Template:Did you know nominations/Gerard Fowke

Gerard Fowke

 * ... that Gerard Fowke spent much of his life studying ancient mounds of rocks, trying to prove the existence of a civilization that predated the Native Americans?

Created by Kozman99 (talk). Nominated by Gigs (talk) at 20:41, 8 November 2013 (UTC).


 * Symbol question.svg Hook is not in article, as far as I could see. Please suggest a new hook, or if the hook fact is in the article, please copy/paste the sentence in question here so that I won't overlook it again.  Other than that, I see no real problems: the sourcing is generally good (citations 6 and 13 are unclear and perhaps unreliable, but they could be removed if necessary without big problems), the article is obviously new enough and long enough, and it's nowhere close to violating any of our content policies.  Nyttend (talk) 06:51, 11 November 2013 (UTC)


 * Alt ... that Gerard Fowke spent much of his life studying ancient mounds of rocks, trying to prove the existence of a civilization that pre-dated what we currently understand to be the Native Americans?

I've ensured that this version appears verbatim in the article. Thanks. Gigs (talk) 16:07, 11 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Thank you, but does the source specifically say that he concentrated on stone mounds? Some stone mounds are known in the region, such as ones at Fort Ancient and at the Glenford Fort near Glenford, Ohio, but most mounds are earthen.  That's precisely why I said the hook wasn't in the article: I found everything else, but the bits about mounds of rocks is very unusual, and we need to be absolutely sure that it's what the source says.  Nyttend (talk) 16:42, 11 November 2013 (UTC)


 * I'm AGFing on original offline sourcing which I lightly paraphrased for the hook.  That said, there are accessible PD sources that support the claim, such as Archæological History of Ohio: The Mound Builders and Later Indians By Gerard Fowke, which chronicles his search for the lineage of the mound-builders, specifically in the context of searching for the proto-civilization that may have predated what are currently considered Native Americans.  He believed that the "mound builders", whomever they might be, were the key predecessors to the Native Americans.  I will add an additional reference to this book near the hook.  Thanks. Gigs (talk) 16:54, 11 November 2013 (UTC)


 * Alt2 ... that Gerard Fowke spent much of his life studying ancient mounds of rocks and earth, trying to prove the existence of a civilization that pre-dated what we currently understand to be the Native Americans?
 * [edit conflict] I obviously wasn't clear in what I said; I'm sorry. My sole question is the stone mounds: do the sources really say that most of these mounds were rock?  Everything else makes complete sense (see Mound Builders), but aside from the rarity of stone mounds in general, stone mounds don't appear different on the surface: unless the sources specifically say that he concentrated on stone mounds, it will be extremely hard to believe that he worked only on them, especially since he was doing work on mounds that had never previously been excavated.  Is there any chance you could replace "mounds of rocks" with " burial mounds " or something like that?  That would resolve all of my objections, both to the original hook and to the alt.  Nyttend (talk) 17:18, 11 November 2013 (UTC)
 * It seems they were primarily burial mounds, but he concerned himself with all types of mounds. As alt2 indicates, I did eventually see what you were getting at.


 * Alt3 ... that Gerard Fowke spent much of his life studying ancient burial mounds, trying to prove the existence of a civilization that pre-dated what we currently understand to be the Native Americans?
 * Gigs (talk) 17:58, 11 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Symbol voting keep.svg I actually prefer the ending of the original hook to the ending of the alt3, "trying to prove the existence of a civilization that predated the Native Americans?" But that's purely my own preference, as either one will work fine.  Nyttend (talk) 22:09, 11 November 2013 (UTC)