Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Anthropology

Speech sounds
The following is based on Internet data and my own pronunciation exercises

ORIGIN OF SPEECH SOUNDS..

An accent arises when a foreign language is spoken with the sounds of the first language.

At some point on the path from monkey to human, the addition of a new gene made it possible to create an activation surface on the pharyngeal wall that is suitable for making voiced sounds. Every sound has its own place there, together they form the pronunciation nest of a certain language. It was now possible to bring an idea into the sound combination that the entire herd of people understood in the same way. The voiceless consonants clarified the words and made it possible to increase their number.

Genetics should look for a sound gene rather than a language gene to determine the approximate time to the onset of human speech.

When monkeys get a suitable surface on the pharyngeal wall to form voiced sounds they begin to speak to an extent commensurate with their mental abilities.

Leonhard Klaar — Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.176.22.157 (talk) 02:22, 2021 July 10 (UTC)

Assistance requested at Male expendability
Several of us have been cleaning up male expendability/expendable male hypothesis/relative expendability argument. The thing narrowly escaped deletion a few months ago, but several of us have been tracking down good sources and removing synthesis. I realize someone with access to anthropology textbooks could be a great asset. Right now, the sources I've seen don't even clearly establish if male expendability applies only to humans or also to nonhuman animals.

This is an especially delicate subject because although male expendability was first described by anthropoligsts (and women anthropologists to boot) in the 1970s, men's rights advocates have adopted the concept to explain their views of society, so we have to treat it with even more care than usual. Darkfrog24 (talk) 19:42, 6 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Update: The contributors to this article are reaching an impasse. Our core question seems to be "Does 'male expendability' cover any way in which a society treats its men and boys as expendable/disposable or is it specifically about treating them as disposable because they are less necessary for population replacement?"
 * I've been going through the sources one by one, often with weeks-long waits at the library for paper copies of books, and what I seem to find is that the anthropology sources say "societies may treat men as expendable because they're less necessary for population replacement"&mdash;to my surprise&mdash;the manosphere sources attached to the article do not mention population replacement or use the specific term "male expendability."
 * My degree is in biological sciences. It would be good if someone with a stronger background in anthropology could come in and say "Yes, 'male expendability' is this specific thing, at least to anthropologists" or "No it isn't," so we can move forward on firmer ground. Darkfrog24 (talk) 23:27, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

Request for input on Witchcraft talk page
Hello everyone! There is an ongoing discussion occurring at Talk:Witchcraft which focuses on women who identify as a witch, their relationships to the term witchcraft and its practices (both historically and present day, see the short descriptor for a start, ""Practice of malevolent magic"), and whether the article is neutral. Historyday01 (talk) 17:20, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

Witchcraft: Requested move
There's a discussion about moving the article Witchcraft to Witchcraft (classical) and moving Witchcraft (disambiguation) to Witchcraft instead, at Talk:Witchcraft.  Esowteric +  Talk  +  Breadcrumbs   21:26, 19 July 2023 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:National identity
There is a requested move discussion at Talk:National identity that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. — DaxServer (t · m · e · c) 08:18, 19 August 2023 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Afro-textured hair
There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Afro-textured hair that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. – robertsky (talk) 15:53, 27 September 2023 (UTC)

Non-material culture and Symbolic culture
These two articles appear to be discussing the same topic, but input from editors with any level of expertise would be appreciated (because that is certainly not me). — HTGS (talk) 22:35, 13 October 2023 (UTC)

FAR for Digital media use and mental health
I have nominated Digital media use and mental health for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets the featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Delist" in regards to the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. voorts (talk/contributions) 02:01, 24 November 2023 (UTC)

Peer Review for Cultural diversity
A peer review is being requested for this article after a substantial rewrite. MartinPoulter (talk) 11:42, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

Origin(s) of man
The page Origin of man redirects to Anthropogeny, whereas Origins of man redirects to Human evolution. I have no opinion which redirect target is the better one, but it appears to me that either the Origin page should be a disambiguation page to which the Origins page redirects, or both should redirect to the same target. --Lambiam 11:46, 17 December 2023 (UTC)


 * Set them both to target Human evolution and nominate (or PROD) Anthropogeny for deletion. That article is an absolute mess that appears, at best, to be attempting a WP:DICDEF. — HTGS (talk) 23:02, 17 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Anthropogeny turned out to be the target of 23 redirect pages. I've made all, including Anthropogeny, redirect to Human evolution. --Lambiam 12:06, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

Traditional tattooing
Hi all, I'm considering splitting History of tattooing into a separate article on indigenous and traditional tattooing practices. Given the size of the article, it doesn't feel very readable and I think having a separate page would allow people to expand on the contemporary practices of these traditions. I'm alerting some of the WikiProjects attached to the article; please let me know if you have any concerns or objections to this idea :) ForsythiaJo (talk) 03:27, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

Tips on how to archive documents of interest to Anthropology (among other areas)
Hi, I am an inexperienced editor and have dabbled around in the talk pages of various articles rather than editing them directly for the past few years (without an account until now). I have a very unique question which I haven't received a good answer to until now. (I have actually asked a postgrad anthropologist, and while I didn't really get the answer I wanted from her I didn't get the sense that she was completely the wrong person to seek advice from either.)

I have thousands of pages of memos and emails, as well as leaflets, sermon audio, and "recruitment videos" from a "new religious movement" (article at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Assemblies_International), and I think it would above all be in the public interest to bring these into the public domain. As a side-effect, I would hope that this might remove hurdles for respected specialists such as anthropologists to have access to this information. Ideally, Wikipedia might be able to cite any resulting commentary, just as it has cited an important journalistic investigation on the group.

So that is where anthropology enthusiasts of Wikipedia come in. What is the best way for me to archive this material such that it is brought into the public domain and searchable through google or academic databases? Is there any pathway for me to take the material to a reputable organisation which can verify its authenticity and remove barriers for specialists to access it? Is there any way for me to archive it in such a way that it will be possible to cite it or any resulting commentary on Wikipedia?

Also, am I think it is simply beyond me to judge the importance of the documents, whether I am overestimating myself etc, so it would be nice to get some feedback in this regard. Are my concerns legitimate and worthwhile, or am on a fool's errand, like Don Quixote charging at windmills. Therefore please see the following Google Drive link to get a feel for some of the more interesting documents etc. https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1On5nu70ix6S0loLODmmQjusYsyESlP7x?usp=drive_link

NB, I am hoping to shorten this question and ask on WP:Teahouse as well in order to get different input from outwith Anthropology, since I think en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Assemblies_International is at least as much of interest to the public and whichever genres the Roys Report/Ministrywatch come under as to Anthropology. OverthinkingNovice (talk) 23:54, 3 March 2024 (UTC)


 * Just to warn you, I suppose that the way I frame the memos etc in the "Letters Memos Statements Communications" document might be overly emotional. I wrote it a few years ago but would probably write it different now, and it wouldn't be an issue for me to change the presentation to make it less emotional. OverthinkingNovice (talk) 00:08, 4 March 2024 (UTC)


 * You posted a very similar question in "How to archive and bring into the public domain materials which might be of public interest" within the "teahouse", and I responded to it there. -- Hoary (talk) 22:17, 4 March 2024 (UTC)

Hierarchy
Would like editors' thoughts on this claim:

Discussion here:
 * "Humans have lived in societies without formal hierarchies long before the establishment of states, realms, or empires."
 * Talk:Anarchism

--David Tornheim (talk) 07:25, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

Linguistic anthropology vs Anthropological linguistics
I have started a discussion at that might be of interest to members of this WikiProject. The discussion concerns whether these two articles should be merged (although it is not—yet—a formal merger discussion as such), or if not, how to clean up the articles, which are problematic in a number of ways. Brusquedandelion (talk) 12:10, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Elisabeth Burgos-Debray
There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Elisabeth Burgos-Debray that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. Kiwiz1338 (talk) 12:11, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

Julian Jaynes and his "bicameral mind" hypothesis that consciousness arose only about 4,000 years ago – 3-way POVFORK
Please see: Talk:Julian Jaynes.

Summary: Aspects of his hypothesis having "inspired" some later research doesn't equate to his work being proven correct, and cognitive science, evolutionary psychology, and related displines decreasingly support it, most especially his central notion that consciousness only arose a few millennia ago. Furthermore, it was proposed at that article to move it and reshape it into an article on the book, since the person is not notable for anything other than one book. Instead, the subject has been WP:CFORKed (arguably WP:POVFORKed) into further articles (The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, and bicameral mentality). The bio mostly just repeats claims from the book article (but with barely any hint of controversy or challenge, and strong suggestions of influence), while the book article is mostly just repetition of what is said at the hypothesis article (but without much of the critical material from the latter).

It is thus proposed to merge these into a single article on the hypothesis, the book it came from, and who wrote it, with all the critical material present, and expanded by more recent work on consciousness and cognitition. Even if they were not merged, they have to stop viewpoint-forking (and coatracking of the hypothesis across all three articles).

Anyway, please follow up at the Talk:Julian_Jaynes discussion thread, so this stays centralized. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  14:21, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

Merge WikiProject Cultural Evolution here
WikiProject Cultural Evolution is an inactive WikiProject within the broader scope of this one, are there any objections to me merging it here? –&#8239;Joe (talk) 09:28, 14 May 2024 (UTC)