User:ACebeiro/Choose an Article

Article Selection
Please list articles that you're considering for your Wikipedia assignment below. Begin to critique these articles and find relevant sources.

In this case, I am just following WikiEducation assignments guidelines. Thus, I am doing short evaluations of the articles below because I know for sure I am not going to be using them for my Wikipedia final assignment. However, I decided to add edits in some of the articles that really needed more information or adapting what they were conveying.

Option 1

 * Article title
 * Lomekwi


 * Article Evaluation
 * Overall, the article is too broad and tends to overlook all of the debates that are associated with the Lomekwian. The need to be neutral in Wikipedia also means that the writer has to present all of the different perspectives associated with the main topic, so the readers can gain a more insightful idea. This way they could follow the links and leads provided in the Wikipedia article should they want to know more about a specific aspect of the article. Furthermore, it seems that there is a clear bias in favor of the archaeologists who discovered the site. This can be noticed in the last paragraph of the article given that it only talks about all of the other researchers who are "...generally supportive of Harmand's conclusions". By doing this, the author(s) of the article completed disregarded all of the other authors who do have concerns surrounding the site and the artefacts. Thus, the tone and balance of the article is not appropriate in Wikipedia standards.
 * The lead section is too poor and lacks essential information. The purpose of a lead section is to provide a initial overview of the topic to the readers in a way that even if they do not continue reading the whole article they still have a good idea of what the topic is. In this case, just explaining that Lomekwi is an archaeological site located in Kenya and dated to 3.3 mya is not enough.
 * When it comes to content, the organization is not very clear. Even though I like the idea of having a section talking about the discovery of the site, I think that in this case the explanation is too anecdotal. Furthermore, there is a lot of useful information that is missing. For example, the "hominin evolution" section should be expanded to highlight the importance of the site for the origins of stone tools and its association with primate archaeology (this is something I plan to do as I write my article).
 * Clearly, the chosen references also reflect the bias in favor of the archaeologists who found the site.
 * Sources
 * - Archer, W., Aldeias, V. and McPherron, S.P., 2020. What is ‘in situ’? A reply to Harmand et al.(2015). Journal of Human Evolution, 142, p.102740.
 * - de la Torre, I. (2019). Searching for the emergence of stone tool making in eastern Africa. PNAS, 116(24), 11567-11569.
 * - Domalain, M., Bertin, A. & Daver, G. (2017). Was Australopithecus afarensis able to make the Lomekwian stone tools? Towards a realistic biomechanical simulation of hand force capability in fossil hominins and new insights on the role of the fifth digit. Comptes Rendus Palevol, 16(5-6), 572-584.
 * - Dominguez-Rodrigo, M. and Alcalá, L., 2019. Pliocene archaeology at Lomekwi 3? New evidence fuels more skepticism. Journal of African Archaeology, 17(2), pp.173-176.
 * - Harmand, S., Lewis, J.E., Taylor, N., Feibel, C.S., Boës, X., Prat, S. and Roche, H., 2019. Reply to Domínguez-Rodrigo and Alcalá: interpretation without accurate evidence is fantasy. Journal of African archaeology, 17(2), pp.177-181.
 * - Macchi, R., Daver, G., Brenet, M., Prat, S., Hugheville, L., Harmand, S., Lewis, J. and Domalain, M., 2021. Biomechanical demands of percussive techniques in the context of early stone toolmaking. Journal of the Royal Society Interface, 18(178), p.20201044.
 * - Lewis, J.E. and Harmand, S., 2016. An earlier origin for stone tool making: implications for cognitive evolution and the transition to Homo. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 371(1698), p.20150233.

Option 2

 * Article title
 * Paleoarchaeology


 * Article Evaluation
 * To begin with, from my understanding there is not an (official) discipline named "paleoarchaeology". In fact, even Wikipedia estates that the article "is written like a personal reflection, personal essay, or argumentative essay that states a Wikipedia editor's personal feelings or presents an original argument about a topic". Not only does this statement reinforce the idea that this article is not written neutrally (lack of tone and balance), but also that there are a lot of fundamental issues with it.
 * The structure of the article is extremely poor. There are no sections at all, just five paragraphs with no coherent connection. There is no "lead" section or further headings and subheadings to organize the flow of the article. The writing quality is lacking and there are grammatical errors as well.
 * The content does not make any sense at all. For example, the claim "Paleoarchaeologists' studies focus on hominid fossils ranging from 15,000,000 to 10,000 years ago, and human evolution and the ways in which humans have adapted to the environment in the past few million years" is wrong in many different ways. If we were to think of "paleoarchaeology" as "paleolithic archaeology" then the discipline will not be dealing with fossils directly but with the material artefacts that hominins (not hominids) made and/or used. Moreover, if we take a paleoanthropology approach then the time range would have to go back to around 7 mya when what are currently considered the earliest hominin fossils have been dated to (Sahelanthropus tchadensis).
 * Another very problematic claim: "the majority of paleoarchaeology sites are found in Southern and Eastern Africa. Some of the most productive sites have been those of Hadar, Sterkfontein, Kanapoi, and Olduvai Gorge". This sentence completely ignores all of the sites that have been found across Europe, Asia, America and Oceania.
 * The citations are very poor and not reliable at all. There are only four references from which only two come from what could be considered reliable resources: Anderson (2003) and Chapman (1989). Furthermore, there are no images or media at all.
 * The talk page is not very extensive which is worrying given the current state of the article. It seems some people in the talk page suggested to delete the page, but this proposition was not successful.
 * My personal opinion is that this article should be deleted, merged with the archaeology page under a different name or transformed into a whole new article named "Paleolithic archaeology" (Wikipedia page that does not exist) with major edits. Given all of the problems I have found with this article, I have made some minor changes in the article and gave my opinion about it in the talk page.


 * Sources
 * These are just a few sources that are associated with paleolithic archaeology as a discipline and that could be helpful should someone want to develop a paleolithic archaeology page.
 * - Atici, A.L., 2006. Middle-Range theory in Paleolithic archaeology: the past and the present. Journal of Taphonomy, 4(1), pp.29-45.
 * - Bar-Yosef, O. and Van Peer, P., 2009. The chaîne opératoire approach in Middle Paleolithic archaeology. Current Anthropology, 50(1), pp.103-131.
 * - Bar-Yosef, O. and Wang, Y., 2012. Paleolithic archaeology in China. annual review of anthropology, 41, pp.319-335.
 * - Clark, G.A. and Riel-Salvatore, J., 2006. Observations on systematics in Paleolithic archaeology. Transitions before the transition: Evolution and stability in the Middle Paleolithic and Middle Stone Age, pp.29-56.
 * - Liu, L. and Chen, X., 2012. The archaeology of China: from the late Paleolithic to the early Bronze Age. Cambridge University Press.

Option 3

 * Article title
 * Kanzi


 * Article Evaluation
 * Overall, the article is too messy and repetitive which makes the information confusing for the readers. Although I like that the lead section is concise and provides some essential information, I believe it should focus more into Kanzi's life and importance in case the reader only looks at the lead section. Furthermore, from my perspective the lead section already lacks neutrality.
 * When it comes to content and its organization, I find that the information is presented in a repetitive and non coherent way. For example, Kanzi's language and communication skills are explained in the "biography", "examples of behavior and abilities" and then in its own section under "language". Moreover, I find the "anecdotes" subsection completely unnecessary, particularly after "research programs". Furthermore, there should be more comments about the importance of Pan-Banisha (his sister) and other bonobos that were present across enclosures and that were affected by the problems happening with the "Great Ape Trust". However, a positive comment is that the author did mention the knapping experiments run my Kathy Schick and Nicholas Toth in the 1990s.
 * The talk page is very active. Most of the entries are associated with language which seems to be what draws more attention in general. However, this will change as soon as I publish and start to finalize my article given that I will be talking about Kanzi and other knapping experiments with non-human primates.
 * The reference selection seems to be quite extensive, yet most of the citations are only related with language studies. Moreover, there are too many citations taken from newspapers and magazines and this does not comply with Wikipedia's standards.


 * Sources
 * - Bandini, E., Harrison, R.A. & Motes-Rodrigo, A. (2022). Examining the suitability of extant primates as models of hominin stone tool culture. Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, 9, 1-18.
 * - Eren, M.I., Lycett, S.J. & Tomonaga, M. (2020). Underestimating Kanzi? Exploring Kanzi-Oldowan comparisons in light of recent human stone tool replication. Evolutionary Anthropology, 29(6), 310-316.
 * - Roffman, I., Savage-Rumbaugh, S., Rubert-Pugh, E., Ronen, A. and Nevo, E. (2012). Stone tool production and utilization by bonobo-chimpanzees (Pan paniscus). PNAS 109 (36): 14500-14503
 * - Roffman, I., Savage-Rumbaugh, S., Rubert-Pugh, E., Stadler, A., Ronen, A. & Nevo, E. (2015). Preparation and use of varied natural tools for extractive foraging by bonobos (Pan Paniscus). American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 158(1), 78-91.
 * - Westergaard, G.C. & Suomi, S.J. (1997). Capuchin monkey (Cebus apella) grips for the use of stone tools. American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 103, 131-135.

Option 4

 * Article title
 * Stratigraphy (archaeology)


 * Article Evaluation
 * Overall, the article does say things that do make sense and in a way that a naïve reader could easily comprehend most of the time (but see below). However, there are no references at all that backup any of their claims. The only references present are Harris (1989) and Carandini (1991). This is very problematic given that it is not possible to know whether their claims are correct or at least whether they are in the right track or not. This issue is magnified when dealing with naïve readers who do not know if what they are reading is reliable information or not.
 * In the talk page, some comments refer to the difficulty of some of the vocabulary and phrasing used by the author. However, I disagree. Even though, it is not plain vocabulary all of the time, I believe the author(s) is capable of explaining everything in a way that anyone could follow.
 * If I were to work on this article for my assignment, I would focus on expanding the current sections with more information (e.g., "combining stratigraphic contexts for interpretation" is too brief), and I would add some more sections. For example, I would like to include a section about the historical background of stratigraphy in archaeology and the impact it had on the emergence of archaeology as a field. I would also really delve into site formation processes and the issues associated with taphonomy. Moreover, I would include some case studies, so the readers can really understand the role of stratigraphy and its impact in archaeological research.
 * The tone and balance sounds quite neutral to me, so in that regard I have no extensive critique. Finally, even though there are some images, I would add some that are more clear than the ones present.


 * Sources
 * - de la Torre, I., Arroyo, A., Proffitt, T., Ramos, C.M. and Theodoropoulou, A., 2014. Archaeological fieldwork techniques in Stone Age sites. Some case studies. Treballs d'Arqueologia, 20, pp.21-40.
 * - de la Torre, I. and Wehr, K., 2018. Site formation processes of the early Acheulean assemblage at EF-HR (Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania). Journal of Human Evolution, 120, pp.298-328.
 * - Schiffer, M.B., 1972. Archaeological context and systemic context. American antiquity, 37(2), pp.156-165.
 * - Schick, K.D., 1984. Processes of Palaeolithic site formation: an experimental study. University of California, Berkeley.
 * - Schick, K., 1992. Geoarchaeological analysis of an Acheulean site at Kalambo Falls, Zambia. Geoarchaeology, 7(1), pp.1-26
 * - Schiffer, M.B., 1983. Toward the identification of formation processes. American Antiquity, 48(4), pp.675-706.
 * - Schiffer, M.B., 1985. Is there a" Pompeii Premise" in archaeology?. Journal of Anthropological Research, 41(1), pp.18-41.
 * - Schiffer, M.B., 1987. Formation processes of the archaeological record.

Option 5

 * Article title
 * Lithic technology


 * Article Evaluation
 * Overall, the article is quite poor and needs a lot of work to make it a viable Wikipedia article. Its organization and writing quality is lacking, and it presents multiple grammar errors. The way the contents are organized does not make a lot of sense either. There are only two sections ("Raw materials" and "Manufacture") that seem to be more relevant for articles such as knapping or lithic reduction. Furthermore, the Lead section includes a lot of information that is then not mentioned again in the body of the article, and this is bad practice in Wikipedia.
 * The fact that the definition of "lithic technology" only mentions the manufacture of stone tools and not subsequent study and analysis of the stone tools is already a major problem in the article. However, there are so many incongruences when it comes to content that it is difficult to keep up with them. Another example, was that the article stated that "the earliest stone tools were recovered from modern Ethiopia and were dated to between two-million and three-million years old"; yet, this sentence is not present anymore because I edited it. Moreover, from the perspective of the writer the "technique with the least detail" is a description of freehand knapping (even though this terminology is not used here), which is completely wrong.
 * Almost none of the claims made in the article are associated with citations. There are only five references and although they come from peer-reviewed articles, they are not enough.
 * Again, there are no images and media present which only enhances the poor quality of this article.
 * The talk page shows that the article is part of a "WikiProject Archaeology" which means that it would hopefully be updated by someone. However, there are not a lot of comments in the talk page. From what I can see, it seems that the main discussion was about the fact that the article is more about lithic reduction rather than lithic technology.


 * Sources
 * - Andrefsky, W., 1998. Lithics. Cambridge University Press.
 * - Foley, R. and Lahr, M.M., 2003. On stony ground: lithic technology, human evolution, and the emergence of culture. Evolutionary Anthropology: Issues, News, and Reviews: Issues, News, and Reviews, 12(3), pp.109-122.
 * - Inizan, M.L., 1999. Technology and terminology of knapped stone: followed by a multilingual vocabulary arabic, english, french, german, greek, italian, portuguese, spanish (Vol. 5). Cercle de Recherches et d'Etudes Préhistoriques.