Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Archaeology/Archive 9

Is this a reliable source for the text?
I'm currently in the midst of a discussion on Talk:Tel Dan Stele (extending to other related articles, ie Merneptah Stele) involving sources. I attempted to add a source for the phrase "The Tel Dan stele is one of four known contemporary inscriptions containing the name of Israel, the others being the Merneptah Stele, the Mesha Stele, and the Kurkh Monolith." The source was as follows: At first, another editor on the page said the source contradicted the existing source. When it was pointed out that it doesn't, the editor then cursed me out and said the source was "irrelevant". The editor's objections are puzzling to me, claiming that "The Assyrian royal annals, along with the Mesha and Dan inscriptions, show a thriving northern state called Israël" is "irrelevant" because "the only reference to the name Israel is referring to a combination of three sources at the same time", which even as a semantic argument seems to not make sense. We already know for a fact that the first three documents listed (along with the fourth) all independently mention Israel, and the other editor knows that as well, so it's unclear why that argument is being made. To me, this is a clearly reliable source that supports the text, but I'm hoping to get a third opinion. (Please note that "Shalmaneser III of Assyria"/"Assyrian royal annals" = Kurkh Monoliths) Drsmoo (talk) 04:44, 27 December 2016 (UTC)

Missing topics list
My list of missing topics in archaeology (and palaeontology) updated - Skysmith (talk) 11:59, 8 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Thanks, this is a useful resource. Where is the list compiled from? –&#8239;Joe (talk) 12:34, 8 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Various sources, including hardcopy dictionaries I have. No doubt some of those may just need a redirect and categories may not always fit but I have done my best - Skysmith (talk) 12:48, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

400,000 photographs of archaeological objects found by members of the public in England and Wales
In recent weeks, 400,000 images of finds, logged and photographed by the Portable Antiquities Scheme, have been uploaded to Commons.

They are now ready for further categorisation on Commons, and use in Wikipedia articles.

Please see this note on Commons and the project page there. Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:12, 11 February 2017 (UTC)
 * This is a fantastic resources, thank you and  for the hard work! –&#8239;Joe (talk) 08:24, 12 February 2017 (UTC)

Dealing with Creationist archaeology
Editors inserting material from Creationist archaeologists/researchers is a perennial problem. I've brought up the latest attempts to use such sources at WP:FTN. They range from people such as Bryant Wood to Ron Wyatt and Bob Cornuke, ie from people with decent degrees to those with no degrees. I'm not an editor who thinks we should never mention these people or their work - my view on fringe material is that where it is indeed well publicised then we have some sort of responsibility to help our readers understand why it's wrong. Thus we have articles on the most notable people and even mention their work in articles such as Jabal al-Lawz, where I think it should be discussed, and Marsaskala, where I'm not sure at all that it belongs.

During a search today dealing with the recent problems I found an interesting critique of one Creationist run dig, in the Palestine Exploration Quarterly, 147 2015 "EDITORIAL: DOCUMENTING ARCHAEOLOGY IN THE SOUTHERN LEVANT", by Adi Keinax-Sciioonbaert:


 * "for Khirbet el-Maqatir, the main motivation behind the excavations is, according to ABR’s Director of Research Bryant Wood, to “determine if Kh. el-Maqatir meets the Biblical requirements to be identified as the Ai of Joshua”. You may ask yourself, how objective is the collection of data in these excavations? Is it at all possible for an ardent evangelical mission to be impartial in its archaeological endeavours? I will be quick to reply: the answer is a loud and clear “No”" And I do not refer only to the archaeological methodology of stratigraphic exposure or pottery classification, but also to the types of data that are collected more diligently than others. Suffice it to say, subjectivity or selectivity are not limited to archaeologists with religious sentiments, political agendas or personal interests, but are in fact intrinsic to the archaeological discipline and exist at every level of archaeological work, posing a challenge to archaeological documentation, specifically in the region of the Southern Levant but also in general. But whether methodology-driven or value-based, how does subjectivity infiltrate into the archaeological record, and which factors have an impact on our collective corpus of archaeological data of the region?"

There's more in the editorial, including a discussion of excavation permits. I'm wondering if we should amplify Pseudoarchaeology using the editorial I mention above.

I'm also wondering if editors here have any other advice on how to handle the issue - WP:Fringe is probably the relevant guideline, and WP:UNDUE relevant policy. Thanks. Doug Weller talk 15:58, 25 January 2017 (UTC)


 * No interest? I'm wondering now about an article. Doug Weller  talk 11:51, 5 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Sorry Doug, I've been mulling this over since you posted it but I don't really have any bright ideas. My vague impression is that although mainstream archaeology is very sceptical of a lot of what happens under the rubric of "biblical archaeology", not a lot of that scepticism makes it into print. I was disappointed that the editorial you linked above seemed to drop the subject completely after the first paragraph. But if you want to write a section or an article on it I'd definitely be interested in helping out. –&#8239;Joe (talk) 13:58, 5 February 2017 (UTC)


 * Missed this. Thanks, I probably will write an article or section at some point. There's also Hindu and Native American creationism, probably other forms. Doug Weller  talk 11:30, 12 February 2017 (UTC)

American Schools of Oriental Research
Does anyone know how prestigious is the annual conference and presentation of papers at the American Schools of Oriental Research (ASOR)? Would it be one of the most important conferences on the ancient near east?Korvex (talk) 22:04, 12 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Korvex, the American Schools of Oriental Research has 3 peer reviewed journals. Its conference is prestigious but papers presented there at approved sessions and workshops (as opposed to poster sessions) would still fail WP:RS as unpublished. I'm guessing that you want to use evidence that a paper presented there adds to the reliability of the presenter, is that right? Doug Weller  talk 11:46, 15 February 2017 (UTC)

Category:American runestones
I've put this up for deletion or rename at Categories for discussion/Log/2017 February 26. Doug Weller talk 13:00, 26 February 2017 (UTC)

WikiProject X Newsletter • Issue 10
Issue 10 of the WikiProject X newsletter is here!

This month, we discuss the new CollaborationKit extension. Here's an image as a teaser:



23:59, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

Formative stage
Could someone check this over? It was a complete mess, mixing Nth & Sth America very ineptly. I cut & pasted from other articles (as linked) & tried to disentangle. More refs would nice. Should it be Formative Period perhaps? Johnbod (talk) 15:12, 8 May 2017 (UTC)

Gunung Padang Megalithic Site - another Bosnian pyramid type hoax
Just thought I'd mention this here after reading this] over at the Fraudulent Archaeology Wall of Shame. The problem with stuff like this is of course the lack of reliable sources, few if any archaeologists or geologists are going to waste their time over something like this. It is a genuine archaeological site, but not nearly as old as claimed. Nor surprisingly it has government support. Doug Weller talk 15:02, 16 May 2017 (UTC)

Prehistory Museum of Valencia contest
Hi Folks! The Prehistory Museum of Valencia and Amical Wikimedia will be hosting a multilingual wiki-contest with prices called Viquipèdia:Viquiconcurs Prehistòria València. It's a multilingual contest, so despite the points being counted at Catalan wikipedia, whoever can edit in his or her own language. AQlso, the museum suggests some bibliografy from their own website, but everyone can edit with whichever references they prefer. Muse'ms bibliography is mostly in Catalan or Spanish, but the're also some books in English.

Notice that despite its name, the Prehistory Museum of Valencia not only covers Prehistory, but also Roman and Iberian civilizations.

The contest page is written in Catalan, but if people is interested, We can translate into English too.--TaronjaSatsuma (talk) 09:45, 2 June 2017 (UTC)

Importance assessment
I'm not much into this Wikiproject thing, but I just noticed there's a possibly unaddressed issue regarding importance assessment when it comes to topics of places, cultures and things like that which are not "popular" among the majority of the readers, and topics that are more popular among the majority of the readers of this Wikipedia. For example, we have Hadrian's Wall (rated "Top-importance" as I expected) and the Great Wall of Gorgan, which is archaeologically as significant, if not more significant, as any individual Roman lime, it is well-studied, but it's just less known in the West (details here or in the materials I've added to the corresponding articles). Recently the article Sasanian defence lines which includes the topic Great Wall of Gorgan, was assessed as "low importance", which led me to bring this up. --Z 10:43, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Great Wall of Gorgan is currently only rated, as "Low", for WP Iran. The Visual Arts project just doesn't "do" importance, which may be appropriate for this project too. All article ratings tend to be pretty random, with quality just based on length and maybe number of references.  Many projects, & I personally agree with this, seem to have a maximum of about 150 "Top" importance articles, which will often reflect sheer fame (and views) as well as some attempt at an objective measure of academic significance. Hadrian's Wall gets over 2,000 views a day, against 100 for Gorgan, and that is a valid factor in deciding importance to a project. Johnbod (talk) 14:02, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
 * The ratings (quality and importance) tend to be done quite haphazardly. The criteria are vague and I get the impression very few people actually look at them anyway; they just go by their gut feeling (e.g. like Johnbod said, quality = length for most people).
 * A while ago (when I was rating a lot of articles for WP:ARCHAEO/WOMEN) I updated this WikiProject's importance scale with topic-specific guidelines in an attempt to make things a bit more consistent. If anybody is planning to do a lot of rating it'd be great if they could try to stick to that. But in the grand scheme of things it doesn't matter too much.
 * In retrospect I probably should have rated Sasanian defence lines as mid, so thanks for spotting that. The basic concept behind importance ratings is that they should reflect what readers expect to see in a "good encyclopaedia" (see WP:1.0/Criteria). So it makes sense that Hadrian's Wall is rated higher than the Great Wall of Gorgan, even if they're equally historically/archaeologically significant, because the average (Anglophone) reader is much more likely to expect to see a world-famous monument like Hadrian's Wall in an encyclopaedia than the comparatively less well known Great Wall of Gorgan. –&#8239;Joe (talk) 15:44, 26 June 2017 (UTC)

Is "food-producing societies" a good way to phrase that?
Neolithic_Europe refers in a couple of places to the emergence of "food-producing societies".

That seems like an odd phrase to me. Are people happy with that expression, or would anyone like to suggest a better way of saying that?

Thanks -- 179.210.72.9 (talk) 23:31, 20 June 2017 (UTC)
 * It's a relatively common technical term but probably not the most understandable, no. –&#8239;Joe (talk) 15:47, 26 June 2017 (UTC)

Archaeology of country articles
Requested articles/Social sciences currently includes a request to create an "Archaeology of " article for every country in Europe. Is that something we want to do? What kind of things would they cover? –&#8239;Joe (talk) 08:31, 2 July 2017 (UTC)
 * A WP search on "Archaeology of" shows a sprinkling of these, for Israel, the Channel Islands (looks not bad), China (dire stub), Malawi (more than I knew before, certainly) and so on. Nicely done they could be fine, and a source for links to other articles, with a summary of main sites and museums, but they are likely to be a magnet for nationalist issues in many cases, and I can't see most of them being created at current levels of activity. Not really a priority, I'd suggest. Improving more academically respectable articles like Near Eastern archaeology is more important. Splitting Ireland by the border looks like a lousy idea. Some of them should be redirected, to Prehistoric Iberia/Ireland/Italy etc, or set up as index/disam pages linking to by period articles. "Prehistoric foo" remains the best name for most, I think.  Johnbod (talk) 16:59, 2 July 2017 (UTC)

Canada's Stonehenge - a fringe book about the Majorville Cairn and Medicine Wheel site
Fringe article which is slowly being fixed. It did lead me to create an article on the actual site but it's still a tiny stub which needs expanding. Doug Weller talk 12:58, 11 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Does the book merit an article? I only see two RSes in the references. Maybe we should merge it with the article on the site? –&#8239;Joe (talk) 16:40, 11 July 2017 (UTC)

Atlas of Hillforts of Britain and Ireland
The Atlas of Hillforts is a new, publicly accessible site created to map and describe all hillforts in the British Isles. As well as creating its own site, the Atlas has shared some data about each site with Wikidata. On the project page we are listing tasks related to the data import, where help is welcomed. Presently we are looking to merge some newly imported sites with existing Wikidata entries, tag photographs of the hillforts, and give the hillfort entries non-English labels One possibility is of overhauling list-of-hillforts articles by adapting drafts created by ListeriaBot. See the prototype being worked on at User:MartinPoulter/Hillforts. With a bit of work, we could make this list much more detailed and complete. MartinPoulter (talk) 13:47, 12 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Just a word of warning: there is a group of editors that strongly objects to the use of Wikidata/ListeriaBot in article space. See e.g. Articles for deletion/List of female Egyptologists, Articles for deletion/List of women linguists, Talk:List of women linguists, User talk:Joe Roe/Archives/2016, Templates for discussion/Log/2017 January 24, Templates for discussion/Log/2017 May 11, User talk:Nikkimaria/Archive 33. I suppose if you're just using it to generate drafts it'll be okay (although some editors apparently object to any data originating from Wikidata), but anything more than that might cause friction.
 * Anyway the hillforts atlas is a great project, we should definitely make the most of it. I'll see what I can do to help! –&#8239;Joe (talk) 11:26, 13 July 2017 (UTC)

Lynne Kelly (science writer)
Looks like a curate's egg, some good, some bad. Skeptic but looks fringe for archaeology. Very clearly a promotional article from the start. Anyone know anything about her stuff on archaeology? Doug Weller talk 08:10, 14 July 2017 (UTC)

Crowns of Silla
Not my expertise, but reading through the article, I think it could benefit from archeological eyes. When where they found, by whom? Unsourced material such as "The crowns are a uniquely Korean product and show no Chinese influence.", "The style of the crown strongly suggests a Scytho-Iranian connection with Korea." etc. So, if you´re interested, dig in. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 19:02, 14 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Seriously, pun not intended. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 19:04, 14 July 2017 (UTC)

Infoboxes "historic site" v "ancient site"
Following a discussion at Wikipedia talk:GLAM/Oxford/hillforts a proposal has been made to merge the infoboxes "historic site" and "ancient site". You can comment on that proposal here.&mdash; Rod talk 10:14, 16 July 2017 (UTC)

Priene calendar inscription
This is a bit of a mess. It's written so badly it's hard to know where to start. There's quite a bit of copyvio but it's hard to extract. A quick search shows there are probably a lot of better sources than the web pages from which some of this has been copied from. Doug Weller talk 14:06, 17 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Easier than I thought to get rid of the copyvio. I also added a reference section. It's still a mess. Doug Weller  talk 14:21, 17 July 2017 (UTC)

Ordinary burin listed at Redirects for discussion
An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Ordinary burin. Please participate in the redirect discussion if you have not already done so. – Uanfala 22:40, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

Category:70th millennium BC has been nominated for discussion
Category:70th millennium BC has been nominated for possible deletion. A discussion is taking place to see if it abides with the categorization guidelines. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the categories for discussion page. Marcocapelle (talk) 06:06, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

Blanche Wheeler Williams
A merge discussion at Talk:Blanche Wheeler Williams could use your input  czar  00:17, 13 August 2017 (UTC)

Why researchers sometimes find rock art that isn't actually there
See Robert Bednarik's article Rock Art And Pareidolia where thousands of petroglyphs that in reality didn't exist were innocently identified as rock art. Doug Weller talk 16:53, 6 September 2017 (UTC)

Ian Meadows (archaeologist)
I have opened a discussion about a possible redirect for Ian Meadows (archaeologist) on that article's talk page. I doubt it is much monitored and so thought I should mention it here. - Sitush (talk) 19:29, 20 September 2017 (UTC)

Riwat
The article seems to be making exceptional claims without citing the mainstream opinion, I have defined how at Talk:Riwat, have a look when you get time. Capitals00 (talk) 05:03, 25 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I'll try to find time tomorrow. Doug Weller  talk 19:23, 25 September 2017 (UTC)
 * I've posted a comment on the talk page. –&#8239;Joe (talk) 22:06, 25 September 2017 (UTC)

Barrows / mounds
I've just removed some wording in the lead section of Earthworks (archaeology) saying that earthworks "are often known as barrows in England", whereas I'm pretty sure the word refers specifically to burial mounds (besides, they exist all over the British Isles, not just England). However, I've left in the part saying they're "often known as mounds in North America", which also sounds dubious to me since not all earthworks are mound-shaped, but I don't know enough about American archaeology to know for sure, and I don't have access to the source cited. Hairy Dude (talk) 15:36, 27 September 2017 (UTC)
 * The source is Ken Feder. I guess I could ask him but I'd like to look for more sources. You're right of course about barrows. Even the article has examples of earthworks which are clearly not barrows. Hm, a quick GBooks search has examples of discussions of "earthworks and mounds". This is probably a no-brainer. Mounds are almost always earthworks, maybe always, earthworks however are not always mounds. The statement was inserted with the Feder source, ie it isn't an example of something being sourced years after it was added. But I'd say just remove it. The actual situation is that a lot of things are earthworks, so we should be listing some examples in the lead but not stating something that seems at best unusual. Doug Weller  talk 18:25, 27 September 2017 (UTC)
 * I agree. Mounds/barrows are a type of earthwork, one of many, not a synonym. I'll go ahead and remove that from the lead. –&#8239;Joe (talk) 16:53, 13 October 2017 (UTC)

Form of hand axes under evolutionary control?
See this link. Do either of these hypotheses belong? Have they been sufficiently discussed in the academic literature to meet WP:UNDUE? Doug Weller talk 06:45, 3 October 2017 (UTC)
 * I think they're legitimate alternative hypotheses that are worth mentioning somewhere. The two papers cited there only came out last year (the 'bird song' one made a splash ), but similar ideas have been floating around for decades, and there's a decent sized literature on the transmission of Acheulean tools in general. As far as I can tell none of the sources cited mention the Movius line, though, so I think their inclusion there is WP:SYNTH. –&#8239;Joe (talk) 17:26, 13 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I've removed the text. Doug Weller  talk 19:13, 21 October 2017 (UTC)

Starčevo–Körös–Criş
See Talk:Starčevo–Körös culture. –&#8239;Joe (talk) 09:29, 27 November 2017 (UTC)

Archaeosphere
An article on this topic was recently requested at Requested articles/Natural sciences/Environment and geology. It seems to be a recent (2014-ish) neologism. I've suggested that we should maybe wait to see if the term becomes more commonly used. If anyone here thinks its worthy of an article right now, then maybe they could create a stub on the topic. Cheers, Mikenorton (talk) 12:42, 28 November 2017 (UTC)

Use of BP in timeline at Upper Paleolithic
This uses BP dates in the timeline, which seems inappropriate. What do others think? , what was your rationale for making the change? Doug Weller talk 16:47, 2 December 2017 (UTC)
 * Aren't these mostly carbon dates? But on the timeline, he just changed BC to BP down to 11,000 BC/BP, which ain't right! Johnbod (talk) 17:03, 2 December 2017 (UTC)
 * BP or kya tends to be the norm in scholarly writings on the Palaeolithic. On an article about something recentish I'd convert to BC(E), since it's more familiar, but the error margins on dates older than 15,000 or so are so wide that quibbling over a couple of millennia doesn't make sense. –&#8239;Joe (talk) 17:18, 2 December 2017 (UTC)

Disambiguation links on pages tagged by this wikiproject
Wikipedia has many thousands of wikilinks which point to disambiguation pages. It would be useful to readers if these links directed them to the specific pages of interest, rather than making them search through a list. Members of WikiProject Disambiguation have been working on this and the total number is now below 20,000 for the first time. Some of these links require specialist knowledge of the topics concerned and therefore it would be great if you could help in your area of expertise.

A list of the relevant links on pages which fall within the remit of this wikiproject can be found at http://69.142.160.183/~dispenser/cgi-bin/topic_points.py?banner=WikiProject_Archaeology

Please take a few minutes to help make these more useful to our readers.&mdash; Rod talk 13:10, 3 December 2017 (UTC)

Help needed at Point Rosee
A discussion was initiated at Talk:Point Rosee as the dates in the article contradicted the dates in the Nova/PBS program. I tried to correct this but was reverted. I can't find much written after the program was broadcast. Doug Weller talk 16:33, 27 December 2017 (UTC)

Venus figurines
There is a discussion at Talk:Venus figurines regarding the inclusion of post-Palaeolithic figurines. has been edit-warring for several years to try and remove any mention of them (not just in this article), and is at it again. Some more opinions would be appreciated. I think you have both edited the topic in the past. –&#8239;Joe (talk) 19:56, 29 December 2017 (UTC)

Aurolithic civilization
A new(ish) editor adding fringe material on a 'Lost Aurolithic Civilization' to various articles, see Special:Contributions/Wikiknol. –&#8239;Joe (talk) 14:42, 31 December 2017 (UTC)

Please come and help...
There are requested moves at: that would benefit from your !vote and rationale. Happy New Year to All!  Paine Ellsworth   put'r there  09:31, 2 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Talk:Wandu and
 * Talk:Guonei

Women in archaeology task force update
Just over a year ago I started a women in archaeology task force to improve our coverage of female archaeologists and women-related topics in archaeology. Since then, WIR's red list of women archaeologists has been halved, and members of the task force have created 32 new biographies. Two of those were featured at DYK and one (Margaret Ursula Jones) was brought up to good article status. We've also tagged and assessed all of the existing articles on women archaeologists (373 total), which helps the task force keep track of the level and quality of coverage. I therefore wanted to thank, , and, especially, , for all their hard work over the past year.

At this rate, I think we can aim to turn all the remaining links on the WIR archaeology red list blue in 2018. I'd also like to focus on improving existing articles. Currently only 12% of women in archaeology articles are classed as B or above, and only three are GAs or FAs.

If anybody would like to help, please do add your name to the participant list at WP:ARCHAEO/WOMEN. –&#8239;Joe (talk) 13:24, 4 January 2018 (UTC)


 * I want to thank Joe Roe for his help this past year. There is much to learn in writing a biography that meet's Wikipedia guidelines. I probably wouldn't have made it to biography #4 without Joe's sage advice and quick replies to my questions.


 * I am wondering, at the moment, if we will be able turn all the remaining red links to blue?  A  number of red list archaeologists are from countries like Japan and Italy, where source information, if available,  is not in English. MauraWen (talk) 20:03, 4 January 2018 (UTC)

New documentary on the Solutrean hypothesis
"CBC under fire for documentary that says first humans to colonize New World sailed from Europe". This discusses some of the racist users of the hypothesis. It's likely to bring new editors to the page who have little understanding of the subject or Wikipedia, plus hopefully some who do. I see the Haplogroup X argument is in the documentary, although you'd think they might have given up on that. Doug Weller talk 15:15, 12 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Good spot. In case it becomes useful, one of the few mainstream geneticists that agreed to be interviewed (and is clearly worried her interviews will have biased edits) has tweeted extensively to rebut the hypothesis: thread here PatHadley (talk) 11:49, 14 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I added a paragraph based on her paper to Haplogroup X (mtDNA) and to this article a while ago. Glad to see it's still there!  Doug Weller  talk 15:15, 14 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Also see this. Ken Feder's involved with archyfantasies. Doug Weller  talk 13:29, 20 January 2018 (UTC)

Anyone have Current Archaeology for 2009?
I gave mine away. Looking for a review of Mike Ashley (writer)'s Mammoth Book of King Arthur. The book is extensively used at Ambrosius Aurelianus. Ashley "is a leading authority on science fiction, fantasy, crime and weird fiction". I can't find his book used in reliable sources. I did find one review which isn't encouraging. It seems to be used in a number of articles. Thanks. Doug Weller talk 13:40, 20 January 2018 (UTC)

Misliya cave
In January 2018 it was announced that a fragment of a jawbone with eight teeth found at Misliya cave, Israel, have been dated to around 185,000 years ago with speculation that the Levallois culture might also be associated with early modern humans. This might require a rewrite of many articles. Recent African origin of modern humans states 'There were then at least two dispersal events from Africa to the rest of the world. The first wave took place between 130,000 and 115,000 years ago via northern Africa', which might need thinking about as the present evidence suggests an earlier migration. See https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/01/180125140923.htm, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-42817323 , https://www.timesofisrael.com/jawbone-fossil-found-in-israeli-cave-resets-clock-for-modern-human-evolution/ and http://www.ancientpages.com/2018/01/27/earliest-modern-human-fossil-outside-africa-unearthed-at-misliya-cave-israel/ for information.2A00:23C4:D896:6000:28F4:632E:DF2D:14A3 (talk) 03:52, 28 January 2018 (UTC)

Ancient Beringian
There's a merge discussion at Talk:Ancient Beringian about a merger with other articles. There's also a content dispute that could use more input. Doug Weller talk 12:56, 4 February 2018 (UTC)

Cradle of civilisation
A lot of changes including the time line. If anyone is interested they could use checking. Also some possibly POV edit warring. Doug Weller talk 07:17, 7 February 2018 (UTC)

WikiProject X Newsletter • Issue 11
Newsletter • February 2018

Check out this month's issue of the WikiProject X newsletter, with plans to renew work with a followup grant proposal to support finalising the deployment of CollaborationKit!

-— Isarra ༆ 21:26, 14 February 2018 (UTC)

Late pre-Roman Iron Age (LPRIA)
This is missing from British Iron Age, see Talk:British Iron Age. I just wish I had the time. Doug Weller talk 13:48, 16 February 2018 (UTC)

"Anthropology professor is skeptical about LiDAR Maya hype"
That's the title of this article. It's an interview with Michael E. Smith who says at the end of the interview:

"these data have tremendous potential to contribute to our knowledge of the ancient Maya. They can revise our figures for Maya populations, for their farming systems, their housing and domestic organization, and other topics. But right now, these things exist only as potential results, not as actual findings. So that is the “no” sense of my answer. Right now, with the available information, we have no greater understanding of the Maya. That will have to wait until the hard work gets done. The LiDAR data have to be ground-truthed (checked on the ground), processed by computers and analyzed carefully.

It is significant that these finds are reported by the National Geographic Society, an organization whose interest in publicity and spectacular claims often takes precedence over their interest in solid scientific results. Many public announcements of archaeological findings are based on technical articles published in peer-reviewed journals. That is a sign that there has been a real advance, sanctioned by colleagues and journal editors. The new LiDAR finds have not yet been published in a peer-reviewed journal, because they are still preliminary. Another feature of the hype that comes from an organization like National Geographic Society is that the finds are announced as if they were the first time anyone though to apply LiDAR to the Maya area. But in fact, archaeologists have used LiDAR in other parts of the Maya zone for seven or eight years now."


 * I just found a more detailed article by him. Doug Weller  talk 17:37, 19 February 2018 (UTC)

Can I send invitations to new members for your project?
Hi, I have been working on recommending new members for your project for a while, and have sent some lists to. I wonder if you mind me sending invitations directly to save time and efforts of yours? Thank you! Bobo.03 (talk) 05:13, 23 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Hi . You can for me. I didn't see anyone on the first list that I thought it was worth inviting, but maybe there are more on the second. –&#8239;Joe (talk) 17:00, 26 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Got it. Will do! Just wonder what kinds of editors are you expecting to invite? Bobo.03 (talk) 18:41, 26 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Nobody in particular, but the thresholds on the first set seemed very low, including users for example who had only made one edit to an archaeology-related article. I wouldn't want to bother people who just happened to edit a few articles in our project scope in the course of doing anti-vandal work, etc. –&#8239;Joe (talk) 03:09, 27 February 2018 (UTC)
 * I see. Thank you! Yeh, the first set has some bug.. I've fixed them. Hope the second set would look a bit better. Bobo.03 (talk) 03:13, 27 February 2018 (UTC)

The SPLC on the History Channel, pseudoarchaeology etc
"The modern far right is crisscrossed with pseudo-scientific research into lost Aryan super-civilizations, biblical giants, ancient astronauts and the occasional inter-dimensional alien." Great stuff. Doug Weller talk 20:08, 4 January 2018 (UTC) anything about Area 51? Azd0815 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 11:38, 14 March 2018 (UTC)

Evidently James Mellaart faked a number of "discoveries" at Çatalhöyük
Which means it needs a rewrite.Famed Archaeologist 'Discovered' His Own Fakes at 9,000-Year-Old Settlement Doug Weller  talk 11:50, 15 March 2018 (UTC)
 * This is amazing. BUt we can't rewrite untill we see how the archeological milieu reacts. The article says Ian Hodder has not commented yet for example.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 12:36, 15 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Yes I think we need to be cautious. Mellaart was already a controversial figure and these new stories seem rather one-sided. –&#8239;Joe (talk) 12:49, 15 March 2018 (UTC)
 * I am now reading this, publishd by Zangger.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 12:56, 15 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Also this. ·maunus · snunɐɯ· 13:48, 15 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the links, they look useful. The first one didn't work for me, but I think it's this: . –&#8239;Joe (talk) 14:38, 15 March 2018 (UTC)

There is a proposal to create a new category Category:Prehistoric Black British people at Talk:Cheddar Man
Specifically Talk:Cheddar Man. It would set a precedent and I'm not sure a good one. Doug Weller talk 11:12, 16 March 2018 (UTC)
 * That's ridiculous. Totally anachronistic. –&#8239;Joe (talk) 11:51, 16 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Further discussion at Talk:Cheddar Man would be welcome, but I don't suggest starting a closely similar discussion here. Richard Keatinge (talk) 12:34, 16 March 2018 (UTC)

April 2018 at Women in Red including Archaeology
--Ipigott (talk) 16:29, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

List of oldest continuously inhabited cities
This isn't terrible but has some problems with the older/oldest cities where historical records aren't definitive or don't exist. Nationalistic edits, of course. The use of newspapers, official city websites, etc as sources. Pure lack of sources showing when the settlement became a city (reliable sources for this can be hard to find). Dates in the list not matching dates in the article. Even an entry (Susa for a past city which is now basically three mounds and which I've removed. Doug Weller  talk 09:14, 14 April 2018 (UTC)

List of cities of the ancient Near East
Can someone please look at the last few additions, and my reverts? And of course the sources. Jiroft is a problem as Jiroft doesn't suggest it's an ancient city and the link in the list is to Jirof culture. One of the sources is worthless but the other one does seem to mention an ancient city at Jiroft. These are good faith additions, but I think maybe confused. See also User talk:Doug Weller And I'm pretty sure we shouldn't have red links. Doug Weller talk 18:35, 2 April 2018 (UTC)


 * The whole thing seems very fringe. This paper by Oscar White Muscarella is interesting reading (if anyone needs, email me for the PDF). Essentially it looks like "Jiroft" was a site invented to sell looted antiquities and foragies from near the modern city of Jiroft on the international market. From there it got tied up in the Aratta nonsense (as seen in the latest message on your talk page). –&#8239;Joe (talk) 11:04, 3 April 2018 (UTC)
 * sorry to be so slow. The problem there is we have for instance this source which is of course later than Muscarella's paper. Also this article by Andrew Lawler. Doug Weller  talk 09:32, 14 April 2018 (UTC)

Iruña-Veleia
Iruña-Veleia - there's been some very vehement editing on this article. And some use of sources that I don't think meet WP:RS, eg some YouTube links, link 27 by Egyptologist Ulrike Fritz which may or may not be published (and the next link may be copyvio), etc. There's also "As of 2017 no peer-reviewed study has been published supporting the falsehood of the findings and no control excavations have been performed at the site" which of course is not sourced. Doug Weller talk 14:45, 18 April 2018 (UTC)

Adam's Calendar "an important site of a lost ancient civilization" and Michael Tellinger
Created by the same editor, Tellinger might be notable but he's also fringe, the calendar is nonsense. What's shocking is that "Slave Species of the Gods:The Secret History of the Anunnaki and Their Mission on Earth" is published by Simon and Schuster. The book on Adam's Calendar is published by Zulu Planet that seems to be owned by Tellinger. Same publisher for "Temples of the African Gods" and "Ubuntu contributism". Doug Weller talk 13:20, 22 May 2018 (UTC)


 * Hard to find RS sources for who the author really is, but this might help search for something. Also see and .  Doug Weller  talk 13:38, 22 May 2018 (UTC)

WikiProject collaboration notice from the Portals WikiProject
The reason I am contacting you is because there are one or more portals that fall under this subject, and the Portals WikiProject is currently undertaking a major drive to automate portals that may affect them.

Portals are being redesigned.

The new design features are being applied to existing portals.

At present, we are gearing up for a maintenance pass of portals in which the introduction section will be upgraded to no longer need a subpage. In place of static copied and pasted excerpts will be self-updating excerpts displayed through selective transclusion, using the template Transclude lead excerpt.

The discussion about this can be found here.

Maintainers of specific portals are encouraged to sign up as project members here, noting the portals they maintain, so that those portals are skipped by the maintenance pass. Currently, we are interested in upgrading neglected and abandoned portals. There will be opportunity for maintained portals to opt-in later, or the portal maintainers can handle upgrading (the portals they maintain) personally at any time.

Background
On April 8th, 2018, an RfC ("Request for comment") proposal was made to eliminate all portals and the portal namespace. On April 17th, the Portals WikiProject was rebooted to handle the revitalization of the portal system. On May 12th, the RfC was closed with the result to keep portals, by a margin of about 2 to 1 in favor of keeping portals.

There's an article in the current edition of the Signpost interviewing project members about the RfC and the Portals WikiProject.

Since the reboot, the Portals WikiProject has been busy building tools and components to upgrade portals.

So far, 84 editors have joined.

If you would like to keep abreast of what is happening with portals, see the newsletter archive.

If you have any questions about what is happening with portals or the Portals WikiProject, please post them on the WikiProject's talk page.

Thank you. &mdash; The Transhumanist  07:25, 30 May 2018 (UTC)

Terminology articles
We have a collection of articles on technical terms in excavation, mostly created by the same editor years ago, and neglected since:


 * Alignment (archaeology)
 * Assemblage (archaeology)
 * Association (archaeology)
 * Context (archaeology)
 * Cut (archaeology)
 * Feature (archaeology)
 * Fill (archaeology)
 * Occupation earth
 * Phase (archaeology)
 * Plan (archaeology)
 * Relationship (archaeology)
 * Section (archaeology)
 * Waterlogging (archaeology)

They're not well sourced and for the most part appear to be dictionary definitions padded out with textbook-style explanations of how to apply them in practice. I was planning to go through and merge all or most to the glossary of archaeology. That does the job of explaining what they mean when used in articles, without having lots of articles on essentially unencyclopaedic topics.

Following 's suggestion, I'm posting here to check whether there are any objections. –&#8239;Joe (talk) 18:01, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
 * I'm rather more sympathetic to at least some of these. In general, I don't much like "glossary" articles on wp, and think they should mostly be lists of very short definitions with links to articles, like the fairly well-developed Glossary of architecture. They tend to be not well maintained (not helped by the ghastly templating used), though heaven knows this is also true of articles.  Glossary of archaeology (avge 28 views pd), which Joe started in late 2016, is still pretty skimpy - apparently there are no terms beginning with E,G,H,J,K,M,O,T,U,V and other well-known letters!  The number of articles which should be entirely replaced by a glossary entry is pretty small imo, but may include some of these. Some are quite long - a screenful or more- and I presume that though without incline cites, being from the good old days, they are all pretty accurate in essentials. I'm not really seeing a "how to" issue here. I could go through the lot, but for example, what about Phase (archaeology) or Fill (archaeology), two of the longer ones?  The language is rather technical, but there is far too much to just transfer to the glossary, & to just lose it seems like a loss to me. Johnbod (talk) 00:57, 30 May 2018 (UTC)
 * If you don't like glossaries that's fair enough. Glossary of archaeology is obviously a long way from complete but I think it's useful to define the many bits of archaeology jargon that crop up in other articles but don't necessarily merit an article of their own.
 * That's what I'd call these articles – excavation jargon. The length is misleading. Fill (archaeology), for example, can easily be condensed to four short glossary entries without losing any information (and note that the last two, >50% of the body text, aren't actually directly about fills):
 * fill: material that was deposited or has accumulated in a cut after it was made.
 * primary fill: the first (and therefore stratigraphically lowermost) fill of a given cut; often silt or other natural material that accumulated in the cut before it was used for its primary purpose
 * slumping: the deformation of a feature from its original position through natural settling action
 * tip line: the angle of a deposit such as a fill or midden, potentially indicating the direction and/or position that the material was originally deposited from
 * The rest is unencyclopaedic filler: examples, textbook-style extended explanations, tips on how to apply these concept in practice. That kind of thing. I suspect these were written from the the original author's head (many cite the MOLAS manual, but I checked a few and it doesn't actually verify what's there). They knew what they were talking about, to be sure, but they don't meet our current expectations for either verifiability or encyclopaedic style. They'd work in a wikibook excavation manual, maybe.
 * Would a good way forward be to take these on a case-by-case basis? I'll continue to expand the glossary, and if I think an entry says everything an existing article does, I'll propose that it be merged. –&#8239;Joe (talk) 18:52, 31 May 2018 (UTC)

Armenian hypothesis
Please see Talk:Armenian hypothesis. –&#8239;Joe (talk) 15:37, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

Transhumance
This isn't part of our wikiproject, which isn't surprising as it doesn't even suggest that it has a history going back to the Neolithic. It's basically about modern or recent transhumance in various parts of the world. I have no time to fix it, but if the subject interests anyone.... Doug Weller talk 16:34, 24 June 2018 (UTC)


 * I tagged it for recentism, but the tag was removed today. I've replaced it add added some sources on the talk page. Doug Weller  talk 18:21, 28 July 2018 (UTC) Which have been used, so this is sorted although needs work.  Doug Weller  talk 18:36, 28 July 2018 (UTC)

Proposal to have "Etruscan" redirect to Etruscan civilization
... instead of going to a disam page. Please comment at Talk:Etruscan. This follows a similar agreed move of Minoan. Johnbod (talk) 21:55, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

Please comment on Noah's Ark
Hi. Please comment on the talk page section of the article Noah's Ark titled "Existence of the ark" as to whether the given source verifies the text. Thanks! Thinker78 (talk) 21:01, 6 August 2018 (UTC)

Discussion about Jason Colavito at RSN
See WP:RSN. Doug Weller talk 19:24, 18 August 2018 (UTC)

Use of press releases and newspaper reports for archaeological discoveries
I'm having a friendly discussion at Talk:Shuafat, an ArbPia article. It's about an important discovery that hit the news in 2016 but seems to have dropped out of sight, ie no publications, further reports, etc that I can find (which is surprising). Contributions welcome. Doug Weller talk 18:23, 28 July 2018 (UTC)


 * Actually there is a problem. It's been pointed out to me in the friendly discussion at Shufat that this is used in a section on Shufat in our Jerusalem for the text "In 2016 Israeli archaeologists announced they had unearthed a 7,000-year-old settlement from the early Chalcolithic period in the northern neighbourhood of Shuafat.[97] What makes the discovery extraordinary is the fact that it includes houses, as opposed to previous Chalcolithic sites from the Jerusalem area, which contained none.[97] The archaeologists describe the discovery as the oldest of its kind in the region.[76] The Israel Antiquities Authority asserts that the stone houses and artifacts from Shuafat confirm "the existence of a well-established settlement in the Jerusalem area as long ago as the fifth millennium BC"." If we don't have a guideline on this, we should. Doug Weller  talk 18:52, 28 July 2018 (UTC)


 * I'll take a look at the specifics after, but in general I absolutely agree that we should strongly discourage the use of news media sources on archaeology. Aside from the abysmal state of science journalism about archaeology, there is still too many people within the discipline doing "publication by press release", which makes even statements by experts unreliable. This situation might be similar to Point Rosee, which a big fuss was made of in the media, and then when the papers come out two years later (not even peer reviewed, just a report)... turns out to be absolutely nothing. I don't think we could have avoided having an article on that considering the level of coverage, but still, we might have saved ourselves some effort and disseminated less misinformation if we'd been more conservative about which sources to use.
 * Maybe it would be worth drafting a project guideline that covers this, to refer to in future? That the news isn't a good source for science is already policy (WP:NEWSORG), but apparently a lot of people overlook that. –&#8239;Joe (talk) 19:09, 28 July 2018 (UTC)
 * There is already Identifying reliable sources (natural sciences), which technically doesn't cover archaeology, and seems not to have caught on, but gives very applicable advice IMO. –&#8239;Joe (talk) 19:21, 28 July 2018 (UTC)


 * , it does, but it's too long and not quite tuned enough for the issues here. There is some stuff in the secondary sources section that might be used as a basis. Where would we put it and how would we get it adopted? Doug Weller  talk 14:12, 31 July 2018 (UTC)
 * As a WP:PROJPAGE? We could also include some guidelines on things like calendar systems. I'd see it as elaborating on existing policies (e.g. WP:NEWSORG) as they relate to archaeology, so I don't think we'd need to get a formal consensus in an RfC or anything. I think the majority of people who would care are already watching this page. –&#8239;Joe (talk) 14:40, 31 July 2018 (UTC)
 * You will have a job eliminating all of these, and the wider community will be dubious about a relatively small project trying to enforce a local standard. Most editors who touch on archy articles only do so using general media sources. Proper archy publication still often takes a long time.  There was some discussion of this at Talk:Staffordshire Hoard, where many non-regulars prefered to take the garbled version printed by the "RS" press, despite the full video of the press conference, with the experts that they were garbling, being available (actually most of that must have been on some other talk page) .  Despite its very high profile, that has not been "published" in a final form nearly 10 years after discovery. The Hoxne Hoard was found in 1992, and the BM monographs only published in 2005 and 2010. In both cases there were preliminary publications of course. If you want to exclude major papers and press agencies, you may need to argue each case in terms of inaccuracy (to meet WP:NEWSORG), which will be very difficult if press releases are all that is out so far.  Johnbod (talk) 15:00, 31 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Having an advice page we can point to is at least a first step in improving the quality of references. It needn't impose anything, it's just saying: look, this is what editors interested in/knowledgeable about this topic agree is best.
 * Publication lag is a recognised problem in archaeology, especially when it comes to the elusive "final" report. But less so than it used to me, and I think these high-profile discoveries are exceptional, because they're the ones where you get a significant volume of coverage that isn't reliable. For the majority, if there's nothing published in the peer reviewed literature then we have no article and no problem. –&#8239;Joe (talk) 15:28, 31 July 2018 (UTC)
 * I think it's fine to do an advice page, but some more experienced editors will challenge the validity of that, and there can be a good deal of support for such challenges among the wider community. A lot of the problems centre on "earliest find/use of" claims appearing on more general pages, which the media will always print, & some helpful reader always pick up. Johnbod (talk) 15:34, 31 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Given the preservation and sampling biases inherent in the archaeological record, It is highly implausible the oldest of any category will be found preserved. As a result, a person has be skeptical of anybody who claims that they found the "earliest/oldest find/use of "anything. What they are talking about at most the "earliest/oldest known find/use of" anything. I do not know if this has been discussed in specifically in archaeology, but paleontologist have long recognized this. For example:


 * Signor, P.W., Lipps, J.H., Silver, L.T. and Schultz, P.H., 1982. Sampling bias, gradual extinction patterns, and catastrophes in the fossil record. Geological implications of impacts of large asteroids and comets on the Earth, Geological Society of America Special publication 190, pp.291-296.


 * Unfortunately, the importance of the word known is often overlooked in the crafting of press releases and the creation of sensational headlines. Paul H. (talk) 23:15, 23 August 2018 (UTC)

WikiProject X Newsletter • Issue 12
Newsletter • August 2018

This month: WikiProject X: The resumption

Work has resumed on WikiProject X and CollaborationKit, backed by a successfully funded Project Grant. For more information on the current status and planned work, please see this month's issue of the newsletter!

-— Isarra ༆ 22:24, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

RfC on use of primary sources on human genetics
See Reliable sources/Noticeboard. –&#8239;Joe (talk) 07:25, 10 September 2018 (UTC)

Time Team category and navigation template
Please see discussions at User talk:Woodensuperman and Template talk:Time Team, regarding the inclusion of Time Team-related categories and navboxes on biographies of archaeologists. –&#8239;Joe (talk) 13:22, 12 September 2018 (UTC)
 * And now also Categories for discussion/Log/2018 September 12. –&#8239;Joe (talk) 16:37, 12 September 2018 (UTC)

Upload of archaeological collection from Brazil
Hello all. I hope you are doing fine! I am writing to request help for the category curation of an upload I have worked on: c:Category:Lapa do Santo archaeological site. I have never worked on categorizing images on archaeology, so if anyone is up to it I would like to see how you do it so I can learn from example. Moreover, if anyone is interested in creating articles associated to this upload, this could give me direction on what we could on our home wiki. A possible reference is:. I am part of the WikiProject Archaeology in Portuguese, but I don't have specific knowledge in the area. For context: this is a pilot upload for a GLAM initiative Brazilian Wikimedians are leading with Museu de Arqueologia e Etnologia da Universidade de São Paulo. Thanks a lot! --Joalpe (talk) 22:53, 20 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Is there a specific culture they belong to? We have Category:Pre-Columbian human remains, but not much in it. There will be ones for the artefacts too. The most useful thing to do is to add descriptions to each file, ideally in English and Portuguese, and a very short description of the context of the site. Johnbod (talk) 02:02, 21 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your reply. According to the reference I have provided, there is no much information on the culture they belong to, as they are identified as "early Holocene hunter-gatherer societies". I have added as much description I was able to on Commons, in Portuguese and in English, looking at the references. I will take a look at the category you have suggested. Thanks again! --Joalpe (talk) 16:18, 21 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Wow! These are great! Go GLAMwiki and Go open science! I'm a bit swamped right now but will try and have a look at getting these categorised and used in the next few days. Obrigado! PatHadley (talk) 09:12, 22 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Lst-Bur-06 Cran-MF.stl
 * Hey all! Just to let you know that our uploads associated to the Museu de Arqueologia e Etnologia da Universidade de São Paulo is ongoing. We have also been working on creating items on Wikidata, particularly burials in Brazil. If anyone has time for this we would really appreciate anyone here to review Draft:Lapa do Santo --it was created by a professor associated to the GLAM initiative. Thanks again! --Joalpe (talk) 01:59, 3 October 2018 (UTC)

Sinister terminology
In several articles about helmets (Gevninge helmet fragment, Benty Grange helmet, Coppergate helmet, Pioneer helmet, Shorwell helmet, Sutton Hoo helmet, Nijmegen helmet, Lokrume helmet fragment, Emesa helmet), uses the terms "dexter" and "sinister" rather than "right" and "left" to identify the sides of a helmet, because "right" is putatively ambiguous (the wearer's right or the viewer's right?) because and the "relevant literature" supposedly uses "dexter". But we have only found two cases, from 1947 and 1879, using dexter. On the other hand, at least seven recent articles (1975-2017) speak of right or left helmet cheek guards, and none of dexter or sinister.

He and I have discussed this at (far too great!) length, and have I think pretty much exhausted the arguments without coming to a consensus. So I invite members of this wikiproject to look in on Talk:Gevninge helmet fragment and contribute their wisdom. --Macrakis (talk) 21:12, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

Featured quality source review RFC
Editors in this WikiProject may be interested in the featured quality source review RFC that has been ongoing. It would change the featured article candidate process (FAC) so that source reviews would need to occur prior to any other reviews for FAC. Your comments are appreciated. --IznoRepeat (talk) 21:50, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

Thomas J. Preston Jr.
Hello. I've expanded Thomas J. Preston Jr. a bit. Feel free to add more referenced content to the "career" section if you can. Thanks!Zigzig20s (talk) 01:47, 13 November 2018 (UTC)

List of oldest continuously inhabited cities
As always this continues to be a problem. Last night someone tried to remove quite a few cite tags to unsourced material, today someone added an entry with sources but no sources that established any date for continuous occupation as a city, which is what the article is about. see my comments at Talk:List of oldest continuously inhabited cities - the editor had thought that reuse of stones showed continuous inhabitation. Hence my discovery of Spolia. The Guardian article in external links is actually an interesting discussion of the issues involved in such claims. Doug Weller talk 11:12, 18 November 2018 (UTC)

WikiJournal of Humanities published first article
T.Shafee(Evo &#38; Evo)talk 09:39, 26 November 2018 (UTC)

Spolia/robbing
I was looking for an article mentioning "robbing" in the archaeological sense and found none, but I did find Spolia which is about the subject but doesn't mention the term "robbing" at all although a search on "robbing reusing stones archaeology" gives 4,500 hits vs 3,400 when I replace robbing with spolia. Google scholar shows even a greater difference, about 6,450 with "robbing" vs about 2,160 using "spolia".

We do have Robbing but this is about Beekeeping which although it mentions robbing doesn't link to it.

I think the article should be renamed Robbing (archaeology)), [[Robbing renamed Robbing (beekeeping), and a dab page created which would include [[Robbery. Any thoughts? Doug Weller  talk 11:07, 18 November 2018 (UTC)


 * Then, there is Grave robbery (which is about both robbing tombs and body snatching). - Donald Albury 15:30, 18 November 2018 (UTC)
 * I think "robbing" is more colloquial than scientific and try to use "reuse" or "rework" in my own work. Maybe more suited to a glossary entry than a full article? –&#8239;Joe (talk) 16:41, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

Nomination for merging of Template:Infobox pyramid
Template:Infobox pyramid has been nominated for merging with Template:Infobox building. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Thank you. Bsherr (talk) 00:04, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

Requested move
There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Gerasa (Judaea) that may need your opinion. Please come and help.  Paine Ellsworth , ed. put'r there 02:00, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

Plains Village period
Hi, I created Plains Village period to begin to address the incredible dearth of articles about precontact Great Plains archaeology. Any help in this area from knowledgeable people would be greatly appreciated! Best, Yuchitown (talk) 03:17, 9 December 2018 (UTC)Yuchitown

Radiocarbon calibration
Recently created a pair of templates (Template:Clarify radiocarbon calibration & Template:Is this date calibrated?) and a help/guideline page (Help:Radiocarbon calibration) about the calibration of radiocarbon dates. I have some concerns about them and have started a discussion at Help talk:Radiocarbon calibration. –&#8239;Joe (talk) 07:14, 11 December 2018 (UTC)

WikiProject X Newsletter • Issue 13
Newsletter • December 2018

This month: A general update.

The current status of the project is as follows:
 * Progress of the project has been generally delayed since September due to development issues (more bitrot than expected, some of the code just being genuinely confusing, etc) and personal injury (I suffered a concussion in October and was out of commission for almost two months as a result).
 * I currently expect to be putting out a proper call for CollaborationKit pilots in January/February, with estimated deployment in February/March if things don't go horribly wrong (they will, though, don't worry). As a part of that, I will properly update the page and send out announcement and reach out to all projects already signed up as pilots for WikiProject X in general, at which point those (still) interested can volunteer specifically to test the CollaborationKit extension.
 * WikiProject X/Pilots was originally created for the first WikiProject X prototype, and given this is where the project has since gone, it's only logical to continue to use it. While I haven't yet updated the page to properly reflect this:
 * If you want to add your project to this page now, feel free. Just bear in mind that more information what to actually expect will be added later/included in the announcement, because by then I will have a much better idea myself.
 * Until then, you can find me in my corner working on making the CollaborationKit code do what we want and not just what we told it, per the workboard.

Until next time,

-— Isarra ༆ 22:44, 20 December 2018 (UTC)

Importance assessment of Megalithic Temples of Malta
Currently the article Megalithic Temples of Malta is assessed as being Mid-importance on this project's importance scale. Mid-importance is given to subjects which fill in more minor details, and I don't believe this article falls into that category. I am therefore proposing to reassess the article as Top-importance, since it is a must-have for a print encyclopaedia. The Megalithic Temples of Malta are a World Heritage Site, and they are some of the oldest free-standing structures in existence, so I believe it falls into the Top-importance category which according to this project's importance assessment covers:
 * "Sites with iconic, internationally recognized status, e.g. Pyramids of Giza, Terracotta Army"

At the very least, this article should fall into the High-importance category, which covers:
 * "Sites notable at an international level, e.g. World Heritage Sites"

Do other members agree with reassessing this article? Xwejnusgozo (talk) 20:49, 23 December 2018 (UTC)


 * I'd say high. Top is best reserved for "wonder of the world"-level monuments that basically everyone has heard of, like the pyramids. The megaliths of Malta are a WHS but aren't quite there. –&#8239;Joe (talk) 21:15, 23 December 2018 (UTC)

List of largest cities throughout history
I'm just found this article and the sources seem pretty poor and claims suspect. See WP:RSN. Doug Weller talk 21:21, 27 December 2018 (UTC)

Discussion merging Tecoaque & Zultepec
The merger of the articles Tecoaque (created March 2009‎) and Zultepec (created November 2008‎) has been proposed. Discussion is at Talk:Tecoaque. --Bejnar (talk) 15:31, 12 January 2019 (UTC)

Anyone want to write an article?
I ran into this about a fascinating find. The institute involved seems notable enough for an article but I don't have time right now. See and. Doug Weller talk 08:55, 24 January 2019 (UTC)
 * This is only the latest archaeological find at Wakulla Springs. Previous excavation has already established the presence of a Paleoindian component as well as a number of Early Archaic and younger prehistoric occupations at this location. OSL dating of the Paleoindian component has established it as being a minimum age of ~13.5 ka cal BP for it. In the 1930's, the Florida Geological Survey first recovered mastodon remains from this site and Pleistocene megafauna remains were recovered either at or near the springhead later on. This is all discussed and summarized with citations in a 2012 PhD dissertation, The Search for Paleoindian Contexts in Florida and the Adjacent Southeast, by James S. Dunbar. Paul H. (talk) 14:32, 24 January 2019 (UTC)


 * By the way, should text be added to Wakulla Springs or create a new Wikipedia article? If the latter, any suggestions as to the title of the article? There is a significant number of papers and book chapter(s) available online as PDF files that discuss this site. Paul H. (talk) 19:53, 24 January 2019 (UTC)


 * Earlier there was the Aucilla River Prehistory Project, with which Dunbar was heavily involved. The Aucilla River, and the Paleoaucilla in Apalachee Bay, have a number of interesting sites. I've saved a number of links, but have had trouble finding time to do anything with them. - Donald Albury 22:29, 24 January 2019 (UTC)

Banks
What kind you might ask? We have a number of articles related to banks at Bank (disambiguation) and at Banks. One of them is Bank (fortification)) which is a redirect to Rampart (fortification). The lead to that article starts "In fortification architecture, a rampart is a length of bank or wall forming part of the defensive boundary of a castle, hillfort, settlement or other fortified site."

I seem to have started with one problem and ended up with two. I wanted a link to "bank" as in "bank and ditch", but there isn't one. The second problem is at the ramparts article, which suggests that all hillforts were, well, hillforts, full stop.

I forgot - the word "bank" isn't in Glossary of archaeology. Maybe I shouldn't worry about it and assume people will know what it means in articles relating to archaeology. 13:57, 27 January 2019 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Doug Weller (talk • contribs)

Causewayed enclosures
If anyone is interested in this subject, could they please look at the comments by User:European Prehistorian at Talk:Causewayed enclosure. This should be a decent article but it's pretty lacking. Thanks. Doug Weller talk 13:07, 10 February 2019 (UTC)

Archaeology and identity politics
See Archaeologists must avoid prehistoric Brexit parallels – they encourage twisted readings of the past and an article in Antiquity by the same author. "The Brexit hypothesis and prehistory" by Kenneth Brophy of the University of Glasgow. It's downloadable as a pdf. Doug Weller talk 16:41, 17 February 2019 (UTC)

Talk:Celtic polytheism
This seems relevant to this project. Doug Weller talk 15:58, 21 February 2019 (UTC)

Pseudoscientific metrology
I've trimmed some of the non-metrology stuff out. I'm not sure if removed it all as I'm not completely clear of the scope of metrology. It's still basically presenting various fringe author's positions usually using them as sources. Doug Weller talk 10:14, 22 February 2019 (UTC)

Megalithic graffiti symbols needs renaming as it's only about SE Asia
"terms used to describe markings found on mostly potsherds found in Central India, South India and Sri Lanka during the Megalithic Iron Age period." Doug Weller talk 17:48, 2 March 2019 (UTC)


 * "South Asian Megalithic graffiti symbols"? Or is that too complex? - Donald Albury 20:23, 2 March 2019 (UTC)
 * "South Asian Megalithic markings" would be shorter and is the first bolded name given in the article. (Also India and Sri Lanka are in South Asia rather than SE Asia). Gaia Octavia Agrippa Talk 21:14, 2 March 2019 (UTC)

Canadian archaeologist redlinks
A discussion about Category:Smith-Wintemberg Award recipients (not really important) has highlighted that most of the recipients of the award don't have articles yet; they're all notable, so they should!

Also, Bruce Trigger does have an article but it's underdeveloped for such an influential archaeologist. –&#8239;Joe (talk) 22:12, 10 March 2019 (UTC)

Talk:Yonaguni Monument
The article is about an underwater rock formation claimed to be artificially made or adapted. Note that the context for this RfC is scattered among other threads. Doug Weller talk 09:58, 12 March 2019 (UTC)

List of archaeoastronomical sites by country
Needs a cleanup. I just found the Great Pyramids listed! Some of these sites are pretty dubious. Doug Weller talk 18:51, 12 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Is that so wierd? We say (of the Great Pyramid of Giza): "The purpose of these shafts is not clear: they appear to be aligned towards stars or areas of the northern and southern skies, yet one of them follows a dog-leg course through the masonry, indicating no intention to directly sight stars through them. They were long believed by Egyptologists to be "air shafts" for ventilation, but this idea has now been widely abandoned in favour of the shafts serving a ritualistic purpose associated with the ascension of the king's spirit to the heavens." I think this is now standard/respectable. Johnbod (talk) 22:55, 12 March 2019 (UTC)

Reliable sources for Palaeolithic articles
This essay by is currently causing a minor stir on palaeoanthropology twitter. Should we do something with it? I don't have an opinion on the content, but as with Help:Radiocarbon calibration, I don't think it's ideal to have these highly specific advice pages in project space, especially without any (?) prior discussion. –&#8239;Joe (talk) 10:33, 7 March 2019 (UTC)
 * I wrote this in good faith to reduce what I perceived as bias on Wikipedia, but I see that this page itself is seen as slanted, which is not what I intended. We might as well get rid of it, I have moved it to my user page. Re radiocarbon: thank you for your interest, I unfortunately don't have as much time as I did to invest in Wikipedia and in this discussion. I respect the consensus. Nicolas Perrault (talk) 11:29, 7 March 2019 (UTC)
 * It seems unaware of the extensive & well-developed set of guidelines & other pages we have around WP:RS, which have been refined over many years. Johnbod (talk) 23:05, 12 March 2019 (UTC)

Archaeology and the Book of Mormon
This needs cleaning up, it's being rewritten from an LDS perspective. Doug Weller talk 16:45, 29 March 2019 (UTC)

Graham Hancock's new book America Before may impact our articles
Jason Colavito has a column [http://www.jasoncolavito.com/blog/graham-hancock-to-archaeologists-you-guys-are-the-pseudoscientists Graham Hancock to Archaeologists: "You Guys Are the Pseudoscientists"].

Jason says "With the publication of America Before this week, Graham Hancock has launched a major publicity push, larger than the one accompanying Magicians of the Gods four years ago and rivaling his media ubiquity in the late 1990s. According to his U.S. publisher, St. Martin’s, the American part of his marketing campaign will include an initial print run of 125,000 copies, a fourteen-city national book tour, a national media tour, a marketing campaign aimed at scholars and college instructors (!), a featured-title selection at TheHistoryReader.com, and “extensive history blog outreach.” They even offer mail-in prizes, giving early buyers an enamel lapel pin of the book’s logo." See also this. Doug Weller talk 18:42, 7 April 2019 (UTC)

Should List of megalithic sites redirect to List of monoliths?
We also have Monolith and Megalith. Doug Weller talk 18:44, 7 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Definitely not. It should be roughly overlapping with Category:Megalithic monuments. But, it's not really a big deal? PatHadley (talk) 20:17, 8 April 2019 (UTC)

A new newsletter directory is out!
A new Newsletter directory has been created to replace the old, out-of-date one. If your WikiProject and its taskforces have newsletters (even inactive ones), or if you know of a missing newsletter (including from sister projects like WikiSpecies), please include it in the directory! The template can be a bit tricky, so if you need help, just post the newsletter on the template's talk page and someone will add it for you.
 * – Sent on behalf of Headbomb. 03:11, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

LMLK Research website as a source for biblical archaeology - run by a Creationist with a B.Sc.
See WP:RSN. Doug Weller talk 14:57, 30 April 2019 (UTC)

Unpleasant attack on an anthropology Professor at WP:BLPN
This all started when John Hoopes wrote a negative review on Amazon about a book by Flem-Ath in 2001. He deleted it (accusations by Flem-Ath that he was disciplined are totally false) and since then Flem-Ath has been unhappy, to say the least, and when a student of Hoopes started a draft article he objected dramatically. I think the posts at Talk:Rand Flem-Ath by Flem-Ath are, funnily enough as Flem-Ath is at BLPN, BLP violations. Doug Weller talk 09:29, 20 May 2019 (UTC)

A possible Science/STEM User Group
There's a discussion about a possible User Group for STEM over at Meta:Talk:STEM_Wiki_User_Group. The idea would be to help coordinate, collaborate and network cross-subject, cross-wiki and cross-language to share experience and resources that may be valuable to the relevant wikiprojects. Current discussion includes preferred scope and structure. T.Shafee(Evo &#38; Evo)talk 02:55, 26 May 2019 (UTC)

RM discussion on Jericho (Tell es-Sultan)
Please comment: Talk:Tell es-Sultan.--Bolter21 (talk to me) 14:38, 1 June 2019 (UTC)

A proposal for WikiJournals to become a new sister project
Over the last few years, the WikiJournal User Group has been building and testing a set of peer reviewed academic journals on a mediawiki platform. The main types of articles are:


 * Existing Wikipedia articles submitted for external review and feedback (example)
 * From-scratch articles that, after review, are imported to Wikipedia (example)
 * Original research articles that are not imported to Wikipedia (example)

Proposal: WikiJournals as a new sister project

From a Wikipedian point of view, this is a complementary system to Featured article review, but bridging the gap with external experts, implementing established scholarly practices, and generating citable, doi-linked publications.

Please take a look and support/oppose/comment! T.Shafee(Evo &#38; Evo)talk 11:28, 5 June 2019 (UTC)

Nomination of Portal:Civilizations for deletion
A discussion is taking place as to whether Portal:Civilizations is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The page will be discussed at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Civilizations until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the page during the discussion, including to improve the page to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the deletion notice from the top of the page. North America1000 06:20, 9 June 2019 (UTC)

NPOV issue over possible megalithic observatory at Carahunge
New editor who doesn't understand NPOV and is using a source which discusses both sides of a dispute but only mentions the pro-observatory side. See thsir talk page where I tried to explain the issue, WP:FTN (the editor seems more interested in Harouni than Carahunge I think) and after I pinged them there they started WP:NPOVN. The source I was concerned about can be downloaded. Different issue, he's suggesting some new sources pro-observatory - I'm not convinced about them all, and I believe that there are issues of nationalism in Armenian archaeology - I could be wrong of course with that. One source is a collection of papers, " Cosmic catastrophes. Center for Cultural History and Folkloristics and Tartu Observatory," which doesn't look peer reviewed. Doug Weller talk 05:20, 17 June 2019 (UTC)

WikiProject X Newsletter • Issue 14
Newsletter • June 2019

Updates: I've been focusing largely on the development side of things, so we are a lot closer now to being ready to actually start discussing deploying it and testing it out here.

There's just a few things left that need to be resolved:
 * A bunch of language support issues in particular, plus some other release blockers, such as the fact that currently there's no good way to find any hubs people do create.
 * We also probably need some proper documentation and examples up to even reference if we want a meaningful discussion. We have the extension documentation and some test projects, but we probably need a bit more. Also I need to be able to even find the test projects! How can I possibly write reports about this stuff if I can't find any of it?!

Some other stuff that's happened in the meantime:
 * Midpoint report is out for this round of the project, if you want to read in too much detail about all the problems I've been running into.
 * WikiProject Molecular Biology have successfully set up using the old module system that CollaborationKit is intended to replace (eventually), and it even seems to work, so go them. Based on the issues they ran into, it looks like the members signup thing on that system has some of the same problems as we've been unable to resolve in CK, though, which is... interesting. (Need to change the content model to the right thing for the formwizard config to take. Ugh, content models.)

Until next time,

-— Isarra ༆ 21:43, 21 June 2019 (UTC)

‎Request for input on re-draft of an article
Hello all, I've redrafted the article on slighting in my sandbox and wondered if I could get some input on it. I'd like to copy it over to mainspace but since I've written one of the sources used I'd like to try and establish some sort of consensus first. For those of you who haven't come across the term before, it's about the deliberate destruction of buildings – especially fortifications. If you have any comments, I reckon Talk:Slighting would be a good place for them; I'll create a new section there shortly. Richard Nevell (talk) 22:23, 23 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Nice write-up:-) &#x222F; WBG converse 15:10, 24 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Commented on talk there, but fine for mainspace. Johnbod (talk) 15:36, 24 June 2019 (UTC)

New fellows of the Society of Antiquaries
The Society of Antiquaries of London has announced the election of ten new fellows :

Fellows of the Antiqs. are usually notable, so it might be worth checking the list for potential new articles. Seems only one has one at the moment. –&#8239;Joe (talk) 16:01, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

Archaelogical reports
Do you have a specific citation template, or do we use ? Or anything else of course. Cheers, ——  SerialNumber  54129  15:39, 15 June 2019 (UTC)
 * What do you mean by archaeological reports? Something not published in a journal? –&#8239;Joe (talk) 20:31, 19 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Thanks for looking in ; yes, I think so. It's this, which I'm currently using on Littlemore Priory scandals. It's not in a journal, so omits various parameters, but was a report to the council, so it doesn't really fit but I couldn't find anyting closer. Any suggestions? Cheers,  ——  SerialNumber  54129  20:57, 19 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Ah I see. Yes, these are unpublished grey literature so cite journal doesn't quite fit. cite report or cite techreport maybe?
 * The ADS indexes archaeological grey lit from the UK and gives them DOIs (e.g. Minchery Farm). It might be worth creating a cite ads template and/or adding ADS/OASIS ids to the citation templates. –&#8239;Joe (talk) 21:11, 19 June 2019 (UTC)
 * I mentioned you at the fac, but I'd like to apologise here too for ignoring (=totally forgetting I'd asked!) your very helpful assistance. It's really appreciated! Cheers! ——  SerialNumber  54129  12:03, 24 July 2019 (UTC)
 * No problem! Good luck with the FAC. –&#8239;Joe (talk) 12:14, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

New study suggests activity over a much longer period at L'Anse aux Meadows
See. Doug Weller talk 19:35, 16 August 2019 (UTC)

Articles for deletion/Anachronisms in the Book of Mormon
Some but not all of this article is relevant to archaeology. Doug Weller talk 13:31, 6 September 2019 (UTC)

WP:RSN
The relevant issue here is if this journal is a reliable source for archaeology. I'd appreciate it if some of the regulars here could take a look. Doug Weller talk 18:56, 17 September 2019 (UTC)

WikiProject X Newsletter • Issue 15
Newsletter • September 2019

A final update, for now:

The third grant-funded round of WikiProject X has been completed. Unfortunately, while this round has not resulted in a deployed product, I am not planning to resume working on the project for the foreseeable future. Please see the final report for more information.

Regards,

-— Isarra ༆ 19:24, 29 September 2019 (UTC)

Article class dispute at En Esur
You're invited to participate at the discussion regarding the article class of En Esur. — comrade  waddie96 ★ (talk)  09:05, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

Create a map of En Esur
Is anyone here a map creator and can create a map of the site of En Esur? I've set up a draft using MS Paint. See discussion at Talk:En Esur--Bolter21 (talk to me) 16:05, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

categories
Hi, Category:Archaeological discoveries does not exist, shouldn't it exist as a parent category?--Alexmar983 (talk) 21:47, 7 October 2019 (UTC)
 * I suspect not. There are already too many archaeological categories, many very poorly integrated with other category trees. Aren't all sites and artefacts discoveries? Johnbod (talk) 04:14, 8 October 2019 (UTC)
 * When you have Category:Archaeological discoveries by continent and Category:Archaeological discoveries by year is a reasonable parent category, but go on. I suspect you will simply create it in few years in any case. Take your time to go there with your pace, maybe just wait another language to reorganize the systems and influence wikidata, arriving here. Whoever will clean up the system will probably create it in some form.--Alexmar983 (talk) 19:19, 14 October 2019 (UTC)
 * The main parent is Category:Archaeological artifacts, though not all "discoveries" are. Johnbod (talk) 22:36, 14 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Category:Archaeological discoveries is a parent, Category:Archaeological artifacts cannot be the parent of all discoveries. Sometimes you might not discover an artifact: buildings, agricultural and farm animal leftovers or entire civilization are not artifacts, for example. BTW, it will just take some years to clean this up properly. Bye.--Alexmar983 (talk) 23:08, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

Request for information on WP1.0 web tool
Hello and greetings from the maintainers of the WP 1.0 Bot! As you may or may not know, we are currently involved in an overhaul of the bot, in order to make it more modern and maintainable. As part of this process, we will be rewriting the web tool that is part of the project. You might have noticed this tool if you click through the links on the project assessment summary tables.

We'd like to collect information on how the current tool is used by....you! How do you yourself and the other maintainers of your project use the web tool? Which of its features do you need? How frequently do you use these features? And what features is the tool missing that would be useful to you? We have collected all of these questions at this Google form where you can leave your response. Walkerma (talk) 04:23, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

Has there been any discussion in the archaeological literature about Most recent common ancestor?
I'm raising this because an argument that there could have been a real Adam and Eve at Talk:Adam and Eve/Archive 3 has popped up again on my talk page. It seems to me that there's no way there could be a common ancestor at 300 BCE as the MRCA suggests, as that would assume no long isolated populations.in the latter part of the last century unless I'm missing something. Thanks. Doug Weller talk 09:39, 27 October 2019 (UTC)
 * This isn't within my wheelhouse, but the Rohde et al paper does say "Such estimates are extremely tentative". Richard Nevell (talk) 10:09, 27 October 2019 (UTC)
 * As a wiki it is not a reliable source in the WP sense, but there is an accessible discussion at International Society of Genetic Genealogy Wiki - Most recent common ancestor, with links to articles on the subject. - Donald Albury 13:24, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

Nazario Collection - lost Puerto Rican civilization?
Basically about a fringe claim concerning carved stones in Puerto Rico that may be connected to the Old World." I see a recent rewrite relies heavily on such sources as hits article by a free lance journalist which is behind a pay wall. This is also heavily used, a recent English article in the same newspaper. A very large number of references (over 60) are from a YouTube video of a conference talk by this person. I'm pretty sure we don't use conference speeches as sources. This Haaretz article is also a source. as the University of Haifa materials lab recently studied them. Doug Weller talk 10:34, 3 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Nobody? Most of the references from a YouTube video of a conference speech plus newspaper articles isn't a problem? Shall I go to RSN? Doug Weller  talk 16:50, 9 November 2019 (UTC)

Container Revolution
Container Revolution is a stub with a single citation to Brian Fagan's Ancient North America. The article limits the concept to the introduction of pottery to the Eastern Woodlands. I think a broader article should also discuss the introduction of carved stone containers (which appears to pre-date pottery in at least some places) and the spread of pottery in the Americas (see Ceramics of indigenous peoples of the Americas), but that would probably involve a lot of synthesis. I am not finding other reliable sources that use the term and discuss the concept. I will also note that if you Google "container revolution", most of the hits are about modern shipping containers. Is this article worth salvaging? Can the concept it hints at be covered in other articles? - Donald Albury 03:38, 10 November 2019 (UTC)
 * The term is also used in "Chesapeake Prehistory: Old Traditions, New Directions" by Richard J. Dent Jr (page 218) and by Michael J. Klein in the Archaeology of Eastern North America. I have also found at least two other authors using the phrase. Rjm at sleepers (talk) 10:58, 12 November 2019 (UTC)
 * On-line searches are always so limited. I don't have immediate access to those books. Do any of them go into the subject enough to make it worth my while to request an inter-library loan? I can see a broad view of the subject including the introduction and spread of the use of gourds, stone (i.e., soapstone) containers, baskets and ceramics, and the effects of possessing portable containers on cultures, but I would need access to reliable sources for that. - Donald Albury 11:47, 12 November 2019 (UTC)
 * GBooks and GScholar searches for "Container Revolution" archaeology do turn up a decent amount of sources, but I'm also not sure that it's best covered in a standalone article, given the concept is specific to just one region. –&#8239;Joe (talk) 11:49, 12 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Thanks for those leads. If the sources focus on the Southeastern Woodlands, then the concept may be best covered as part of another article. The term "Container revolution" is ambiguous, although not yet in WP. - Donald Albury 12:02, 12 November 2019 (UTC)

Venus figurines
Some major changes in this article, including changes in sourced text, by students. If anyone has the expertise this could use reviewing and watching. Doug Weller talk 11:28, 14 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Recent edits to Tell Abu Hureyra from the same course could also use some attention. Maybe the others listed here too. –&#8239;Joe (talk) 22:27, 14 November 2019 (UTC)

Standardization of era "successions"?
Please see: Talk:Mousterian.

This started as a one-article issue report, but looking around I see that the problem is pretty common (in short: conflicting "preceding/following era" links in infoboxes, navboxes, leads, and article bodies).

It needs a site-wide solution (perhaps a cross-wikiproject guideline or at least a WP:PROJPAGE with some advice in it). — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  10:36, 16 November 2019 (UTC)

European writing similar to Egyptian script and the oldest in the world?
See WP:FTN. Doug Weller talk 16:36, 29 November 2019 (UTC)

"Embattled towers"
We have a lot of articles mentioning them, but I can't find any explaining them. I came across this because someone redlinked one with an edit summary "What?". I've posted this to the architecture wikiproject also. Doug Weller talk 08:24, 10 December 2019 (UTC)
 * It means a tower with battlements (crenellations) on top. Common in castles, and you'll find quite a few churches aping the architecture as well – especially from the Victorian period. Personally, I would avoid using the term as it's probably not particularly widely known and it's pretty straightforward to explain in prose without diverting the reader to another article. Richard Nevell (talk) 09:51, 10 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Yes, but it's wrong to associate it with Victorian churches - it is a pretty distinctive feature of late medieval English churches, & near the default, except where there was a large spire. Even where there is a small spire the platform on the roof of the tower typically has them. That's true from cathedrals down to small parish churches, and of course it was easy to add later. I'd tend to say "a tower with crenellations" or something - not "embattled", which really is Victorian. Johnbod (talk) 19:24, 10 December 2019 (UTC)
 * T{{re|Richard Nevell]] hanks. That's what I envisioned but I wasn't sure. As I said, quite a few uses. Would it be appropriate to replaced embattled with crenellated? Doug Weller  talk 10:14, 10 December 2019 (UTC)
 * It certainly would as the two are essentially synonyms. I was going to suggest 'a tower with battlements' where appropriate on the basis that people are more likely to understand 'battlement' than 'crenellation' (and variations thereof), but a search of Google Ngrams to gauge whether that's the case has me in two minds. Richard Nevell (talk) 10:19, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

Fir Clump Stone Circle at FAC
Morning all, I just spotted that Fir Clump Stone Circle has been nominated as a Featured Article. The review process started on 7 January so there's still time to comment if any archaeology folks want to have their say. It's been written by Midnightblueowl who has put together other articles many articles to do with archaeology, including Porlock Stone Circle and Withypool Stone Circle (both Featured Articles). Richard Nevell (talk) 11:06, 15 January 2020 (UTC)

Citations?
Overall, the article tends to view religion and ritual as something someone (non-western archaeological cultures) believe in. It marginalizes non-western voices. Viewpoints include all the relevant literature with a particular focus on western scholar's views on non-western religion. Maybe include some anthropologists/archaeologists who are studying their ancestors to get a better view of these outdated archaeological projects. Evanalst93 (talk) 19:27, 9 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Is there an article you are talking about here? Johnbod (talk) 19:34, 9 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Ok, from your history this is probably about the rightly little-viewed Archaeology of religion and ritual. Raise it on the talk page there, or just improve it yourself (not that I especially agree with your point). Johnbod (talk) 19:38, 9 February 2020 (UTC)

Racism in pseudoarchaeology
I've suggested the addition of a section on this to our article and have provided some sources. See Talk:Pseudoarchaeology. Doug Weller talk 13:50, 10 February 2020 (UTC)

Hill fort background deletions
This fairly new (?), possibly Chinese (?) editor (User:Mikhailfranco) has been going round removing a standard section on otherwise very short British hill fort articles describing what they are in general terms. How do people feel about this? I'm inclined to revert them all. Johnbod (talk) 15:07, 28 January 2020 (UTC)
 * A fair few of those articles are by Rodw (ping!). My feeling is that the average reader might have heard of the term 'hillfort' but not necessarily have a good idea about what they are or how they were used. If a fairly standardised paragraph helps explain that within the article so the reader doesn't have to go to another page to get context, that seems like a reasonable approach to writing a page. The information might be a click away, but if there's a summary in the article that helps the reader stick with the topic. Richard Nevell (talk) 15:27, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

It is easy to verify my contribution history, but you were too lazy to do so.

My nationality, ethnicity, location and native language are surely irrelevant.

I created, or extended, many of the original articles on individual hillforts in Britain, focusing on the south-west, and especially adding images of the engraved maps from old county histories. I wrote some of the general introduction for the main Hillfort article, especially the general classification categories, based on lists of topological, visual or archaeological features, which seems to have survived the test of time quite well (even though it still needs more references).

At some later time, someone added a long boilerplate background paragraph to the main article, referencing Cunliffe. Fine, Cunliffe is excellent, let wikipedians evaluate and update that text over time. Someone (maybe the same or a different person, it doesn't matter) then cut'n'pasted that long paragraph, verbatim, into dozens (50?) of articles on individual hillforts, which already included a link to the Hillfort main article in the first sentence, when 'hill fort' is first mentioned. These copies then pollute the individual articles, because it is impossible to keep any edits consistent across 50 articles. For example, consider a single edit for a mistake, or a valuable extension, or a new reference, which would then only be visible on one specific article. Each article would evolve random mutations of this intro paragraph. In software engineering and internet discourse, this practice is known as copypasta, and that is not a compliment, for precisely the same reasons. The whole point of main articles is to contain, constrain and evolve such general background material.

It seems very clear to me that common introductory text should be kept in the main article and not copied verbatim into individual articles. I strongly object to undoing all my cleansing edits. If the link to main article is not obvious enough for novices, then I would propose: • Ensure that the words 'hill fort' in the first sentence really are linked to the main article.

• Add 'See Also' links to the two main articles 'Hillfort' and 'Hillforts in Britain'. For example, I just found one small article that did not have the link for 'hill fort' in the first sentence. I have added the inline link and the two 'See Also' links. Take a look - Elborough Hill.

Mikhailfranco (talk) 14:03, 30 January 2020 (UTC)
 * It isn't at all clear to other commenters here. Your attitude does not seem grounded in helping our very general readership. I note your "strong objections" but am likely to revert your removals. Johnbod (talk) 19:41, 9 February 2020 (UTC)
 * I'd also note that these additions were apparently all done by Rodw in March 2011, to articles mostly started by him or you. So they are almost 10 years old, & nobody but you seems to have objected to them. Johnbod (talk) 20:20, 9 February 2020 (UTC)

Copypasta is pure pollution. I repeat my strong objection. My arguments are sound and obviously correct. How can anyone now fix or extend all those duplicates? Why not copy the whole Hill Fort main article into all the articles on individual forts? And it's not clear why you get the choose the outcome of revandalizing all these pages - there is only one other comment in this section. Mikhailfranco (talk) 09:27, 15 February 2020 (UTC)
 * It would not be helpful to copy the whole hillfort article because it would not summarise the content. If an editor wants to provide some introductory text on what is a hillfort that is appropriate and something to be left at their discretion. I understand your point about the potential 'risk' of repeating the same content but is there actually an example from these articles where the risk has led to a problem over the last ten years? If so, is that problem drastic enough to remove the content entirely as has been done here? Richard Nevell (talk) 11:12, 15 February 2020 (UTC)

Repetition of the same general background seems mad, for the various reasons outlined above. I can't believe there isn't already some sort of Wikipedia guidance/consensus that generic background, copied verbatim to multiple articles, is pointless when a main article exists? I support Mikhailfranco's original edits and was disappointed to see them reverted Beevil (talk) 16:37, 16 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Well, that's 2 all then (or 3:2 with Rodw who added them in the first place)! Afaik there is no such policy or consensus, and you see this in various contexts - probably not often enough for my taste. It is only one para; obviously it can be overdone. Johnbod (talk) 16:53, 16 February 2020 (UTC)

Troy could use a review
If anyone has time, could they take a look at the recent edits? Thanks. Doug Weller talk 13:37, 21 January 2020 (UTC)
 * On a quick (inexpert) look they seem ok - User:Botteville was perhaps already the main author. Did you see his talk comment before starting? Johnbod (talk) 14:18, 21 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Yes, and the second one. I thought Dave and I were ok, but I can see why this request might have upset him, it wasn't meant to. It's just that Troy's an important subject, one I no longer have time to work on but probably needs other people who are interested.  Doug Weller  talk 16:51, 22 January 2020 (UTC)
 * there have certainly been problems about original research before withUser:Botteville. And there's a lot of unsourced text here. I'd also like to be reassured that his view of Schliemann put forward in his edits is indeed the current consensus. Doug Weller  talk 18:02, 27 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Yes, his referencing is lamentable, but I doubt there is much actual OR - he tends to take a strong line where there is debate, and be somewhat impatient with recent writing, so balance & referencing are more the issues, imo. I'm afraid it's not a subject I know enough about to get involved in the detail. The equivocal assessment of Schliemann seems broadly compatible with the caption/board info at the current BM exhibition, which is about as far as my knowledge of the current state of scholarly play goes. Johnbod (talk) 18:30, 27 January 2020 (UTC)
 * that's useful, thanks. Doug Weller  talk 21:03, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

I appreciate the frank discussion. We're all OK if you want us to be OK. This sort of give and take is quite common in the academic fields, worse, even. Friends sometimes say awful things about each other. What I am most fearful of is hypocrisy. Some people who might be angry because you said something they didn't like will attack something you did just to be attacking Their reasons have no merit and their substitutions are ridiculous, but you have to either abandon it or fight it through unless someone comes to your aid. Most typically they get their friends to attack you as well. I am sure you are familiar with the scene. I would like to say "trust me" but no one trusts anyone on Wikipedia. That is the name of the game. The idea that you want to be a watchdog and allow me to work or not work kind of frosts me. For much of the early history of Wikipedia there was a German editor who did just that. He wouldn't let me work (and many other people). Insisted I do it in sandbox so he could check it. Very little got published in our fields that he didn't personally pass. I told him where to head in many times, suggested he resign, and then I quit working. Then I came back. He's on here still but I never see much of him anymore. Maybe he frosted one person too many. New editors used to come to me complaining about him but there was nothing I could do. He was an administrator. One can be a bully on Wikipedia, just as one can in a university. Don't be that.

The Troy article. Well, there is a glimmer of light here. This is almost the first time anyone on the attack has admitted to me that they might not know very much about the topic they are so righteously critiquing. This IS the encyclopedia of rank amateurs, by definition. ANYONE can edit. I think it is time to answer a few points.


 * I didn't write this article. I worked on it early but it was taken away from me. The results show an interesting mix of professional material and very amateurish material. It needs a good review and updating. I'm the reviewer. You're saying, Oh no, botteville is a questionable reviewer, can we trust him? Do you work for Wikipedia for a salary? Because that is the only circumstance under which you have a right to say that. You can't claim any administrator status, because they are not supposed to be treated any differently from any other editor.


 * Sometimes I do slip up and cross the line into my own opinion. So do you. So don't we all. But, you have to distinguish between general and obvious knowledge, which is allowed WITHOUT referencing, and material that is not. You wouldn't, for example need a reference for 2+2=4. Admitedly sometimes the line is a bit fuzzy. That is why we allow others to ask for a reference. I think my referencing has been pretty good. If you think it could be better, I will try harder, but then, while you are looking at the mote my eye, why do you not look at the beam in yours?


 * Now for the article. On Schliemann, I feel you should have spotted that writing as badly slanted against. The issue is quite an old one. Of course you can find any number of denigrating references. You can also find more positive ones. Is this article about Troy or about the proper discussion of Schliemann's character? I feel I was restoring balance. That is a rule, you know, articles have to be balanced. There were only two valid references, both from non-archaeologists. If you ask me for balancing references I will give them. That will, however lengthen the section and change the topic. My suggestion is, cut out the discussion of Schliemann's character and bring the section on a par with the sections on the other archaeologists. Leave the slanders and the character assessment to the article on Schliemann. If it makes you feel any better, you should see what they are saying about Evans. These critics have no mercy, you know. They think the way to success is to slander others. Clearly, we have to guard against their imbalance and their child-like cruelty.


 * I haven't really got started on the updating. Most of my time has been spent on clean-up. I only just now started on the archaeology. It has changed considerably since I was a youngster. That's right. I'm old. Another aspect I'm working on is the pictures. Well, I could chat all night. In the past I would not bother, but since freedom of speech is one of our best rights and you can't discuss without discussing I am taking the time and space for it.


 * There is a habit of mine you probably find troublesome. On new material I sometimes block out the material first and put the references in later. I suppose I could make an effort not to do that. I will block it out on paper.


 * You're right, "Troy" is visible. Gee, but so are many of 6 million other articles. Are we allocating articles now, and on what basis? Who is to deserve to work on a visible article? I think maybe we do not have to worry about it being looked at. We will be hearing from our audience soon enough. What we have to worry about is the few blocking anyone else from working on it by bullying. Ciao. You're all my friends. But I wouldn't turn my back.Botteville (talk) 00:41, 28 January 2020 (UTC)


 * WP:VERBIAGE but I will reply to your comment 2nd above - this is an old habit of yours going back many years, adding your own ideas or research and maybe or maybe not sourcing it. But that's not the way a lot of us edit, I hope most of us start with sources. And this 2008 edit, all original research, is still in Pytheas. Another edit from the same time which is original research with an edit summary "starting on this - bear with me" - still in the article. I'm not convinced you've changed that much in the intervening 11 years. Doug Weller  talk 17:28, 28 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Don't agree. I believe you are witch-hunting. I'm no worse than anyone else including you. This matter ends here. You are right, we do not have a good relationship and unless you change your witch-hunting method, will not have. I don't know who you really are or why you are singling me out. Quit harassing me, quit singling me out. Short enough for you?Ciao.Botteville (talk) 08:27, 29 January 2020 (UTC)
 * could you take a look at the current state of the article? And Talk:Troy (not a section I started? Has changed his problem with sourcing?  Doug Weller  talk 17:27, 4 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I'm going to duck out of both this and Talk:North East Delhi riots for now. Johnbod (talk) 18:13, 5 March 2020 (UTC)

Fringe archaeology
I just read http://www.jasoncolavito.com/blog/new-owner-of-skinwalker-ranch-previously-advocated-for-mormon-pseudohistory] and that led me to. Some of the people associated with this Ancient Historical Research Foundation may seem reliable on their own if one didn't know about their association with this group. Their home page also has some legitimate news articles, which helps them look respectable. Doug Weller talk 17:20, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

Ancient inscriptions in Somalia
See the article and this edit:Ancient inscriptions in Somalia, According to the Ministry of Information and National Guidance of Somalia, inscriptions can be found on various old Taalo Tiiriyaad structures. These are enormous stone mounds found especially in northeastern Somalia. Among the main sites where these Taalo are located are Xabaalo Ambiyad in Alula District, Baar Madhere in Beledweyne District, and Harti Yimid in Las Anod District. I've tried to source the article properly before but failed. Wargade Wall is related and bad, a quick search didn't show anything useful. I thought I'd found a source in a book called "African Empires]] by JP Martin, but that's self-published. Doug Weller  talk 15:55, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

A quick image search (for Taalo Tiiriyaad) led me to this forum page which seems to have some linsk to further books in german which may be of some help, and there are a couple of other potential image links in that search which might be worth checking EdwardLane (talk) 16:54, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

Council for British Archaeology - all free temporarily
says "The CBA has been dedicated to publishing the best in British archaeology for more than 60 years and we continue to make archaeological research widely available. Many of our publications have been available to download through the Archaeological Data Service (ADS) but we have decided that we will temporarily make all of our publications available to download for free."

EdwardLane (talk) 10:25, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

Archaeology during Covid-19
Hi folks, posting here with my Wikimedia UK hat on. Lots of organisations are furloughing staff at the moment due to the pandemic. I approached a contact at Museum of London Archaeology to offer Wikipedia training for some of their people. We're discussing practicalities but in the medium-term we might find more people editing archaeology related articles. Fingers crossed.

It might be too soon to start writing the pandemic into the history of archaeology article, but it prompted me to wonder if there should be an article on the economic impact of archaeology. Richard Nevell (WMUK) (talk) 09:16, 9 April 2020 (UTC)

News on prehistoric London (or the area) and new pottery dating technique
New discovery suggests London’s story goes back more than 3,000 years longer than previously thought. "Archaeological investigations just 15 metres outside the northern boundary of the historic City of London have unearthed evidence of what appears to have been some sort of prehistoric ceremonial site. The implication of the discovery is that London may have begun not as a town or even as a village – but as a ceremonial place of popular assembly where local people would have come together for major social and religious feasts and rituals." An exciting new dating method. and  Doug Weller  talk 15:43, 9 April 2020 (UTC)

GA reassessment
Outremer, an article that you or your project may be interested in, has been nominated for a community good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. Borsoka (talk) 03:55, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

Edit to Magdalenian
This edit added "They found affinity with a fossil from the Goyet Caves in Iberia, suggesting continuity from the earlier Aurignacian culture. Aurignacian affinities had been suggested earlier based on cultural practices. "

Besides the fact that these are a century old, I don't think we want to give credence to either Henry Fairfield Osborn or Donald Alexander Mackenzie. , thanks for doing the research, but I'm not sure that this improves the article, although colleagues may disagree with me. Doug Weller talk 05:11, 23 April 2020 (UTC)


 * I found those articles by Google search although I admit there will likely be better sources to discuss comparisons with other archaeological cultures and how these have changed over time. Historylikeyou (talk) 08:49, 23 April 2020 (UTC)
 * I looked up a reference by Osborn to Henri Breuil's 1912 article, available here. Il ne s'agit là que d'une pure hypothèse ; il semble toutefois qu'au moins des éléments fondamentaux de l'aurignacien supérieur ont contribué, par quelque voie incertaine, à constituer le noyau de la civilisation magdalénienne, durant que l'épisode solutréen se déroulait. (Translation: "This is only a pure hypothesis; it seems, however, that at least fundamental elements of the upper Aurignacian contributed, in some uncertain way, to constitute the nucleus of Magdalenian civilization, while the Solutrean episode unfolded.") I don't read French very well and only skimmed the article. I guess later commentaries on Breuil's ideas would be preferrable to citing Breuil directly. I certainly find it fascinating that modern genetics has seemed to confirm some very old ideas in anthropology which may even have been forgotten. Historylikeyou (talk) 22:29, 23 April 2020 (UTC)


 * The "affinity", such as it is - red ochre as evidence of ceremony at burials - might be more relevant in a discussion of behavioural modernity. Even for that purpose, the comment is thoroughly out of date, as is the good abbé. These references are only relevant to us as evidence of the ideas of their authors. Richard Keatinge (talk) 13:29, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

Proposed merge of Archaeogeography into Landscape archaeology
Are these the same field, or is one a subfield of the other? Opinions welcome in the merge discussion at Talk:Landscape archaeology. Thanks! -- Beland (talk) 17:41, 23 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Thanks for bringing this up, Beland, I've left a comment at Talk:Archaeogeography since Joe Roe left a note directing people there. Richard Nevell (talk) 16:32, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

End of the Stone Age?
Anyone want to have a go at fixing a bit of the lead? At the moment it says "The Stone Age was a broad prehistoric period during which stone was widely used to make implements with an edge, a point, or a percussion surface. The period lasted roughly 3.4 million years[1] and ended between 6000 BCE and 3000/2000 BCE with the advent of metalworking.[citation needed]" But if we are happy at times to use the term, then surely we'd agree it hasn't ended for every culture? Doug Weller talk 09:33, 4 May 2020 (UTC)
 * I have had a quick look, comments of course welcome. Richard Keatinge (talk) 12:30, 4 May 2020 (UTC)
 * That doesn't entirely agree with the "End of the Stone Age" section below, which seems ok, though with some cn tags on key points. I think the lead could have a little more, but that's a start. Johnbod (talk) 12:41, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

Category:Archaeology articles needing attention
I recently discovered that WikiProject Archaeology has an  parameter (which is embarrassing since I've been using it for nearly 10 years), which adds the page to Category:Archaeology articles needing attention. I've added a couple of articles to it that I didn't have time to fix. It seems like a neat feature, so you might want to consider using it and/or adding the category to your watchlist. –&#8239;Joe (talk) 12:07, 6 May 2020 (UTC)
 * I notice you set that category up, Joe, back in 2011! Johnbod (talk) 12:13, 6 May 2020 (UTC)
 * I have a bad memory... –&#8239;Joe (talk) 12:40, 6 May 2020 (UTC)
 * I've not spotted it in the project pages, but there is also a cleanup listing. It tracks all the various issues across articles, from citation needed tags to suggestions to merge pages. At the moment, of the 11,611 articles with the WikiProject Archaeology banner on their talk pages 3,544 are tracked as needing some sort of attention. It's a long list, but some of those categories are easier to address than others. Richard Nevell (talk) 15:33, 6 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Thanks! I was just thinking it'd be nice to have a list like that. I've added both to WikiProject_Archaeology/Monitoring which, if anyone's not aware, also has a useful bot-maintained list of articles going to AfD, RM, merge proposals etc., and a list of new articles that match archaeology-related keywords. –&#8239;Joe (talk) 15:44, 6 May 2020 (UTC)

Proposal to merge Parietal art into Rock art
While we are on the subject, I have finally proposed this merge here. Johnbod (talk) 23:46, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

Origin of modern humans dispute
The anthropology project is defunct so bringing this here. We've got edits like this one which seems to be adding irrelevant material with a pretty unpleasant edit summary.

Irrelevant or not however, the claim is that "According to both genetic and fossil evidence Archaic Homo sapiens evolved into Anatomically modern Homo Sapiens solely in the Horn of Africa around 200,000 years ago and dispersed from the Horn of Africa" - with a slew of sources. My question is whether this is actually the consensus opinion today or a HoA pov.

We can invite the participants in the edit war but if I can get some responses from non-involved people first it might avoid the edit war ending up here. Doug Weller talk 17:56, 11 May 2020 (UTC)
 * From the abstracts of the first two sources given: Source 1: "Taken together, we propose a southern African origin of anatomically modern humans", source 2: "In this review, we report the ongoing debates regarding how and when our ancestors left Africa". That is clearly not pointing to any scientific consensus that our cradle stood at the Horn of Africa. From my general knowledge I'd say that Kenya (which is East Africa, not Horn) and Ethiopia are the most probable regions, but the scientific debate is far from producing final results.
 * The editor said in the talk "this revisionism about Herto and Omo Kibish has to stop". Herto is Herto Bouri in Ethiopia, where Homo sapiens idaltu was uncovered, Omo Kibish is also a place in Ethiopia where old humans were found, so I think it is Ethiopian POV. Rsk6400 (talk) 19:19, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

One Two for the prehistorians: two Featured Article Candidates
Neanderthal and Knap Hill (a causewayed enclosure in Wiltshire) are both at FAC currently. Each was nominated a month ago so the window for commenting will be closing soon. For those who have the time and energy I'm sure more eyes on each would be worthwhile. Richard Nevell (talk) 20:19, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

Discussion on this page!!
So Who all are doing what articles please mention as it will be helpful for all of us!! XxPixel WarriorxX (talk) 18:14, 18 May 2020 (UTC)

Aydogdy Kurbanov
Hello! Now, we have an article on Aydogdy Kurbanov, and it is within the scope of this Wikiproject. Kindly assess the article on the project's quality and importance scale. Suggestions for improvements would be highly appreciated. Looking forward to see you guyz on the article's talk page )) Thanks, Мастер Шторм (talk) 22:15, 21 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Good work with the article! I made a couple of small changes, but the most important one was mentioning in the lead that Kurbanov was head of the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography, Academy of Sciences of Turkmenistan. Do we know who his PhD supervisor was? That's often worth adding to an article as that's a prominent influence on their work. Richard Nevell (talk) 17:50, 22 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Thank you )) At present, I do not know who his PhD supervisor was, but it's definitely on my to do list to find out that information, and a few more facts about him. Also, I would like to make a request for assessment of the article on the project's quality importance scale. Kindly do that )) Thanks, Мастер Шторм (talk) 20:58, 22 May 2020 (UTC) (correction) Мастер Шторм (talk) 21:00, 22 May 2020 (UTC)
 * I've updated the WikiProject assessments. It's a nice biography, thank you for the contribution! –&#8239;Joe (talk) 08:07, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

"Israeli Archaeologists Solve Mystery of Prehistoric Stone Balls" says Haaretz
I can't read the article. but I can see that it does claim they were used for 2 million years. And see

The original article is at. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Doug Weller (talk • contribs) 15:08, 22 May 2020 (UTC)


 * We have a surprising number of articles on stone balls (stone ball, petrosphere, carved stone balls, grave orb, etc.) but not these Palaeolithic shaped stone balls specifically. Maybe worth one? –&#8239;Joe (talk) 15:19, 22 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Petrosphere is the general article for man-made ones, so at least initially they could be added there. Stone ball is a disam page. Johnbod (talk) 15:52, 22 May 2020 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure "petrosphere" is a term in common usage though. There are very few Google or GScholar hits for it except for a few describing Scottish carved stone balls, and petrosphere was created in 2007 so those could well be citogenesis. Pinging since they worked on a lot of these articles. –&#8239;Joe (talk) 16:06, 22 May 2020 (UTC)
 * We could rename to stone ball and stone ball (disambiguation). Johnbod (talk) 17:02, 22 May 2020 (UTC)
 * "Petrosphere" strikes me as being jargonese for "stone ball." Something a person writes when they want to sound "scientific."
 * Also, there are two other usages of "petrosphere." First, in planetology, it is defined as a planet's crust and the entire mantle, which encompasses the entire silicate portion of a planet. For this definition, see page 27 of Badro, J. and Walter, M.J. eds., 2015. The Early Earth: Accretion and Differentiation (Vol. 212). John Wiley & Sons. Finally, in the study of literature and humanities, "petrosphere" also refers to the culture, politics, and economics associated with the poduction, processing, distribution, and marketing of hydrocarbons. In the latter case, it is also associated with references that contain words such as "petrofeminism," "petrocapitalism," and "petrosexual." I would not object to renaming petrosphere to stone ball and stone ball (disambiguation). Paul H. (talk) 00:29, 23 May 2020 (UTC)
 * That sounds sensible, thanks for the input. I will go ahead and do it now. –&#8239;Joe (talk) 08:12, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

New women in archaeology red links
After being mostly empty for the last few years, the Women in Red Archaeology Red List has been updated with a bunch of new potential biographies from TrowelBlazers. I thought this would be a good time to remind interested editors of the red list and the women in archaeology task force that has been working on shortening it. –&#8239;Joe (talk) 15:32, 14 May 2020 (UTC)
 * The denelezh gender gap tool indicates that the English Wikipedia has 902 biographies about female archaeologists while the task force tracks 585. Does anyone know of a smart way to go about syncing the two up so the task force can get a fuller picture? Richard Nevell (talk) 17:13, 14 May 2020 (UTC)
 * When I added the  parameter to the template I manually looked through Category:Archaeologists to populate it. Since they've I (and others) have tried to tag new articles as they come in. But it's very likely I missed a lot, and I think there are many articles that were never properly categorised. I could do the same again based on wikidata:Q3621491, but it would be much nicer if we could get a bot to do it...
 * P.S. Thanks for showing me another great tool! Nice to see that the gender gap for archaeologists is ever so slightly narrower than the overall statistic. –&#8239;Joe (talk) 11:16, 17 May 2020 (UTC)

As a bot wizard and Wikidata mage, do you know of a way to tag articles for a particular taskforce based on the above? Richard Nevell (talk) 20:24, 21 May 2020 (UTC)
 * I can try to help. The WiR list is at WikiProject Women in Red/Missing articles by occupation/Archaeologists (1408!) - I've set up User:Mike Peel/Women in Archaeology temporarily to list all women archaeologists that have articles. It doesn't go into subsets of archaeologists, unlike the gender gap tool, so it returns 841 at the moment (I can investigate some more with subsets). You want me to run through those to make sure they have  with women=yes, correct? If so, I can do that semi-automatedly this evening. I guess the other thing is to make sure they are all in Category:Women archaeologists or a subcategory (there seem to be 638 there). Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 06:59, 22 May 2020 (UTC)
 * That would be fantastic! Is AWB the tool of choice in this case? Thinking about how it might be possible to realign the two groups if there's drift in the future. Richard Nevell (talk) 10:10, 23 May 2020 (UTC)
 * I use pywikibot. I wrote a script at that semi-automises the work to synchronise Wikidata entries (adding = where it's missing), Category:Women archaeologists and Category:Women in archaeology articles (via the banner). I ran through a batch yesterday, and I'll continue later today. I'm also finding a number of articles that don't have   on the talk page, I've been adding those manually since it's not so easy to automatically determine where it should be placed. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 11:53, 23 May 2020 (UTC)
 * This is extremely helpful, many thanks Mike! –&#8239;Joe (talk) 12:21, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

I've completed the run through now. There are a number of cases that are tagged as archaeologists or a subclass on Wikidata, but I'm not 100% sure if that is correct / they are within the remit of this project. If they are, could someone add the project banner to them manually please? Or if they are not, the occupation on Wikidata needs correcting. Joann Fletcher, Orly Goldwasser, Esther de Pommery, Izabela Tomaszewska, Hélène Cuvigny, Henriette Alimen, Wafaa El Saddik, Christiane Sourvinou-Inwood, Miriam Lichtheim, Michela Belmonte (became an archaeologist after acting apparently, see itwp or frwp), Janina Natusiewicz-Mirer, Marion True, Sue Hendrickson, Anna Sadurska, Natalena Koroleva, Anna Machin, Linda Schele, Natalie Curtis, Mary Boyce, Maria Wilman, Alice Roberts, Margaret Stokes, Hanna Marcussen, Luisa María Lara, Ada Bruhn Hoffmeyer, Hilde Zaloscer, Laurajane Smith, Louise Leakey, Véronique Brouquier (see frwp), Leslie C. Aiello, Margaret Jope, Marjatta Aalto, Heather Lechtman, Lena Spoof, Louise Holland, Eleanor Robson, Donna Carol Kurtz, Larissa Bonfante, Norma Goldman, Helen Henrietta Tanzer, Kate Bradbury Griffith, Penelope Wilson, Sarah Israelit Groll, Joann Fletcher, Hilde Zaloscer, Hermine Hartleben, Orly Goldwasser, Miriam Lichtheim, Danijela Stefanović, Françoise Dunand, Elisabeth R. O'Connell, Alice Grenfell, Violette Lafleur, Sitta von Reden, Natalya Semper, Annette Imhausen, Delia Pemberton, Pascale Ballet, Colleen Darnell, Margaret Stefana Drower, Betsy Bryan, Hana Vymazalová, Janet Richards (Egyptologist). You might also want to check through Category:Unassessed women in archaeology articles - which are the ones I've added new project banners for. Let me know if you want me to run through again in the future - or I can provide help running the script if you're interested in doing it yourself. Also, please let me know if you spot any errors I've made, or cases that I've missed! Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 10:52, 24 May 2020 (UTC)
 * P.S., Category:Women in archaeology articles now contains 897 entries. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 10:54, 24 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Thank you for going through those pages, and the list of ambiguous cases is a handy working list. Richard Nevell (talk) 17:37, 24 May 2020 (UTC)
 * To avoid duplicated work: I checked everything up to Ada Bruhn Hoffmeyer and categorised/tagged or edited the Wikidata item accordingly. –&#8239;Joe (talk) 19:14, 24 May 2020 (UTC)

Madain project
I'm finding this being used in various articles, eg Great Sphinx of Giza which uses this page. I thought it better to come here than to go to RSN. Doug Weller talk 08:31, 31 May 2020 (UTC)
 * The source offers nothing resembling evidence for reliability, and so nothing useful for an encyclopedia. Richard Keatinge (talk) 10:07, 31 May 2020 (UTC)

Venus figurines: A relief wrongly categorized as figurine (sculpture)
I have a dispute on the subject of “Venus figurines”. Specifically, it is about the assessment of the "Venus of Laussel" as Venus figurine, a paleolithic form of sculpture. In fact, the V. of Laussel is a relief. That is why it belongs to parietal art, while all figurines belong to portable art. This fundamental difference is dismissed as "pedantic" by an opponent. At the same time, he provides mostly unscientific "evidence" from inferior internet sources. I would now like to hear more opinions on this topic. Mr. bobby (talk) 21:22, 7 May 2020 (UTC)
 * It is not "categorized" or assessed as a figurine, it is mentioned in passing in the article, as a comparable image in relief form. This seems correct to me (I am not "he" by the way). Johnbod (talk) 23:23, 7 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Of course, the "Venus of Laussel" is categorized as a "Venus figurine", as anybody can see on the page (scroll to the bottom und watch). It is a pity that an archeologist calls clear statements "pedantic". Mixing parietal und portable art dimisses any clear meaning of different kinds of art and its use and fuction for the paleolithic society. This archeologist also sticks to the name "Venus" - as if this term would have any significance. But he doesn't grasp the crucial differences. And you simply agreed befor I took the problem to this page. Mr. bobby (talk) 10:14, 8 May 2020 (UTC)
 * In addition, the "Venus von Laussel" is also listed in the article "Venus figurine" in a table under the heading "Venus figurine". And that's why it's misplaced there. John Roe does not allow a corresponding correction, however, to describe the necessary correction - as I said - as "pedantic".Mr. bobby (talk) 11:21, 8 May 2020 (UTC)
 * The Venus of Laussel is mentioned twice in the article, and Johnbod has made sure that the first time it's mentioned there's an explicit statement that it's a relief rather than a figurine. That seems like a reasonable change, and the relief is still relevant to mention since like the Venus of Willendorf it has traces of red ochre. Importantly the source used also makes that comparison. I appreciate it may not be as clear with the table since people might skip over the text. Perhaps a similar note would be useful? Richard Nevell (talk) 11:19, 8 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Yes, done that. One thing the article lacks at present is a para on the Siberian figures, & how they differ. Johnbod (talk) 12:30, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

Thats' s not the topic here. The topic is a wrong semantic treatment of "figurine" vs. "relief" and also logical contradictions in an WP-article. It's getting worse and worse. Now the Venus of Laussel is mentioned under the heading "notable Figurines" but connected with the hint "note as a relief ". How contradictory should it be? The V. of Laussel simply has to be deleted from this table. Science is always trying to avoid logical contradictions such as "a relief is a kind of figurine".Mr. bobby (talk) 13:01, 8 May 2020 (UTC)
 * mentions the Venus of Laussel in its discussions of Venus figurines, so unless we want to encroach on WP:NOR it's appropriate to mention it in our article the question is how it should be framed. Richard Nevell (talk) 13:24, 8 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Joe Roe is an archeologist (at least he says so) and Soffer may be an Antropologist. But both are not allowed to break the semantic logic. Mr. bobby (talk) 13:29, 8 May 2020 (UTC)


 * And Soffer et al. use the Laussel Venus only in order to discuss the shape of depicted heads connected with textile structures. (page 518). This topic is far away from the topic "proper charaterization of a paleolithic Venus figurine". Mr. bobby (talk) 13:37, 8 May 2020 (UTC)
 * (ec) Let's have this conversation without casting aspersions, and for the record Joe is indeed an archaeologist. It is perfectly possible to include the Venus of Laussel in the discussion as a relevant comparison though it is a relief rather than a figurine.
 * It is worth noting that describes Venus figurines as "Small stylized female statuettes sculptured in the round, of Upper Palaeolithic date, representing women with, in many cases, exaggerated sexual characteristics such as breasts, hips, and stomach". Emphasis my own. Richard Nevell (talk) 13:42, 8 May 2020 (UTC)


 * That's not the point. A relief cannot be mentioned under the headline of a table "Figurine". It is a simple as that. Of course, a figurine is worked in the round. Why misleading any reader? Delete the V. of Laussel in an article on figuriens, becaus otherwise figurines are confused with reliefs for no proper purpose at all. Mr. bobby (talk) 14:04, 8 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Let's take a step back here a second. You object to it's inclusion in the table (I don't necessarily disagree with you on that). Do you object to it being mentioned in the text? Richard Nevell (talk) 14:13, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

See the parallel discussion at Talk:Venus figurines. As I said there, It is technically a relief yes, but it is frequently discussed together with other Venuses and googling "Venus of Laussel" turns up plenty of sources that describe it specifically as a "Venus figurine", e.g.. Johnbod's compromise of noting that it is a relief in the text and table seems a good one to me.

But this is just another example of Mr. bobby's disruptive insistence on basing our coverage of prehistoric art on his own, "logical" criteria rather than sources. It has been happening for years and he has already been blocked for related edit warring several times, so I think it's time we went to ANI to consider a topic ban or other sanction. –&#8239;Joe (talk) 08:54, 9 May 2020 (UTC)


 * The definition of “Venus Figurine” quoted here by Richard Nevell is absolutely correct. And this therefore excludes the Venus von Laussel from the categorization "Vensu figurine".
 * John Roe neither discusses nor provides convincing arguments. Everything he does: He brings inferior internet sources without clearly stating where any source proves that the Venus von Laussel is a figurine. Of course, a female figure is addressed in the Venus von Laussel. Stone Age figurines and reliefs are largely representations of women.
 * It makes sense to compare a woman's relief and Venus figures thematically. The conclusion that the Venus of Laussel is then a Venus figurine is wrong. You can compare apples to pears. But apples are not pears, neither are they special pears. Demanding a topic ban for insisting on this statement shows the quality of the content of a discussion that someone simply does not want to have.
 * A few basic features that distinguish Venus von Laussel from Venus figurines
 * The V. of Laussel is asymmetrical. Almost all figurines are largely symmetrical.
 * The V. of Laussel has raised an arm and is holding a horn. To my knowledge, there is not a single figurine who takes such an attitude and :holds an object
 * The V. Laussel is a relief, was stationary on the rock face, so it is not transportable.
 * Here we become sources "ThoughtCO, an internet magazine with topics like" Psychology "or" Ergonomics ". Really no scholarly archeolgical journal. Only foreign sources are cited on "Don’s Maps". So z. B. At the beginning, the English Wikipedia, an older version of the article on Venus von Laussel. There it is falsely claimed that the V. of Laussel is a Venus figurine. And that serves as proof that she is being discussed as a figurine. A perfect circular conclusion.
 * Finally: There are various paleolithic reliefs of women, e.g. some other versions in Laussel, Roc-aus-sorciers (several), Grotte-abri de La Magdeleine des Ablis / La Magdeleine de la Penne (two versions). Rock art, no figurines. Mr. bobby (talk) 10:17, 10 May 2020 (UTC)
 * @Richard Newell. Yes, what I do say is that the Venus of Laussel does not belong to the category „Venus Figurine“: Another question is, if it might be mentioned in the article. Now, with the addition that it is a relief, the sentence is not misleading anymore. Mr. bobby (talk) 10:56, 10 May 2020 (UTC)
 * The archaeology sections of ThoughtCo (formerly About.com Archaeology) are written by K. Kris Hirst and are a reliable reference work that is cited in many articles. Don's Maps is a reliable self-published source for prehistoric art – about which you yourself once wrote, "quality of his website concerning the palaeolithioc era is high, therefore it has become itself a source for several scientific articles on the topic". The other sources I listed are also reliable and the last two are in peer-reviewed scholarly journals. As I said, all either describe the Venus of Laussel as a "Venus figurine" verbatim, or cite the Venus of Laussel in general discussions of Venus figurines.
 * The behaviour that is disruptive and which I think needs to be dealt with at ANI is you refusing to accept that our articles, lists and categories, must based on sources and not editors' own arguments about the topic, however "logical" they may be. –&#8239;Joe (talk) 10:03, 11 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Don's Maps is a great site, but not an original source concerning texts/articles, because Don Hitchcock only uses texts of other authors. And as I clearly have shown, the text concerning the Venus of Laussel is taken from an older Version of the Wikipedia article. It contains a wrong sentence and is perfectly demonstrating a logical circle. AND the site is uselful as a source collection and also as a reliable source for pictures (taken by Hitchcok himself). One has always to think by using sources and quotations. Additionally, you do never show the proof for your assertions exactly in the source, but only mention the whole article. The use of Soffer et al. for instance does not proof, that the Venus of Laussel is in fact a figurine. Mr. bobby (talk) 14:38, 11 May 2020 (UTC)
 * I'd never speak out gainst the use of good sources, in the contrary. But evidence does not work by citing any work in which the topic is mentioned in a side note, but by substantiating the statements with suitable evidence. In other words: as long as a source does not explicitly clarify the question whether the part is a relief or a figure, the statement Relief / Figure made by the source is completely irrelevant. Because now a simple example: Some travel guide about France says that you have to see the figure X absolutely. This is NOT proof that X is a figurine. No "articles" of Joe Roe deal with the question wether the Venus of Laussel is a figurine. They mention it in side notes. Mr. bobby (talk) 15:02, 11 May 2020 (UTC)
 * The question isn't whether the Venus of Laussel is a relief or figurine. Obviously it is a relief – nobody is disputing that. The question is whether it (and other reliefs) should be included along with our coverage of the general topic "Venus figurines". To determine that, we look at whether reliable sources discuss it as part of that topic. The sources I provided are a small sample of those that show that it is (emphasis added):
 * Hirst, The Venus of Laussel, or "Femme a la corne" ("Woman with a Horn" in French) is a Venus figurine, one of a class of objects found in Upper Paleolithic archaeological sites throughout Europe...
 * Don's Maps, The Venus of Laussel is a Venus figurine, a 46 cm, 18.11 inches high limestone bas-relief...
 * Visual Arts Cork, Belonging to the series of Venus figurines found in countries throughout Europe [...] the Venus of Laussel is a prehistoric sculpture carved in bas-relief
 * Dixson & Dixson 2012, The majority of Venus figurines are relatively small, portable objects [...] However, in a few cases they take the form of bass-relief carvings on rock surfaces (e.g., the Laussel Venus).
 * To reiterate, we are here to summarise what existing sources say about a topic. It's not our job to make sure they fit a logical taxonomy. However, the simple explanation here is that most (if not all) experts consider the defining characteristic of a Venus figurine to be that it depicts a Venus, not that it is literally a figurine. –&#8239;Joe (talk) 17:15, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

In an article of Wikipedia on the topic „sculpture“ one can read:

„A basic distinction is between sculpture in the round, free-standing sculpture, such as statues, not attached (except possibly at the base) to any other surface, and the various types of relief, which are at least partly attached to a background surface.“ and:

„Small forms of sculpture include the figurine, normally a statue that is no more than 18 inches (46 cm) tall, and for reliefs the plaquette, medal or coin.“

I agree completely with such definitions. So a figurine is a small statue. And the bas-relief of the Venus of Laussel is neither a statue nor a figurine. It is a relief. Maybe Hirst simply does not know this distinction and therefor her assertion is wrong.


 * Hirst: The internet article cited above is no scholarly source. It is fun to read for those who never heard of it bevor.


 * Additionally, the internet article „Visual Arts Cork“ is not published in a scientific journal and therefor stands for nothing and it simply avoids a „basic distinction“. And the author (who?) has the same problem as Hirst.
 * Dixson and Dixon (Venus Figurines of the European Paleolithic: Symbols of Fertility or Attractiveness?) seem to be Anthropologists. Their topic is NOT the question, what kind of art the Venus of Laussel is. Their article is on the attractiveness of paleolithic depictions of women today. (and the V. of Laussel is a depiction of a woman. Dixon and Dixon know the distinction between figurine and relief and I cite them now in the context:

The oldest known representations of the human female form are the so-called “Venus figurines” of the upper Paleolithic period. Venus figurines have been unearthed at multiple sites across Europe, and most have been dated between 23,000 and 25,000 years ago [1–3]. Most recently a figurine, thought to be 35,000 years old, has been recovered from the Hohle Fels Cave in Germany [4]. The majority of Venus figurines are relatively small, portable objects (e.g., Hohle Fels Venus: 6 cm high; Willendorf’s Venus: 11 cms high). They were made from a variety of materials (e.g., limestone: the Willendorf Venus; ivory: the Kostenki figurines; clay and bone, fired at high temperature: the Dolní Věstonice Venus). However, in a few cases they take the form of bass-relief carvings on rock surfaces (e.g., the Laussel Venus).

So they do distinguish but use the term „figurine“ sloppy, maybe because it is completey irrelevant for their examination of attractiveness. Their topic is not the artform.

There are also two big paleolithic reliefs of nude women at Roc aux-sorcier with 78 cm and Grotte-abri de La Magdeleine des Ablis with about one meter. These reliefs depict women. They are too unknown or simply too big to be confused with figurines.


 * The quotation of Don’s Maps is – as I already more than once stated – is nothing but a quotation of a older version of a Wikipedia article and leads to circular conclusions. (Wikipedia is quoted by Don, then Wikpedia takes him as a source). But at Don’s maps you can find real figurines and a relief. Meanwhile, Don Hitchcock has changed the old version of the Wikipedia article and now correctly calls the Venus of Laussel only a releif – and nothing else.
 * So again I cite what already Richard Newell cited: Darvill, Timothy (2008), Concise Oxford Dictionary of Archaeology, Oxford University Press describes Venus figurines as "Small stylized female statuettes sculptured in the round, of Upper Palaeolithic date, representing women with, in many cases, exaggerated sexual characteristics such as breasts, hips, and stomach".

This is of course correct. The four sources here are not scholarly correct – Hirst, Don’s Maps and because they are not scholarly, Dixson because they use the term „Venus figurine“ obviously sloppy - and cannot be used to proof what is asserted.

Joe Roe writes „However, the simple explanation here is that most (if not all) experts consider the defining characteristic of a Venus figurine to be that it depicts a Venus, not that it is literally a figurine.“ Oh, a Venus figurine depicts a Venus! I never heard of that, never read it in dozens of books and articles on that topic. And it is wrong, again.

In The Ancient history encyclopedia, Jessica Liew writes:


 * The Venus of Laussel is also carved from limestone and shares many of the traits of a Venus figurine while remaining unique in terms of prehistoric art. Found in France and believed to be between 18,000 and 20,000 years old, this Venus is a rare example of a prehistoric bas-relief.

https://www.ancient.eu/Venus_Figurine/ Liew clearly is concerned with the distinct features of the Venus of Laussel, which differ from the Venus figurines.

OK. And what about scholarly books, printed and readable. Do they call the Venus of Laussel a „Venus figurine“? NO they don’t. I looked up a sample of books written by wellknown authors and experts. They know about Venus figurines, prehistory and art forms.

P. 120 f, 148 ff. p. 82; the Venus is called a „female bas-relief“. In the text he distinguishes between „bas-relief sculptures“ and „sculpture in the round“.
 * André Leroi-Gourhan: Prähistorische Kunst. Die Ursprünge der Kunst in Europa (= Ars Antiqua – Große Epochen der Weltkunst). 5. Auflage. Herder Verlag, Freiburg/B. 1982, ISBN 3-451-16281-4 (EA Freiburg/B. 1971).
 * Randall White 2003, Prehistoric Art: The Symbolic Journey of Humankind.

p. 98 f. calls the reliefs in Laussel reliefs, and the Venus of Laussel a „Flachrelief“ („bas relief“)
 * Peter John Ucko, Andrée Rosenfeld  (1967). Felsbildkunst im Paläolithikum

This book is valuable concerning this discussion, because it deals with rock art (German „Felsbildkunst“). So he leaves out all the Venus figurines in his book, but not the Venus of Laussel. Therefore one can clearly see, that he distinguishes the relief from the figurines ( statuettes) as another art form. Only once he shows a picture a statuette from the Petersfels and there he calls it a „Figurine“ (engl. figurine) on page 213.- So his use of „figurine“ and „relief“ perfectly correspond to the point I want to make clear here.


 * Henri Delporte (1979: L’image de la femme dans l’art préhistorique, Ed. Picard) has written the classic book on the depiction of women in the paleolithic. He writes:

"On ne peut separer de la serie des sculptures en ronde-bosse la collection de figuration en reliefe, recuillie par le docteur Gaston Lalanne à Laussel, figurations dont la morphologie es tres voisine de celle des statuettes." (p. 60)

("One cannot separate from the series of sculptures in the round the collection of relief figurations, collected by doctor Gaston Lalanne in Laussel, figurations whose morphology is very close to that of the statuettes.")

So he says that the topic of these art works are the same and both forms are sculptures, but also he distinguishes the two artforms. And, of course, he does not call the Venus of Laussel a (Venus)figurine.

Conclusion: No expert in prehistoric art calls the Venus of Laussel a figurine or a Venus figurine. The problem only arises if on uses swiftly collected internet articles by using Google. Here minor authors write und publish, or they use only the figures/depictions for illustrating something while using the term „figurine“ quite sloppy. Still I am of the opinion that prehistorians do not lump „Venus figurines“ and „Venus“ and „Venus relief“ together, as the differences are clear, logical and should be used also by Wikipedia.

Remarks: The Adorant of the Geissenklösterle cave (article started by me) is also categorized as a Venus figurine. This is wrong too. It is not even a depicted female. It is a relief on a small ivory plate, a plaquette. The Lion man (Löwenmensch) in the WP article is called a figurine. This is correct. One can call figurines also statuettes, and Venus figurines are frequently called „paleolithic female statuettes“. This is also correct. Mr. bobby (talk) 10:39, 16 May 2020 (UTC)
 * I haven't read all this wall of text, as nobody is really arguing this point. But Delporte is making exactly the same point as the people here. Probably Liew also. Johnbod (talk) 14:03, 16 May 2020 (UTC)
 * No, he doesn't. And he nowhere calls the Vdenus of Laussel a "Venus figurine". Mr. bobby (talk) 14:34, 16 May 2020 (UTC)
 * "One cannot separate..." he says - but separating them is exactly what you are demanding is done. Johnbod (talk) 21:06, 16 May 2020 (UTC)

Telling us that these reliefs should not be separated from the figurines of course points to the shared topic: the depiction of the human body, espeaciallx the female one. It dose NOT mean that the Venus of Laussel can be called a Venus figurine. So Delporte calls the Venus and also the other reliefs from Laussel: Nowhere on the crucial pages 60-66 he uses the word "Venus figurine", "female statuette" or similar. He is a witness for distinguishing clearly. And every reasonable scientist and expert on this topic does so. Mr. bobby (talk) 15:12, 17 May 2020 (UTC)
 * figuration en relief (fr.)
 * sculpture (fr.)
 * figuration (fr.)

On a related topic: the Venus of Willendorf
While we're all thinking about 'Venuses', I've spotted something I'd like some wider input on. You might recognise the image on the right as the image from the archaeology stub template, so it appears on a lot of pages. It's the Venus of Willendorf - the section header may have given that away.

Since 2015 it has also appeared in the article on breast fetishism (no NSFW pictures on the page). The caption there reads The Upper Paleolithic Venus figurines may have been forms of erotic art, or fertility icons. Shown here is the Venus of Willendorf, 28,000 B.C.E – 25,000 B.C.E.

One of the interesting things about Wikipedia is how content is used in different ways, especially images. But (1) the caption doesn't have a source and (2) the article on Venus figurines and the Willendorf example don't mention breast fetishism. The latter does used the term 'fertility fetish'. Does the use of the image in the breast fetishism article count as original research. What do others think?

It's also worth noting that people are |Venus_figurines|Venus_of_Willendorf almost as likely to see the image on the breast fetishism article as they are on the page about the Venus of Willendorf itself so I think considering how it's presented is reasonable. Richard Nevell (talk) 16:48, 19 May 2020 (UTC)
 * For those interested in 'Venus' figurines, I've removed the image of the Venus of Willendorf from the breast fetishism article. Richard Nevell (talk) 10:44, 31 May 2020 (UTC)

Expert on paleolithic art Prof. Pettitt on the topic of categorizing the "Venus of Laussel" as a Venus figurine
Instead of citing dozens of scholarly books on paleolithic art without calling teh Venus auf Laussel a "Venusfigurien" I wrote to a leading expert on the topic, Prof. Pettitt. Here is his anwswer to my question. (I left every single letter unchaged except my real name and adress):

Dear XY,

you're right that the Laussel venuses (there are several, in fact, although of course it is only the one that is usually discussed) are not figurines. While one or two of them do adhere to the very broad characteristics of the wider 'venus' idea, most don't, and in any case it's wrong to call them figurines.

With all best wishes, Paul

Please note that while we are working remotely and at a reduced pace I am prioritising contact with students and matters directly relating to teaching and supervision. I may not be as lightning-fast replying to your emails on other matters as I normally am. If I send emails out of ordinary hours - which I try not to do - I am obviously not expecting a fast response. Stay safe!

Professor P. B. Pettitt BA(Hons) MA PhD(Cantab)

Professor of Palaeolithic Archaeology

Departmental Director of Postgraduate Research

Department of Archaeology

Durham University

South Road

Durham

DH1 3LE From: XY Sent: 24 May 2020 00:45 To: PETTITT, PAUL B.  Subject: Venus of Laussel Dear Professor Pettitt,

may I ask you - a leading expert in paleolithic art - a question ?

I have a quarrel with contributers of the English Wikipedia concerning the Venus auf Laussel. They call it a "Venus figurine". I have the opinion that it is not a Venus figurine but a relief. And therefore it should be categorized differently. To my mind the so called Venus figurines ar little statuettes, made in the round, part of the portable art. The Venus of Laussel is part of the parietal art, no statuette (nor a figurine) and should be separated for these reasons, although of course it also shows a woman.

What do you think?

Sincerely,

XY

XY GERMANY

So the whole thing on wrongly categorizing the Venus auf Laussel as a Venus figurine is made possible simply by choosing useless literature by minor authors, who write sloppy articles and are not acquainted with the topic. Choosing such literature by a student would be criticized in an academic context. So Wikipedia should realy return to academic standards instead of inventing a "new" but wrong use of traditional categories. The same holds for the wrongly categorized "Adorant of the Geissenklösterle cave".

Mr. bobby (talk) 19:47, 26 May 2020 (UTC)


 * Given Prof. Pettitt specialises in Palaeolithic art I'd be inclined to give that statement significant weight, especially since most sources don't give us an explicit yes/no. Good initiative getting in touch, I think the way forward is to remove the Laussel from the table. Richard Nevell (talk) 22:49, 26 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Mr Bobby of course gave a misleading account - no one has ever said the VL is not a relief, or is a figurine or is portable. This is a completely stupid idea.  He's been told this many times, but just never listens at all.  Pettitt indeed says the relief in question does "adhere to the very broad characteristics of the wider 'venus' idea", which is more than Mr Bobby has ever conceded, though of course he will take no notice of what Pettitt has said. Johnbod (talk) 11:23, 27 May 2020 (UTC)
 * No, please, let's not encourage this absurd escalation of Mr. bobby's WP:IDHT behaviour. We don't make editorial decisions based on emails solicited through leading questions. If Pettitt published an article stating this we would take it into account, of course – but he won't, because nobody in the world is this pedantic about Venus figurines except Mr. bobby. He has invented this anally retentive "academic standard" and reinforces it with the circular reasoning that, because he is right, any source that disagrees with him must be poor quality, and therefore the sources agree that he is right. The net result is endless, tedious debate on these talk pages, and articles being significantly less valuable to our readers because of the examples he persistently and arbitrarily removes. This has been going on for years. It really is time to stop. –&#8239;Joe (talk) 11:42, 27 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Asking someone to share their expertise, even in a brief format, is hardly absurd and broadening the voices beyond just the four of us is a good idea since it doesn't look like we are going to break this impasse. As a general principle, we should consider how we engage people from academia and professional archaeology - not just in disputes like this but in identifying what areas of content can be improved and how. On the Venus of Laussel, I am perfectly happy to have it mentioned in the prose of the article on Venus figurines; as for it's inclusion in the list I'm less convinced it should be there. For gazetteers and lists it is often helpful to keep inclusion criteria as broad as possible so that people using the information can make informed decisions about how to use that information so I certainly wouldn't lose any sleep if it remained on the list since we have the explanation that it's a relief, which contrasts with most examples being carved in the round. Richard Nevell (talk) 10:42, 31 May 2020 (UTC)

Iruña-Veleia
Some incredible claims about artefacts found here: "These included what would have been the oldest non-onomastical texts in Basque, which were hailed as the first evidence of written Basque. Also, it was announced the discovery of a series of inscriptions and drawings on pottery fragments, some of which refer to Egyptian history and even some written in Egyptian hieroglyphs. Finally, it was announced the finding of the earliest representation of the Calvary (crucifixion of Jesus) found anywhere to date". This last week those making the claims were sentenced for fraud and producing false records. But see which is pov, confusing, uses a court decision as a source and something written to "To Whom it may concern" by Harris of the Harris matrix but which is only about the stratigraphy, which I don't think was ever a big issue. Doug Weller talk 14:20, 13 June 2020 (UTC)


 * See also the talk page for a clearer view of the problems, not that I feel I'm being very coherent right now, but the editor in question clearly doesn't like the way we work. Doug Weller  talk 14:49, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

Impact of Covid-19 on heritage sites
With lockdown affecting income for heritage sites, many are facing closure and there will likely be more stories like this one about Fishbourne Roman Palace (and other sites run by the Sussex Archaeological Society). It's worth documenting these stories in the relevant Wikipedia articles as and when they crop up. Fingers crossed it's not too often. Richard Nevell (talk) 23:27, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Non-diffusing categories and biographies
Category:Women archaeologists is a non-diffusing category which means that articles in that category should also be in the parent category. Categorization/Ethnicity, gender, religion and sexuality also says that "In almost all cases, gendered/ethnic/sexuality/disability/religion-based categories should be non-diffusing, meaning that membership in the category should not remove membership from the non-gendered/non-ethnic/etc. parent category".

But the parent category, Category:Archaeologists is essentially empty so I'm unsure where that leaves us as on a practical level it is diffusing.

If I'm understand the guidelines correctly, Category:British women archaeologists should be a non-diffusing subcategory of Category:British archaeologists but isn't marked as such (until a few minutes ago, it wasn't a subcategory at all).

What I'm asking is does anyone here know a lot about categories, and does the project have a position on the situation? Richard Nevell (talk) 20:20, 17 June 2020 (UTC)


 * I believe I was the last person to try and tidy the category tree, a few years ago. I marked Category:Archaeologists as a Category diffuse (so it should be empty). Then my practice was to try to put biographies in at least a nationality category, Category:Women archaeologists (if applicable), and a subcat of Category:Archaeologists by subfield. Since then the Category:Archaeologists by century, nationality subcats of Category:Women archaeologists, and Category:Archaeologists by ethnicity trees have been added, which complicates things. I have to admit I've always found the categorisation guidelines to be impenetrable, so if anyone can think of a better way to organise it... –&#8239;Joe (talk) 07:05, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
 * The trouble is, few have the energy to reorganize large categories, and those who do are often obsessives who make things worse, often by starting new sub-schemes that they don't bother to finish or maintain. Obviously Category:British women archaeologists should have been a non-diffusing subcategory of Category:British archaeologists, but it's not too untypical that it wasn't. Unfortunately, general arrangement issues like this very rarely come up at WP:CFD, which instead concentrates on whackamole fun on deletions and renames.  Mind you the results can be so unpredicable there that I expect many hesitate to take such matters there. If there are specific things wanted, I'd suggest getting consensus here, then take it to Cfd brandishing that project consensus.  Btw, as an example of what I said above, Category:German archaeologists is being split into all the federal states, which seems a very bad move to me.  The same user tried the same with British architects, but Category:Architects from Dorset was deleted in this discussion.  That was specifically intended to be a test case, but as yet the other categories remain in place (sigh).  Johnbod (talk) 10:56, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
 * As a first step, I’ve added articles that were in Category:British women archaeologists but not Category:British archaeologists to the latter. With 22 articles to go through, it was easy enough to do manually. I was going to do the same with Category:Indian women archaeologists and Category:Indian archaeologists but the latter has already been spun out into categories for centuries. It looks like there are two systems here which are quite interacting right. So we’ve got categories for century, ethnicity, nationality, specialism (ie: subfield), and then women. The corresponding pattern would presumably be gender. It’s a wee bit complex and I can see why there may be quite a small group of people who spend lots of time dealing with categories! I don’t especially want to overhaul the categorisation for all 4 or 5 thousand biographies of archaeologists on Wikipedia. Is this something WikiProject Women in Red might be able to offer advice on? I could drop them a note asking for their input. Richard Nevell (talk) 16:56, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
 * As a first step, I’ve added articles that were in Category:British women archaeologists but not Category:British archaeologists to the latter. With 22 articles to go through, it was easy enough to do manually. I was going to do the same with Category:Indian women archaeologists and Category:Indian archaeologists but the latter has already been spun out into categories for centuries. It looks like there are two systems here which are quite interacting right. So we’ve got categories for century, ethnicity, nationality, specialism (ie: subfield), and then women. The corresponding pattern would presumably be gender. It’s a wee bit complex and I can see why there may be quite a small group of people who spend lots of time dealing with categories! I don’t especially want to overhaul the categorisation for all 4 or 5 thousand biographies of archaeologists on Wikipedia. Is this something WikiProject Women in Red might be able to offer advice on? I could drop them a note asking for their input. Richard Nevell (talk) 16:56, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

Falerii Novi
Falerii Novi, a Roman site in Etruria, has come into the news lately due to newly-published research of a site survey with some interesting findings. The article could use some expert attention.

Thanks!

HiMyNameIsFrancesca (talk) 00:50, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

Phoenician discovery of America
See. Doug Weller talk 14:40, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

More categories
Categories_for_discussion/Log/2020_June_20 is running. Pleas comment there. Johnbod (talk) 15:54, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

RfC invitation
Hello, everybody. There's an ongoing RfC at Talk:Molossians in which members of this wikiproject could contribute and provide new perspectives.--Maleschreiber (talk) 23:52, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

Is Iran actually the home of the world's most ancient civilization?
See. Thanks. Doug Weller talk 14:19, 9 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Well if the Organization of the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance says so, it must be, right? Johnbod (talk) 23:55, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

Rattle pendant?
The numerous press articles in the last couple of days about what we are for now calling the Peebles Hoard all say that it includes a rare rattle pendant.

Quote from the Belfast Telegraph ref:
 * "Evidence of a decorative “rattle pendant” from the harness was also discovered – the first one to be found in Scotland and only the third in the UK."

So it obviously seems to be a tightly-defined thing. I can't find anything on a google search which would help to identify just what this is, to create either an article or a linked sourced subsection within an existing article. Can an archaeology expert with a shelf-full of books help out here perhaps? Where were the other two in the UK found? Pam D  07:45, 13 August 2020 (UTC)


 * I found a couple of sources on Google Scholar:
 * Rattle pendants are small bronze objects on rings which are believed to have been attached to horse harness (and perhaps other tiems) and which were used both as ornaments and to make noise. Less than a dozen examples are known from Ireland and most of them are unprovenanced. They are dated by the other finds assdociated with them to the late Bronze Age.
 * Ten rattle pendants, unfortunately without any firm associations but probably dating by comparison from the earlier first millennium BC, have been identified over the years [...] Rattle pendants were attached to the bridle or other parts of tack, as seen, for example, in the decorative mount from Svartarp, Sweden, and among the hoard from Bækkedal, Denmark, both from Period V. The idea that rattle pendants were mounted on harness to create noise, arguably to draw attention, is mirrored by the fact that bells and pendants were hung onto harness in the Middle Ages.
 * And Higgins mentions this as one of the few example from Britain:
 * There's probably enough for a short article. I can send you the PDFs if the articles if you don't have access? –&#8239;Joe (talk) 08:07, 13 August 2020 (UTC)
 * There's probably enough for a short article. I can send you the PDFs if the articles if you don't have access? –&#8239;Joe (talk) 08:07, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

Biblical archaeology needs a rewrite to remove the essay style material
In February 2013 an editor added a large amount of text translated from elsewhere that reads like an essay and is almost certainly confusing to the average readere. Eg:

"In order to understand the significance of biblical archaeology it is first necessary to understand two basic concepts: archaeology as a scientific framework and the Bible as an object for research. Archaeology is a science, not in the Aristotelian sense of cognitio certa per causas but in the modern sense of systematic knowledge.[1] Vicente Vilar expands on this point by stating that archaeology is both art and science: as an art it searches for the material remains of ancient civilizations and tries to reconstruct, as far as possible, the environment and the organizations of one or of many historical epochs;[1] as a relatively recent modern science, and as Benesch has said, it is a science that is barely 200 years old but that has, however, substantially changed our ideas about the past.[2]

"One might think that archaeology would have to disregard the information contained within religions and many philosophical systems. However, apart from the great deal of factual material that such systems generate (such as places of worship, holy objects and other scientifically observable things), there are other aspects that are equally important for scientific archaeological investigation such as religious texts, rites, customs and traditions. Archaeologists and historians commonly use myths as clues to events or places that have become hidden in the background, a process that Rudolf Bultmann calls "demythification" – the most notable example being Homer’s poems and the myth-infused city of Troy. This contemporary perception of the myth, mainly developed by Bultmann, has encouraged scientists such as archaeologists to examine the areas indicated by the biblical tales.[3][4][5]"

Anyone interested in cleaning this up? I don't have the time sadly. Too many brushfires to put out on Wikipedia. Doug Weller talk 09:20, 6 July 2020 (UTC)
 * It was translated from the Spanish WP (an FA) and is a hell of an improvement on what was there before. It has a Continental tone in parts, like those quoted. Some bits have already been cut - maybe more could be, or go to the bottom. Needs an expert really. Johnbod (talk) 00:04, 12 August 2020 (UTC)
 * The article is a bit confused and needs some rearranging, pruning, and rewriting. Does anyone fancy a bit of bold editing? Richard Keatinge (talk) 11:09, 12 August 2020 (UTC)
 * I'll take a look.--Bolter21 (talk to me) 13:56, 12 August 2020 (UTC)

I've rewritten the the lead section and boldly removed many things that seemd irrelevent or poorly written. I would appriciate if someone would step in to help becuase I don't have much interest nor much knowledge about Biblical Archaeology so other than copying straight from sources it would be OR.--Bolter21 (talk to me) 11:35, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

I've had to remove a lot of copyvio from Sacsayhuamán
Copied in 2010 from Ancient Cuzco: Heartland of the Inca By Brian S. Bauer - most of the stuff about its construction. Doug Weller talk 13:59, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

Nebra Sky Disk dispute over new dates
I've added this to the article talk page: The State Office for Monument Preservation and Archeology Saxony-Anhalth as issued the following press release. "In an article by Rupert Gebhard and Rüdiger Krause, published today in the journal "Archäologische Informations", it is postulated that the Nebra Sky Disc, which is dated to the Early Bronze Age (around 1600 BC), would only be dated 1000 years later to the Iron Age. The colleagues not only ignore the abundance of published research results in recent years, their various arguments also are easily refuted. Gebhard and Krause put forward several key points as a platform for this thesis.

In particular, the correlation of the Sky Disc with the other discoveries of the hoard, whose Bronze Age age is not in question, is put in doubt. Claims are that the soil attachments on the Sky Disc do not correspond with those of the other findings and that the geochemical analyzes of the metals do not support their coherence.

Both of these statements are demonstrably incorrect. According to an essay by Dr. Jörg Adam (then State Office of Criminal Investigation of Brandenburg), who conducted the investigations of the soil attachments for the Regional Court of Halle as an expert, and who was not quoted by the two authors, "altogether ... therefore an origin of both the soil attachments on the Sky Disc (Sp 1) and on the sword (Sp 2) from their presumed location (the extraction point of VM 1) is to be regarded as very probable ... An exceptional position is occupied by the soil attachments on the ax (column 3). A large proportion of the properties and characteristics determined, also indicate that the origin of these soil attachments from the Mittelberg appear probable «. Since the inquiry of the court of first instance was limited to these three objects back then, the other accompanying findings were not examined by the expert at the time and therefore should not be used as an argument against the coherence of all the finds. In view of this, the claim of the two authors that the chisel must be separated as not belonging to the hoard, is not comprehensible.

Furthermore, the statement that the geochemical analysis of the metals argues against the coherence of the findings is misleading. Already in 2008 and 2010 Prof. Dr. Ernst Pernicka and other colleagues demonstrated "that the copper of all parts of the hoard comes from the same storage location". The Mitterberg in the Salzburg region has long been proven to be a deposit whose copper production ended at the beginning of the 1st millennium BC. In addition, Pernicka states: "Analyzes of Celtic [Iron Age] copper alloys show quite different compositions of the main components as well as trace elements and lead isotope ratios". Therefore, from a metallurgical point of view, dating the Sky Disc to the Iron Age is clearly out of the question.

A final argument put forward by Gebhard and Krause is that the Nebra Sky Disc appeared as "a perfect foreign object" in the symbolism of that period. While this is true, this also applies to every unique discovery. The Sky Disc of Nebra would be a foreign object in any prehistoric period.

Due to lack of space, we refrain from discussing the many other inconsistencies in the content of the article here.'We would be happy to provide you with the above publications for your further information as downloads:

Jörg Adam, Forensic Investigation of Earth Attachments on the Sky Disc. In: Harald Meller / François Bertemes (eds.), The departure to new horizons. New perspectives on the European Early Bronze Age. Final conference of the FOR550 research group from November 26th to 29th, 2010 in Halle (Saale). Conferences of the State Museum of Prehistory in Hall 19 (Halle [Saale] 2019).

Ernst Pernicka / Christian-Heinrich Wunderlich / Alfred Reichenberger / Harald Meller / Gregor Borg, On the authenticity of the Nebra sky disk - a brief summary of the investigations carried out. Archaeological correspondence sheet 38 (2008) 331–352.

Ernst Pernicka, Archaeometallurgical investigations on and on the hoard of Nebra. In: Harald Meller / François Bertemes (eds.), The reach for the stars. International symposium in Halle (Saale) 16. – 21. February 2005. Conferences of the State Museum for Prehistory Hall 5 (Halle [Saale] 2010).

Ernst Pernicka / Joachim Lutz / Thomas Stöllner, Bronze Age Copper Produced at Mitterberg, Austria, and its Distribution. Archaeologia Austriaca 100 (2016) 19–55. Doug Weller talk 11:44, 7 September 2020 (UTC)

Schöningen forest elephant merge discussion
Based on the notability discussion that happened during the withdrawn DYK nomination, I have started a merge discussion on Talk:Schöningen forest elephant, input is requested.-- Kev min  § 15:29, 27 September 2020 (UTC)

Zoom conference Friday Oct 30 "Martians, Atlanteans, and "Lost Tribes": Pseudo-archaeology and Its Impact on Native American Studies"
It's the Institute for American Indian Studies 15th Annual Native American-Archaeology RoundTable. Free registration here. Agenda and speakers here.

It should be brilliant! Doug Weller talk 20:59, 29 October 2020 (UTC)
 * Hope it was interesting, if you managed to go were there any particular highlights? Richard Nevell (talk) 09:52, 2 November 2020 (UTC)

Vandalism at Ivory Bangle Lady and Beachy Head Lady
Last month, the Yorkshire Museum shared the story of the Ivory Bangle Lady on social media which set off the alt-right. The initial replies have spilled over into vandalism on the Wikipedia article about her and the Beachy Head Lady. If folks here could add both articles to their watchlists that would be a great help. Richard Nevell (talk) 09:58, 2 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Thanks . Fight the good fight people. I suspect the vandalism aimed at IBL will also be true of various other pages as part of targeted efforts by alt-right trolls. If there are other pages that are being vandalised, please do post them here and we can all watch and defend.Zakhx150 (talk) 14:11, 2 November 2020 (UTC)
 * , hard agree. Lajmmoore (talk) 14:37, 2 November 2020 (UTC)

Atlantis of the Sands
ie Ubar/Iram etc. Not only is the article a mess, the title is inappropriate. I've raised this at WP:FTN where the discussion should take place. Doug Weller talk 16:59, 7 November 2020 (UTC)
 * That page is a tangle, and the title immediately raises red flags. The opening sentence is confusingly named. Looks like there's a lot of work to be done there. Richard Nevell (talk) 18:21, 7 November 2020 (UTC)

New fellows of the Society of Antiquaries (2020)
All red links this year! :


 * Catrine Jarman
 * Anthony Crosby
 * Brendan Wilkins (cofounder of DigVentures)
 * Charles Kightly
 * Kayt Hawkins
 * Sam Newton (appeared on Time Team)
 * Mads Holst (director of Moesgaard Museum)
 * Ian Worthington (former Curators' Distinguished Professor at the University of Missouri)
 * Erin Sabo
 * Edward Copisarow

Most of the fellows appointed last year (Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Archaeology/Archive 9) are also still red links:


 * Greg Sullivan
 * Adrian Corder-Birch
 * James Monroe
 * Christopher Jones
 * Francis Green
 * Katherine Barker
 * Eric Nye

–&#8239;Joe (talk) 13:18, 9 October 2020 (UTC)
 * Thanks for listing them here, Joe. At least one has been turned blue already but there's a way to go. Richard Nevell (talk) 18:25, 7 November 2020 (UTC)

Londinium
Anyone interested in this, could you check the recent edits? Thanks. Doug Weller talk 18:36, 22 October 2020 (UTC)


 * The balance of the edits seems to have shifted a few things about and pruned a few unsourced statements. Richard Nevell (talk) 14:38, 8 November 2020 (UTC)

Spokeshaves
Hello, the article on spokeshaves (a woodworking tool) currently includes a small unreferenced section on a prehistoric tool also called a spokeshave. From a cursory google it seems to a notched piece of stone used for scraping pieces of wood for making things like arrows. However, other than the name there is no direct historic link between the two tools. As such I think they should be either two separate articles, or the prehistoric tool should be incorporated into another archaeology article - but I don't really know anything about prehistoric tools! Just wondering if anybody had any thoughts or ideas? Thanks! LittleDwangs (talk) 15:38, 11 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Hi . Stone tool types are often named after modern tools that have a similar shape. Sometimes people use the similarity in form to infer a similarity in function, but this is widely considered a bad assumption. With modern techniques it's possible to establish what stone tools were used for, so it's plausible that prehistoric 'spokeshaves' were actually spokeshaves, but without a source explicitly stating this I don't think it should be included in the article. We could potentially have a separate article on Spokeshave (stone tool) or an entry in Glossary of archaeology, but since that short section has no references I would just go ahead and remove it for now. –&#8239;Joe (talk) 09:54, 12 November 2020 (UTC)

If you have the interest and time, please join in at WP:RSN
Thanks. Doug Weller talk 13:49, 12 November 2020 (UTC)

Prehistoric archaeology on the front page
Hi folks, the article on Knap Hill is scheduled to be Today's Featured Article on 29 December. We can expect thousands of people will be visiting the article so if anyone has time on the day I'm sure the editors would appreciate help with maintenance. Richard Nevell (talk) 17:53, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

Use of jargon on New Albion
Hello Project Archaeology editors.

I worked diligently to successfully bring the New Albion article to WP:GA status, and as such, I work to keep it from being hacked by well-meaning editors who make good faith edits that are damaging to the article. In doing so, I've swerved into the sherd or shard problem. On November 15, I reverted a November 14 edit, the type I think of as a drive by edit, one in which someone not invested in the article sees an item which displeases them and makes an unconsidered edit. This red link editor changed one instance of the word shard to sherd and left all other instances of shards as they were originally used. I reverted the edit and fortunately, no edit war has ensued. He did, however, explain why the change in the editing summary: sherd is preferred by archaeolgists. I explained my thoughts for the reverting HERE.

I have found no consensus anywhere about the use of sherd or shard, even on a Wikipedia discussion (which I am unable to re-locate so please excuse my lack of providing a link for your view convenience). Certainly sherd is preferred by archaeologists but this is not a firm rule of style. Even the Merriam Webster Dictionary is not entirely clear: read the definition and scroll down to the examples HERE and you will see an excerpt from The Smithsonian discussing ancient Greek pottery fragments as shards. I used shards through the New Albion article to maintain consistency with the Los Angeles Times reference and the Point Reyes National Seashore museum usage, and I still believe this is correct manner with which to edit.

I sought advice from the Teahouse and they made excellent suggestions regarding MOS:JARGON and one level down. So, I am considering a footnote about the matter in the article. An example of this type of explanation, which is used on a scholarly website, may be viewed HERE and may provide a model. I believe grammatist.com (you may see their site HERE) is a reliable source, even they note that that the words can be confusing and speak of their usage in terms of usually.

So, I am inquiring about your opinion: Would making an edit to this effect suffice to address the sherd or shard debate while adequately employing MOS:JARGON AND WP:ONEDOWN practices in a manner that would maintain a WP:GA status or WP:FA status should a WP:FA assessment eventually be sought? I look forward to hearing from you. Kind regards to all.Hu Nhu (talk) 03:06, 17 November 2020 (UTC)


 * Sherd and shard have the same root, with sherd being the older and now less common spelling. But the sherd spelling was retained in the compound word potsherd (OED, "potsherd" – potshard is very uncommon) and via that in archaeology. I suppose because there aren't many other people who talk about bits of pottery as much as we do.
 * It's hard to find sources for such a niche usage, but, as well as MW, the OED ("shard | sherd") also says Sherd is now established as the normal Archaeology spelling and in my experience sherd is indeed universally used within the field. You might see shard in less specialist literature, but I'd put that down to either overcorrection by an editor unfamiliar with archaeology, or the author thinking it's more accessible to a broader audience, and it's the kind of thing you'd correct in an undergraduate essay. Again speaking from personal experience, I think some semantic differentiation has happened in technical writing, with sherd referring only to ceramic fragments (i.e. short for potsherd) and shard for everything else. It would be normal to read a report that said something like "Layer A contained mixed Byzantine sherds and shards of modern glass", for example.
 * I wouldn't say this is a point of style we should enforce across Wikipedia, but if I were reviewing something for GA/FA, I would probably recommend sherd as the more precise and technically correct usage. It is WP:JARGON, but I think it's not so obscure that an average reader wouldn't understand it. It could help to use the full form potsherd the first time, to signal to the reader that it's not a spelling error, and/or add a link to in the glossary of archaeology.
 * Hope that's of some help. –&#8239;Joe (talk) 07:40, 17 November 2020 (UTC)
 * I understand what you are saying,, and find the potsherd idea very workable--does this represent your suggestion: Potsherds (sherds) were found.  These sherds were sharp.
 * This does, however, this remains inconsistent with the image [HERE], which is at the Point Reyes National Seashore museum and the Los Angeles Times article ([HERE)] which uses shards. That is why I wonder about the footnote I mention in paragraph three. But considering my relative inexperience as an editor, I am not certain if such a footnote referencing grammaist.com would reflect proper Wikipedia editing. And I do deeply desire to maintain this article's integrity. I appreciate your kind attention.Hu Nhu (talk) 16:29, 17 November 2020 (UTC)
 * As a general rule, on points of style, we aim for consistency within and between Wikipedia articles, with the Manual of Style, and with broader English usage (in roughly that order), rather than following the particular sources used in article. I think a footnote in New Albion might be overkill, considering the word is only used in one section, but it's up to you of course. Grammarist seems like an okay source. –&#8239;Joe (talk) 17:18, 17 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Like Joe, my impression is that sherd is more commonly used. As a quick way to evidence that, I've got a nearly 300 PDFs of the Proceedings of the Theoretical Roman Archaeology Conference. A search for sherd vs. shard indicates that 53 articles use sherd and none use shard (at least of the ones with optical character recognition, which may not be all of them). However, The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Archaeology prefers shard over sherd. Overall, either would seem to be acceptable and I wouldn't worry too much about which as long as a single variant is used within the article.
 * Sherd/shard is slightly technical, but the article makes excellent use of an image which clearly illustrates what potsherds are so I don't think a footnote is necessary. Maybe the use in the lead could be changed to something like "fragments of porcelain which were established to..." so that when 'sherd' is first used it is beside the image. Richard Nevell (talk) 09:45, 18 November 2020 (UTC)


 * Use "sherd" - this is not jargon. There are plenty of better things to worry about in the article. Johnbod (talk) 14:57, 18 November 2020 (UTC)

Iruña-Veleia
Talk:Iruña-Veleia needs responses. It's about claims and counterclaims that inscriptions found in a Roman town in Spain "contain the oldest known texts written in the Basque language as well as, allegedly, the oldest representation of the crucifixion of Jesus found to date". Doug Weller talk 07:13, 7 January 2021 (UTC)

The Galloway Hoard
I'm getting in touch about the Galloway Hoard. I'm Digital Product Manager at National Museums Scotland, and we've been working in partnership with Wikimedia UK over the last couple of years to move the organisation forward in our journey towards open access to the national collections. We've been publishing some small image releases to Wiki Commons of objects like the Lewis Chessmen and the Monymusk Reliquary.

The next step in this project is an upload of images of the Galloway Hoard, which you can find in the category https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Galloway_Hoard_at_the_National_Museum_of_Scotland

As a bit of background, the hoard was acquired by National Museums Scotland in 2017 thanks to generous support from the public. We're due to exhibit the hoard at the National Museum of Scotland and on tour around Scotland in 2021.

I wanted to flag the images here in case there are any pages - existing or new - you'd like to use them in.

Part of the project at NMS is about internal advocacy and demonstrating the value of opening up access to the collections via Wikmedia, so please let me know if you use the images in any content as we'd be delighted to see how they are used.

Thanks, Adam Adamcoulson (talk) 12:59, 22 January 2021 (UTC)
 * I've given the article (not much changed since 2014) a wash & brush-up, but much more could be added or updated from this bumber fun pack by the National Museum of Scotland, with text and videos. Johnbod (talk) 18:41, 22 January 2021 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Moorish Castle
There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Moorish Castle that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. Vpab15 (talk) 19:41, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

#BlackInArchaeoWeek
Hello All! Hope people are well - I saw that next week the European Society of Black & Allied Archaeologists are running a #BlackInArchaeoWeek on twitter and instagram. If people have the time and inclination to take a look on social media (if you use), I expect there'll be lots of people who could be listed on Wikidata, and perhaps some who could do with an biography starting! The tweet I saw announcing it is here. Happy ediitng Lajmmoore (talk) 20:54, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

Gualberto Piangatelli
This stub has been tagged as NN for over ten years! Please help fix it, or propose or nominate it for deletion; please template or ping me of you do so. Bearian (talk) 20:35, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

Palaeopathology and medieval cemetery red links
If anyone is looking for articles to work on, I came across a bunch of interesting red links while writing Tony Waldron, including two historical figures in palaeopathology (Roy Lee Moodie and Calvin Wells), and a number of medieval/post-medieval burial sites in London, usefully collected here and here. –&#8239;Joe (talk) 12:19, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

Sandbox organiser
Hi all

I've been working on a tool for the past few months that you may find useful, especially if you create new articles. Sandbox organiser is a set of tools to help you better organise your draft articles and other pages in your userspace. It also includes areas to keep your to do lists, bookmarks, list of tools. You can customise your sandbox organiser to add new features and sections. Once created you can access it simply by clicking the sandbox link at the top of the page. You can create and then customise your own sandbox organiser just by clicking the button on the page. All ideas for improvements and other versions would be really appreciated.

Huge thanks to PrimeHunter and NavinoEvans for their work on the technical parts, without them it wouldn't have happened.

Hope its helpful

John Cummings (talk) 11:26, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

Toltec Empire
A recent comment on its talk page suggests that the article places too much reliance on legends and gives the impression that there definitely was such an empire. See also Toltec. Doug Weller talk 17:48, 13 February 2021 (UTC)

15th–17th century archaeologists categories
Input would be welcome at Categories_for_discussion/Log/2021 February 11. The responses so far have been... less than fully informed. –&#8239;Joe (talk) 08:30, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

Nanno Marinatos
Since it is difficult to read anything recent on Minoan matters without running into her name, I have set her up as a redirect to her even more distinguished dad. I'm hoping this will provoke someone to create a proper article. Shouldn't be hard to find the basics - she's not one to hide her light under a bushel. Johnbod (talk) 04:20, 23 February 2021 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Dolmens of North Caucasus
There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Dolmens of North Caucasus that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. Elliot321 (talk &#124; contribs) 18:44, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

requesting comments on covering archeological sites
Hey, i am not an archeologist, but am developing about a lot of sites which are listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places. I have been encountering problems/gaps in trying to link to wider archeological topics. Have raised some specific and general questions, would welcome comments, at: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject National Register of Historic Places. Thanks for considering! --Doncram (talk) 18:59, 28 February 2021 (UTC)

BC–AD –> BCE–CE — is it time to change the Archaic period? (discussion)
A discussion about changing the era dating style at Archaic period (North America) is underway at Talk:Archaic period (North America). Please join. – S. Rich (talk) 16:24, 17 March 2021 (UTC)

Lake Bolac stone arrangement
This stone arrangement has been very recently found, like 5 April yesterday, to have been damaged with "up to 60 metres" of stones removed. This project may want to keep an eye on it. Pageviews have already increased significantly.

I did a basic update to the page. 220  of  ßorg 16:00, 5 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Holy crap, how? That, uh, needs some coverage. Tyrone Madera (talk) 20:55, 8 April 2021 (UTC)

Cueva de las Manos Collaboration
I've made significant additions to the Wikipedia article on Cueva de las Manos, and I would love it if anyone from WP:ARCHAEOLOGY would visit the page and provide input/help with editing. The article is currently B class and with just a little more effort is has a great shot at making it to GA. Thank you in advance! Tyrone Madera (talk) 21:13, 17 April 2021 (UTC)

Orissa Balu and his "integrated ocean culture"
Is there such a thing? And is this enough to make him notable? Some odd things in See also as well. Doug Weller talk 14:03, 22 February 2021 (UTC)
 * No there isn't, no it isn't, and for all the amusement value, nowhere near as good as Time Cube or Chariots of the Gods?. Deletion time I suggest. Richard Keatinge (talk) 20:18, 22 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Now at AfD. "Integrated ocean culture" also rings a bell... I'm sure I've seen it on another fringe bio, but can't remember or find it. –&#8239;Joe (talk)
 * Orissa Balu by any chance? Also deletion time, I suggest. Searching for the phrase "Integrated ocean culture" doesn't bring up anything else. Richard Keatinge (talk) 09:40, 19 May 2021 (UTC)

Article title input requested
An editor has requested for Early European modern humans to be moved to Upper Palaeolithic Europe. Since you had some involvement with Early European modern humans, you might want to participate in the move discussion (if you have not already done so). Note that the page was already moved, however the discussion has been reopened as the result of a move review. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 15:01, 23 May 2021 (UTC)

Jinsha Site
Hi all! I have been working on the article Jinsha site. I have added the bulk of my content and was hoping to get a fresh set of eyes to proof-read, recommend and give valuable advice! Thank you! --Anninarose (talk) 10:20, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

Dragon Man (archaic human) potential for second move discussion
Hello! The recent discussion on whether Dragon Man (archaic human) should be moved to its scientific name Homo longi, rather than staying under the informal nickname 'Dragon Man' was deemed to have reached no consensus, which I found unsatisfactory given that no consensus has the same effect as just keeping the article where it is. I'm interested in re-opening the move discussion, though trying to keep it more focused on actual article title policy rather than arguments based in taxonomy, which hold scientific weight but are not codified in Wikipedia policy.

Though the previous discussion was closed a very short time ago, I believe keeping the article under an informal nickname and waiting for several months (or years) to discuss the matter again is damaging. I also believe it is relevant to discuss the matter again but staying focused on article title policy, which was overshadowed by taxonomical principles in the previous discussion. I've brought this up here here, so I'm testing the waters to see if there might be interest for a second discussion (whether you agree it should be moved or kept). Ichthyovenator (talk) 11:44, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

Wikimania
Hello friends! WP:Medievalwiki is holding an open session tomorrow - Wikimania's Unconference on Monday 16 August at 12pm (UTC). We'd love to chat to more medieval wikipedians! Lajmmoore (talk) 20:09, 15 August 2021 (UTC)

"Discovering the opposite shore: How did hominins cross sea straits?"
The study is here. Doug Weller talk 13:39, 23 August 2021 (UTC)

Decline and end of the Cucuteni–Trypillia culture
A mess. Absolutely full of original research, and references 7 and 16 aren't reliable sources. I'm not convinced it should even exist. Doug Weller talk 10:00, 9 September 2021 (UTC)


 * This and similar articles (see Template:Cucuteni–Trypillia culture) were expanded and forked from Cucuteni–Trypillia culture by in 2011. I think I said at the time that I thought it went a bit far, and the forked articles were more essay-like in tone than they should be, but in his defence there were much fewer quality English-language sources on the Trypillia culture back then. A lot has been published on it in the last ten years so now would probably be a good time to review, trim, and possible merge these back to the parent article. But it's a big job. –&#8239;Joe (talk) 10:54, 9 September 2021 (UTC)