User:Phoeb.mh/Howiesons Poort/RobbyGreg Peer Review

General info

 * Whose work are you reviewing?

Phoeb.mh


 * Link to draft you're reviewing
 * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Phoeb.mh/Howiesons_Poort?veaction=edit&preload=Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org_draft_template


 * Link to the current version of the article (if it exists)
 * Howiesons Poort

Evaluate the drafted changes
The Howiesons Poort article does well to walk the reader through many of the main topics involved in defining a technological industry. However, there is much more information that could be added to this page. The lead section is brief and concise but does not discuss all of the primary topics in the body of this article. A short outline of this in the lead section would help a reader who is just browsing Wikipedia pages at leisure. Adding this content into the lead will hopefully illuminate the breadth of data that can still be added into this page.

While reading through this, I did occasionally get lost between whether you were describing HP as a technocomplex or as the site. The HP site will have its own assemblages and environmental characteristics, but the majority of South Africa and abroad at this time is variable and will not look the same throughout. It could help to state explicitly when you are speaking about a technocomplex and the site.

Also, I am afraid that the map at the bottom of this page did not paste over with all of the site links. Make sure to keep the links on the original page so we don't lose these reference points.

Reference to the interpretation of HP as representative of modern human behavior can be linked closely with the surge in symbolic material culture found elsewhere in Africa (e.g., ochre use at Blombos Cave.)

- References and a breif breakdown of the role HP played in the debate between modern behavior and protomodern behavior could be good in this article, especially to attract a reader down from the lead section

In your Discovery section, you could add that the main components of the rock shelter soon became the staple technological aspects of the HP tool set.

- From this, you can then give a brief breakdown of the HP time frame and how/if interpretations of the HP changed through time (i.e., from technocomplex to culture to frame for dating archaeological occupations)

- You could probably also shorten some of the statements in this section. This would create room to add a bit of the Background behind the interpretations for HP

In the Environment/Paleoenvironment section, it would be helpful to list some of the fauna found at and around this site in combination with the predicted flora vegetation. This would give a well rounded view of the context in which HP peoples lived in and adapted to, then how this changed over time.

In the Date section, the last sentence speaks towards period of aridity and sea level change. It would help the reader to describe the proxies used to reconstruct this environment and how this is interpreted to have impacted human behaviors.

- So, how do we know, why did this happen, what was the impact, and discuss any points of contention regarding the reconstructions or behavioral interpretations

For the Technology section, Clarkson and colleagues have done some work on segments in Africa, Hiscock has done a lot of work on this in Australia , and then the epipaleolithic also sees backed tools.

- You can use these papers and additional ones you will find under the names above to help contextualize this type of stone technology

The Hafted Tools section might be able to go above or with a broader discussion about the use and implementation of backed tools (meant for hafting)

In the Comparisons to other Techno Complexes : thanks for referencing my article ;)

- This section might also need to be renamed since you do not really provide a breakdown of what a technocomplex is or how they are interpreted

In the Foraging and Diets section, the discussion is focused on changes in social structure and symbolic patterning. This could be extended into the debate of modernism. This section could also highlight specific evidence for symbolic behavior (stone technology, ochre, shell beads) and from this, is there evidence for extended trade networks or anything like it?