think you can see that stone age culture is alive and very well intergrated into contemporay NZ. Maori DNA is still adjusting to contact with disease for which they had no immunity.Tb is rare in Nz but still a health issue for Maori.On a contraversial note about 5 years ago a scientist identified a gene he "unwisely" called the warrior gene and applied this to the idea of a disproportionate number of Maori getting into trouble for violent offences. Apparently he had identified a gene,common in Maori, closely connected to high risk taking . This also would be legacy of polynesian migration.My understanding is that it is now a well known and accepted phenomena in animal and human populations.It reminds me of a US senator who was considered a leading authority on gangs and gang violence. He came to a conference in Nz about 5 years ago where he met leading members of the Mongrol Mob and Black Power -both  largely Maori gangs ,who run much of the drug crime in nz. He said he had never felt so intimidated in his life.


 * So Nz has, for good or ill, links to the Maori stone age past-that's the reality of life in Nz and a pretty good life it is.


 * Also, I am not presenting contemporary Maori as Stone Age-that is not written or implied.There are still smaller populations in Papua New Guinea that live a virtual SA existence.If you check out the large number of references on line to Maori,M culture,M language ,Wairau bar,Maori Pa etc you will get a feel for Maori Stone age traditions. Claudia March 2011 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.58.186.243 (talk) 21:54, 17 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Well, thank you Claudia, I appreciate your views. Someone else has chimed in and removed it. You are right, I am far from New Zealand. Don't get discouraged. I did not realize that in some quarters of the world the attitude "proud to be stone age" might prevail, a sort of "we're the original stone-agers", "come and visit us in beautiful downtown New Zealand." OK, fine. Then you go on recounting some modern history of modern New Zealanders. This is modern history. I should say what it is not - it is not prehistory, it is not the history or prehistory of prehistoric humans. I'm all for the stone age myself. If I had the money I would come down and spend it in New Zealand. Spectacular views, great scenery. The ground is a little shaky right now but that will pass. It seems to me your topic is cultural anthropology whereas the subject of this article is archaeology and the evolution of man. Whatever you say the Maori are, you are not claiming they are not Homo sapiens sapiens. From a biological point of view, the situation is similar to the classification of ancestral taxa. No existing elephants, for example, are identical to ancestral ones. When we say "elephant" regarding fossil elephants this is only a figure of speech. Today's elephants are none of those. Well, I can see your point of view. If the Maori never went through metallurgical phases, why would they not be stone age? Earlier physical anthropology took that point of view. I did say, if you can find an authority you can probably justify putting it in. I don't think it goes here though. It would go under cultural anthropology. WP has plenty or articles on tribesmen across the world. The material about Cook is very interesting. That could go under Cook or European explorers. His encounter was with modern tribesmen. I say this because, it would appear that we are getting into a sort of contest. Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who is the most stone age of all? Well, let's see how this interesting issue plays out. Now that you know you need references, you will need some to make more additions. What is commonly thought by New Zealanders or the Maori as reported by heresay from you is not authoritative enough. You might want to try some lighter editing before you get back into it, for the practice. As I say I would suggest registering as a user. Ciao.Dave (talk) 11:12, 18 March 2011 (UTC)
 * PS I just had a thought. If the modern cult of the stone age is big among the Maori, maybe there should be some mention of it in the pop culture section. For myself I do not think such a way of life is either primitive, simple, natural or stone age even if they use hammerstones to help prepare the drugs. I would say it is like the smallpox, introduced by Europeans. But, we are mentioning modern pop culture concepts of the stone age. Stricto sensu, as soon as the first modern tool shows up, the tribe loses any claim to being in the stone age. A visitor leaves a jacknife. There goes the Stone Age; there are no jacknives in the stone age record. Bye now.Dave (talk) 13:42, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Kia ora David.The person who removed the Maori section is the keeper of the moderm Maori myth on WP it seems to me.He seems to have a fundamentalist approach.I appreciate your point of view but dont agree with all you write. As the article makes abundantly clear, the key to the different ages is largely technology and technology is a major part of culture.I disagree very strongly that as soon as a new culture is introduced the old culture stops-that is plain nonsense.From Cook, Maori got red paint ,steel ships nails,potatoes,a lesson on map drawing in the sand etc but that left the bulk of their stone age culture intact.You fail to acknowledge that there is a long transition that is in fact still going on to a small extent.The same happened between the 3 ages-transition was probaly hundreds or maybe thousands of years. I thought of another few examples of the traditional(SA) Maori way of life that still exist.Some Maori still visit a Tohunga (shaman) to get pain relief etc.Officially the practice has been banned for many a year but it still goes on.It's been tainted recently as a"patient"(who was suffering a mental illness)was drowned in water to wash out an evil Wairua(spirit).There was a big stink when a Tohunga was found treating a patient in a major hospital by rubbing potato(not a SA one!)on them.Another example is Whangai or Maori adoption which is still widely practiced (I believe it is legal).A child is given to a couple who cannot have children(there is an element of cultural pressure on the birth mother to do this in some cases but you can say it is with the biological parents' agreement).Adoptions of this kind are only within the whanau or extended family.Maori still use a litle natural SA medicine ie plants and berries.Waikato hospital did a study recently and found it was still happening to a very small degree but Maori are big users of modern alternative medicine the study shows.In terms of food, Maori still have a very strong liking for kai moana(sea food)and avidly collect and eat shell fish.Local Maori are commonly used in various tapu(taboo) lifting ceremonies after a death of disaster to Maori.Puha(a type of thistle) is a Maori treat as are Mutton birds which only Maori from one iwi are allowed to eat as they are not common.Cultural?Yes.Stone age ?Yes. Yes, its a pity NZ is a long way from many large centres of population.The Earth quake only affected a very small area-about 20km2 but its sad that included the CBD of our second biggest city.In terms of shakes Nz gets about 5,000 per year but most are tiny.They are centred in 2 zones -1 under the capital Wellington and the other just off the SW coast of The South Island -an area with virtually no people as it is so rugged.Lucky all kiwis pay a quake insurance levy when they take out any insurance so the pot has about $20 billion NZ in it -so plenty of $$ but we are only 4.5m so need alot more engineers ,builders and tradespeople to rebuild about 10,000 houses and a new CBD.We are a long way from being "bombed(shaken!) back to the stone age"!!!Claudia March 2011 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.58.186.243 (talk) 21:29, 18 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Claudia, I'm going to add this here as you don't seem to take any notice of your talk page. The contribution above contains what could be construed as a personal attack: namely, that you accuse a good faith contributor of being "the keeper of the moderm Maori myth on WP", strongly implying that this contributor is adding false information to Wikipedia. Please don't make such accusations. Particularly when, in comparison, other of your statements in that contribution are at best highly dubious. I particularly notice your comment "Mutton birds which only Maori from one iwi are allowed to eat"; a reading of the dinner menu at the South Seas Hotel in Oban should disabuse you of that particular notion. Daveosaurus (talk) 05:24, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

Kia ora David,You have seriously misread my intention.As far as I can recall I have never accused anyone of adding false information.Truth is a beacon for me.Just as much damage ( nearly as much? more damage? ) can be done by deleting information that is accurate and true-you will know that this sort of thing goes on all the time in WP by people with political agendas.The mutton bird statement was a little out,(my apologies) but the point I made is more than  valided  by the actual regulations,which clearly state that the Rakiura people -the traditional hapu (sub tribe)of the area, have exclusive traditional (SA)rights to harvest Mutton birds (known in Maori as Titi)from 18 islands.This right was initially given to them in 1864 under the Deed of Succesion and reinforced by the Titi Island regulation 1978.They have the right to take as many birds as they like without regard to Nz regulations-only following Maori neolithic traditions.Some whanau (extended family) have exclusive rights to an individual  island,this is also a neolithic tradition.The only "limitation" is that they can only kill the birds between 1 April and 31 May but as that is the only time of the year when the fat young birds are present, it is not really a limitation.After May the weather is so bad down there that they could easily get drowned.(I think that did happen about 4? years ago when Maori going to/from the islands overcrowded a boat which sank.) I note that only hapu are allowed to take and trade in Titi so that's how you got Titi meal. My point was that neolithic -Stone age practices are still happening-here you have one enshrined in current law. I note that last year there was huge conflict between various families over who was allowed to take Titi by trying to exclude those who did not have the right wakapapa (lineage).These are both really strong SA Maori traditions.It has been noted by many historians that there was more conflict within tribes or iwi than between different iwi(althought this certainly did happen on a large scale around 1820-30 with virtual extermination of some iwi ).The second SA tradional is the huge focus on wakapapa/ lineage-given extra,modern emphasis because this is the basis of the multi million dollar payouts to Iwi under the Watangi Tribunal settlement payouts by the people of NZ. Another stone age practice was was waka(canoe ) paddling-a very big part of traditional Maori life.When Maori skeletons werer examined they could tell whether the person was left of right handed by the bone development.Using the same method they could tell that a significant number of women were strong/regular paddlers.Up until recently Maori engaged in modern waka paddling would not wear life jackets as it wasn't traditional.About 5 years ago a large seagoing waka taua(war canoe) was taken out in extreme weather off shore and it sank with some loss of life.After this there was a rethink and life jackets are now common-thankgoodness or else the kids and teacher, who were sunk in their waka ama in New Plymouth in 2009, would have probably drowned.Still its unheard of to see a crew in a waka on "ceremonial" duties wear life jackets.Another neolithic triumph(or perhaps just a calculated risk?). I have been involved with Maori people all my life and could give you "dubious "till the cows come home. Tuhoe terrorists?Nga puhi tyres ?Rangitane skeletons!Claudia March 2011 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.58.186.243 (talk) 02:38, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

Scholarship
Hi Claudia, don't get discouraged. We can easily see that you have not been trained to do papers on various topics. We're not picking on you by any means, but that technique is almost a requirement for WP. The gist of the method is "documentation." It is like the difference between hearing that someone is 40 years old and seeing the birth certificate. Maybe you might think the person is 39 or have heard they are 42. The birth certificate document settles it once and for all, not infallibly, but more authoritatively than hearsay. I hope you have never had to go to court but the approach is similar: you have to prove what you are saying by documents and witnesses. WP is not by any means saying, only trained scholars can work on WP. There are children working on it as well. They find something they can do well and do that. This is why I suggest some light editing until you begin to get the hang of the method. Now, for the stone age, step outside some night and look at the stars in the sky. Try counting 1 million stars. Now, just one of those pinpricks of light might represent a galaxy of a billion stars. There are millions of those. This is the kind of time we are talking about for the stone age (almost). As you can see, what happened to the Maori or anyone else in the last 300 years is not even discernable in geologic history. It is in fact modern history, which is only a few thousand years. Well, I got to move on now. Good luck on WP. Don't forget to register.Dave (talk) 11:28, 21 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Hello Dave,Although the SA was a very long time period,I have noted that various experts are often frustrated in their studies ,of say ,the neolithic period ,by the lack of real detailed knowledge about a society. What Im trying to point out is that here in Nz we had a large (100k) group of SA people living in a"time capsule" on the edge of the world . They were suddenly revealed to the "civilized" world in 1769 by Cook who had with him Joseph Banks, one of the most advanced scientists in the world in his day.They made regular contact and made copious notes and diaries.Following them were large numbers of highly literate,fairly liberal minded missionaries of the Anglican church who lived alongside and accurately  observed Maori for 40 years in the early contact period ,when there were few resident  Europeans (maybe 30-100)as well as 1000 or more itinerant British, American and French sailors.The volume of information about Maori  is huge.Because of the small numbers of Europeans and the self confidence of the natives(as they were called then)it took a very long time  time for Maori culture to change and as I have pointed out there are still aspects of SA behaviour,cultural methods et al in existence today.However dont all rush to NZ thinking that Maori are an open book-far from it.Tribes jealously guard their lore and secrets and are openly hostile to outsiders who dont show empathy.The noted NZ historian,Michael King, who was inexplictly killed in a car crash, was initially welcomed by Maori in his endeavours to write modern books about their culture but within a few years they turned on him and he was persona non grata on many marae.No one has adequately explained how or why this came about.Possibly it had to do with the creation of the modern Maori myth that has set out to falsely portray Maori as intensely spiritual and pure. This has reached laughable proportions at time such as when the Te Maori museum Exibition was taken on a world wide tour complete with tax payer funded"warriors". The exhibition was always opened with plenty of dry ice ,spooky "ghostly"sound effects  and Maori ninja's .It was a complete parody paid for by kiwi tax payers, to buck up tourism and had not much to do with how Maori really lived in the SA or in contempory NZ.Incidently I do have 3 good qualifications including 2 post graduate but learnt a long time ago that the academic world is deluding itself somewhat by saying that references give surity of the truth.If you take the time to follow back the paper or electronic trail the initial evidence for a statements of "fact" is often very thin and in the case of political charged topics often false or manipulated.Claudia March 2011  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.58.186.243 (talk) 21:10, 21 March 2011 (UTC)
 * You're a determined young lady, Claudia. Stone Age mores have to be reconstructed from the archaeological evidence. Without that reconstructon there is no telling whether any moderns live like any ancients. What would you use for a standard? The early archaeologists assumed a priori that this or that tribe was "stone age." They aren't doing that now. Their identifications were wrong. You say you have some post-graduate work? Post-graduate from what? Never mind. No, references don't give surety. They do provide continuity with the thought of people in the field. The main point however is that we cannot accept YOU as an authority. That is WP policy. Also, stop refering to me as an expert. If I were I would certainly not bother with this "encyclopedia." Well I can't think of anything significant to add so I'm out of here. Unless you come up with something new I probably will not reply. Nothing personal.Dave (talk) 22:08, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

Photo removed
I removed File:Homo erectus life restoration.jpg because, unlike the homo habilis photo in the article, there's no indication at all that the homemade image is at all scientifically based. Comet Tuttle (talk) 22:53, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

Discovery
http://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/science/article1568651.ece

This is a recent article on the recent discovery of Acheulian stone tools discovered near Chennai. I thought it might be useful for this page. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.150.243.235 (talk) 20:48, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Discovery
http://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/science/article1568651.ece

This is a recent article on the recent discovery of Acheulian stone tools discovered near Chennai. I thought it might be useful for this page. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.150.243.235 (talk) 20:50, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Acheulian in India
User தென்காசி_சுப்பிரமணியன் added: "In Athirampakkam at Chennai in Tamilnadu the Acheulean age started at 1.51 mya and it is also prior than North India and Europe.[45]" to the section Acheulian out of Africa this may well be a valid point but needs to point to something better than a single newspaper article and be integrated into the main argument. In good faith, PatHadley (talk) 13:41, 28 June 2012 (UTC)

I accept ur point. But in India now archealogists who are interested in Tamilnadu archeaology is very less. So we based only upon that type of newspaper article. After this news no archealogy research book was published regarding this news. And one thing Athiranpakkam is a well settled paleolithic site. So this news is suitable for main arguement.

See that news also was confirmed by archeologists and The dating was carried out in France by French co-authors.--Tenkasi Subramanian (talk) 15:16, 28 June 2012 (UTC)

Do all lines have reference
PatHadley, You told that needs to point to something better than a single newspaper article. But following lines which are in article didn't even show single newspaper article as a reference.

''From Southwest Asia, as the Levant is now called, the Acheulean extended itself more slowly eastward, arriving at Isampur, India, about 1.2 mya. It does not appear in China and Korea until after 1mya and not at all in Indonesia. There is a discernible boundary marking the furthest extent of the Acheulean eastward before 1 mya, called the Movius Line, after its proposer, Hallam L. Movius. On the east side of the line the small flake tradition continues, but the tools are additionally worked Mode 1, with flaking down the sides.''

So that single newspaper article based sentence is much more better than that.--Tenkasi Subramanian (talk) 15:30, 28 June 2012 (UTC)

Social Studies
Me and some of my classmates in social studies studied this age, the Mesopotamian civilizations, and the Ancient Egyptian civilization. Now we're getting started on Ancient India. --68.103.31.159 (talk) 17:17, 27 December 2012 (UTC)
 * I am glad to hear this. Note that this page is for improving the article.

Semi-protected edit request on 16 November 2014
Please, change also the reference from: to:

It's more appropriate from a scientific perspective, given that the book is quoted in full on the bibliography.

151.74.69.63 (talk) 10:59, 16 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Yes check.svg Done Stickee (talk) 12:06, 16 November 2014 (UTC)


 * I presume the IP is the editor who keeps adding the copyvio material from Piccolo's book. I asked Tim Darvill, who wrote the introduction, what "Without any doubt, they represent the product of a Culture that captured the irradiation centre of absolute positive energy in the Universe." He suggested that it might be a translation problem but couldn't help with the meaning. I'm also concerned about the rest of the paragraph as it suggests a unified culture, not exactly mainstream. Still, he wrote the introduction so it must be a decent book. Dougweller (talk) 12:36, 16 November 2014 (UTC)