Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Archaeology/Archive 8

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Archive 10

WP 1.0 bot announcement

This message is being sent to each WikiProject that participates in the WP 1.0 assessment system. On Saturday, January 23, 2010, the WP 1.0 bot will be upgraded. Your project does not need to take any action, but the appearance of your project's summary table will change. The upgrade will make many new, optional features available to all WikiProjects. Additional information is available at the WP 1.0 project homepage. — Carl (CBM · talk) 02:50, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Takalik Abaj FA nom

Hi all. Takalik Abaj is currently at WP:FAC and is in danger of being mothballed due to lack of interest. Although it is not currently tagged as belonging to this project, it is an archaeology-related article. I'd therefore like to invite any comments at the review page. Thanks, Simon Burchell (talk) 16:50, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Takalik Abaj has just been promoted. :) Simon Burchell (talk) 09:57, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Migrationism

Please take a look at my comments (and chime in if you will) there where I note that we have Trans-cultural diffusion, Demic diffusion, Invasion theory andAcculturation [3] (at least), all related aspects of archaeological theory although they don't all link to each other (eg Trans-cultural diffusion despite having an external link to an article with the title "Diffusionism and Acculturation" doesn't have a link to Acculturation and vice versa). I also think that all these articles should have both the Wikiproject Archaeology and the Wikiproject Anthropology templates on their talk pages, does anyone disagree? Thanks. Dougweller (talk) 08:59, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

Conducting research on WikiProjects

We are professors at Carnegie Mellon University conducting research on how online groups operate, with a strong history of research on Wikipedia.

We would like to discuss collaborating with you with the goals of both improving integration of new members into your WikiProject as well as advancing the understanding of the science behind online groups.

Our recent research has shown that joining a WikiProject boosts editors' contributions to the project substantially, and that specific kinds of interactions between existing project members and newcomers encourage newcomers to contribute more and longer. We are now working on translating these findings into interventions that will increase the vitality of WikiProjects, helping them attract, motivate, and retain members who are knowledgeable and able to contribute to the project.

We have identified your project as an initial candidate that we would love to work with moving forward based on your participants and the amount of assessment work your project needs accomplished. Please feel free to contact me (Prof. Robert E. Kraut robert.kraut@cmu.edu) with any questions and to find out more.

Information about our research can be found at http://community.hciresearch.org/content/improving-socialization-newcomers-wikiprojects.

If you are interested in this collaboration please contact Rosta Farzan at rfarzan@cs.cmu.edu.

Thank you,

Rostaf (talk) 18:24, 12 February 2010 (UTC)Rostaf

Mary Rose at FAC

I've nominated Mary Rose for FAC. The nomination can be found at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Mary Rose/archive1. You are most welcome to contribute to the review of the article.

Peter ^Isotalo 23:47, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

Archaeological site categories?

Prompted by Nyttend, I wish to propose the creation of the following categories for North American archaeological sites and prehistoric cultures. These can be subdivided later for regional phases and tradtions. Any comments? Thanks, Bill Whittaker (talk) 14:28, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

• Paleoindian Period
• Archaic Period of North America
• Woodland Period of North America
• Late Prehistoric Period of North America
• Historical Archaeology of North America

Nyttend and I discussed this a little also. I've already created a few categories over the last few months, in an effort to at least have a kind of index of sites and subjects by period, but not these you listed specifically.

• Category:Archaic period in the Americas-[4] since they are so sparse for both continents, and the parent page was Archaic period in the Americas, I've just been adding every archaic period article I happen to run across to it.
• Category:Hopewellian peoples -[5] from over the summer when I was adding to those subjects for awhile.
• Category:Mississippian culture -[6] - since I've been mostly adding to Mississippian culture sites lately, I created this one and have been adding associated pages to it.
• Category:Fort Ancient culture-[7]

I think your list makes alot of sense. The cats I've created could be added as subcats if these were created. Heironymous Rowe (talk) 18:52, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Hopewellian could be a subcat of Woodland (or Middle Woodland, if that cat is created). Mississippian and Fort Ancient would be subcats of Late Prehistoric. I suppose there is no need for a new Archaic category. Bill Whittaker (talk) 19:03, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Here is revision to proposed cats:

• Paleoindian period
• Archaic period in the Americas
• Woodland period of North America
  • Hopewellian peoples
• Late Prehistoric period of North America
  • Mississippian culture
  • Fort Ancient culture
• Historical archaeology of North America

Would Euro-American sites, such as Fort McIntosh (Pennsylvania), be included in the historical category? Or is this system intended to be strictly Native American sites? I didn't think to ask either of you about Euro-American sites. Nyttend (talk) 19:09, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

EC-:::Works for me. I was having trouble trying to decide what goes where at times, with the whole Woodland period lasting for longer in some sections of the country, Mississippian developing in others, etc. But this works for me. I've left a post for Nyttend about this. Thanks! Heironymous Rowe (talk) 19:12, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Seems like Euro sites should be included in the Historical or subcats for it in Historical. Heironymous Rowe (talk) 19:13, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Category:Late Prehistoric period of North America[8], with the two mentioned subcats. If one were created for the Monongahela culture sites you've been working with lately, it could go here as well. I also made this cat a subcat of Category:Archaeology of the Americas[9]. Heironymous Rowe (talk) 19:29, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Okay, makes sense. I created Category:Monongahela villages last month, so you mean that it should be a subcategory of Late Prehistoric period? I'm done creating new articles there — except for NRHP-listed sites, I don't have any sources on Monongahela sites (or any other sites, for that matter), and I've now put together articles on all the Monongahela sites in Pennsylvania. I'm looking to take care of scattered sites elsewhere in the state (such as the Late Woodland Fisher Farm Site) before starting to work on the Late Prehistoric and Historic sites of the southeastern counties. Nyttend (talk) 20:03, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

(Arbitary undent) Late Prehistoric used to be considered part of Late Woodland, but best to break them out when possible. The article Mississippian culture has an overview of traits, but not all LP sites are Mississippian, of course. Cahokia is considered the first clear Late Prehistoric site, ca. 1000 AD. Not all LP traditions/phases have all the traits, and most LP sites lack some of the traits. Probably too much information. In general, just go with whatever designation you can find in the most recent publication.... Bill Whittaker (talk) 22:13, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

I was thinking having subcats such as Mississippian, Ft Ancient, etc would be a way around the problem of not all LP being Mississippian, etc. What gets more complicated is sites with multiple important occupancies from differant periods, LOL. With ones where it's mentioned in the articles as having significant occupations from differant periods, I sometimes add 2 cats, say if a site has significant Hopewell period and Mississippian, it can go into both. @ Nyttend, sounds good to me, although I just looked, and Monongahela culture itself could probably go into your villages cat, and then it be added as a subcat of LP. I noticed someone added a mention of a few Monongahela villages around Morgantown, WVA to the article the other day, but I could only find the one source online for them. Maybe you can find more since some actual names are now provided? Didn't seem to be in NHRP tho. Heironymous Rowe (talk) 23:41, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks; I'll add the Monongahela category as suggested. I've worked with some articles on multiple-component sites, so I'd been considering what to do with them. For example, the Canfield Island Site was inhabited by the Susquehannock people, so it's perhaps Historic (at least Late Prehistoric), but Woodland and Late Archaic artifacts are also present at the site, and at least one possible Early Archaic artifact has been found there. I've also worked on Mummy Cave, which was inhabited continuously for over 9,000 years, so that would surely fit into multiple categories. I'd figured on adding multiple categories to articles such as this. Nyttend (talk) 01:06, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

I've created a Category:Monongahela culture as a subcategory of Late Prehistoric; Category:Monongahela villages is now a subcategory of Monongahela culture. Is this a good idea? I just don't see an article about the culture as being a village, but I think that it would help to have a category for the sites themselves, so that they can be put into the "former settlements" and "archaeological sites" categories. Nyttend (talk) 01:16, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Rite on! I've went ahead and created most of the other cats that the Doc suggested, all here as subcats of Category:Archaeology of the Americas[10], have also started transfering a few things to them, but may take awhile to get them all there. Heironymous Rowe (talk) 01:23, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Okay, I tagged the handful of Iowa sites. Perhaps another category to add is Protohistoric? Thanks for all your help, Heironymous and Nyttend, these will be useful categories. Bill Whittaker (talk) 14:16, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

You're quite welcome; thanks for your help! Just curious about one thing — would it be overkill to have a separate set of subcategories for the sites themselves? For example, Category:Archaic sites in the Americas as a subcat of Category:Archaic period in the Americas, or Category:Woodland sites in the Americas as a subcat of Category:Woodland period of North America? Nyttend (talk) 16:01, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Probably not, since most Archaic articles will be about specific sites, and there are few enough of them that the big list is not overwhelming. This is also the reason why I think we should hold off on subdividing cats into Early, Middle, and Late Archaic for now. The use of terms like "villages" in cats is also a problem, since there can be other types of sites: mortuary, mound groups, quarries, etc., so it is better to just stick with the time periods. Thanks! Bill Whittaker (talk) 16:47, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

I concur with Bill, having a subcat for villages or sites would mean alot of the cats we are creating might have 3 or 4 articles and a subcat for everything else, would prolly be better to have it in just one main cat. But if cultures are divided into phases, complexes, etc whatever they are called locally, we could eventually do a sub cat for them and their specific articles. Its what I did for Mississippian culture, I created subcats for Caddoan, Plaquemine, Middle Mississippian, South Appalachian. Which can also all be subdivided again later if enough articles specific to their particlular local phases accrue. As for protohistoric cat, maybe we just put into Late Prehistoric for now? Most would already be there right now anyway. Heironymous Rowe (talk) 18:09, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Okay, thanks; I didn't realise that there were almost no articles other than on sites. What exactly is the protohistoric period in the North American context? Would the Susquehannock fit into this classification, since toward the end of their culture they were known by Europeans, but their earlier generations were pre-European? I'm quite unsure what to do with them. Nyttend (talk) 21:24, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Thats why I suggest we just keep the one cat. Protohistoric woiuld be Ft Ancient, all of the de Soto contactees, Monongahela, many on eastern seaboard with English contact, etc. Almost all protohistoric subjects will also have a Late Prehistoric component(if not an overwhelmingly longer history as Pre as opposed to Proto such as the Monongahela) and would also be in that cat, so really is no point in separating the two. Having a Historic category would make sense for historic villages, sites, cultures and EuroAmerican arch sites.Heironymous Rowe (talk) 22:47, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Okay, thanks. I've moved all of the Monongahela villages into Category:Monongahela culture and deleted the villages category. Would someone check my newly-written Houserville Site article to ensure that I've categorised it properly? Nyttend (talk) 23:36, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Archaeological site infobox

Do we have an infobox for archaeological sites? Is it possible to create one, like this one fr:Modèle:Infobox Site archéologique on the French Wikipedia? Yazan (talk) 06:22, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

There seems to be nothing available, though some articles adapt infoboxes from other projects. I've prototyped a simplified version here for testing only. I don't have the expertise to modify the mapping system used in the French infobox, but that could be added later as a separate template for illustrations further down in articles. Comments, additions or objections (perhaps this is not worth pursuing?) would be appreciated before the infobox goes live, keeping in mind that once an infobox begins to be adopted, changes can cause problems in the articles which use them. • Astynax ^talk 18:32, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

Walls of Benin

Walls of Benin, a contender for the largest man-made structure on Earth, could use some serious attention. I just lost access to the New Scientist article, or I might try myself. kwami (talk) 07:11, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

Help request: Cro-Magnon

The Cro-Magnon article is an High-importance article, but was rated start-class. I have tried make it better and expand it, but I am suffering from not being an archaeologist (I'm a zoologist). The article is starting to look better, but I need input on Cro-Magnon (Aurignacian) culture, particularly on subjects like technology. spirituality, ornaments, art ect where my zoologist background comes up short. Is there a Upper Paleolithic geek in the house? Petter Bøckman (talk) 09:03, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

Hej Petter! I took a look at the Cro-Magnon article, and I do indeed see what you mean. It is a very important article, and it does cry out for some polishing off. In fact, it is just the sort of thing that I tend to do here in the Wikiuniverse. Unfortunately for the immediate future I'm in the middle of doing precisely the same thing to a couple of other subjects' articles, which I need to wrap up before I can take on any new project and give it the attention it would deserve. However, in the meantime, I see that what really is needed for the Cro-Magnon article is a map that indicates the extent of Cro-Magnon's habitat/range over a period of time. If no such map is available to use (with the appropriate copyright permissions, of course), then I would volunteer to create one - but I would need to have some data to consult in order to create it - preferably another online map that might be under copyright restrictions to outright use in Wikipedia. If you could show where such a map might exist, I'd be willing right now to devote some time to creating a Cro-Magnon range map, preferably that shows different areas of expansion over time. Then later, after I'm done with my other projects, I'll take a look at how I can contribute to the article generally. How's that? --Saukkomies ^talk 14:32, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

Sounds great to me (I have other side projects too, I know the problem). A map is a good idea. I can replace a load of text, and let the article concentrate on the most important finds. I'll see what I can come up with. Another thing that need some thought is the deliniation between the articles Aurignacian and Cro-Magnon. It may be that Aurignacian may need some brushing up too. --Petter Bøckman (talk) 18:02, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

Petter, do you feel that there might be a need to create one or more subarticles from the Cro-Magnon? This is what I ended up doing for the massive Cucuteni-Trypillian culture article I was working on earlier this year - I ended up subdividing it into 14 separate articles! At any rate, do you know where we could find an online map that shows the range/habitat region of the Cro-Magnon over time? If so, I'll go ahead and whip up a nice SVG map and upload it to the article. --Saukkomies ^talk 21:22, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

I would like to repeat my plea for help with the Cro-Magnon article. It has now been re-rated to "at least C-Class", and I think it would be rated higher with just a little bit of help with Cro-Magnon culture. Are there anyone with knowledge of European Upper Paleolithic archaeology? Petter Bøckman (talk) 19:03, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

Capitalisation of ancient

In an attempt to get a project wide consensus and WP:MOS standard I've started a discussion at Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style_(capital_letters)#Capitalis(z)ation_of_ancient - eg the correct form of "Pottery of A/ancient China". Please contribute if possible.77.86.119.83 (talk) 21:39, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Missing archaeology topics

I've updated my list of missing archeology topics - Skysmith (talk) 12:57, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Where is ritual landscape? We don't have an article. Johnbod (talk) 04:16, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

Defining Prehistoric North America

There seems to be a huge disconnect between how Wikipedians have defined prehistoric North American Periods and how text books, academic archaeologists, and educational websites have defined them. Some good examples of how periods are defined:

• National Park Service
• Georgia Encyclopedia
• Iowa Office of the State Archaeologist
• Ohio Historical Society

Summary (all ages approx and vary from region to region):

• Paleoindian period (13,500-10,500 years ago) While Paleoindians were traditionally viewed as big game hunters, more recent research suggests much of their subsistence was derived from small game and wild plants.
  • Clovis
  • Folsom
  • Dalton and other Late Paleoindian
• Archaic period. Overall, populations appear to have increased during the Archaic, despite a changing climate. During this time American Indians transitioned from highly mobile hunters and gatherers with large ranges towards a focus on local resources and ecosystems. Domesticated plants appeared at the end of the Archaic.
  • Early Archaic (10,500-7,500 years ago)
  • Middle Archaic (7,500-5,000 years ago)
  • Late Archaic (5,000-2,800 years ago)
• Woodland period. During the Woodland period, many American Indians shifted away from hunting and gathering and used more domesticated plants, although wild food was still important. Ceramics, the bow and arrow, burial mounds, and evidence of political and social hierarchy became common at Woodland sites.
  • Early Woodland (800 B.C.-200 B.C.)
  • Middle Woodland (200 B.C.- A.D. 400)
    • Havana and Hopewell
  • Late Woodland (400-1250)
    • Effigy Mound Buildiers
• Late Prehistoric (900-1600)The appearance of extensive maize farming leads to large centers and extreme social compexity.
  • Cahokia
  • Mississippian
  • Oneota

Bill Whittaker (talk) 18:19, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

Yes this is how it is done in North American articles see --> List of archaeological periods (North America). However in articles dealing with all the Americans we use the all encompassing old time frame ix see -->Archaeology of the Americas there is also a List of archaeological periods (Mesoamerica). In South American and the Caribbean also have there own systems that do not have articles here yet as per the norm, but are mentioned in some articles dealing with this Indigenous peoples of this areas.....Moxy (talk) 20:23, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

Adding article template for sites and structures

As mentioned previously, I have been working on a template which may be applied to articles on archaeological sites and structures. The {{Infobox ancient site}} template is now live. Special thanks to Yazan for valuable help and suggestions. • Astynax ^talk 22:10, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

Focus?

While writing about Native American archaeological sites in Ohio, I've often encountered the idea of a "focus". This I take to be a subset of a culture (especially given this comment); however, we seem to have no article on the concept of a focus. Could someone create an article at focus (archaeology), or if there's already an article, could someone please create this as a redirect to it? Thanks! Nyttend (talk) 15:14, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

Focus is a component of the now deprecated Midwestern Taxonomic System in American archeology. It was invented by McKern in 1938. I will quote him "The taxonomic frame consists of five major divisions: focus, aspect, phase, pattern, and base, progressing from localized detailed to large general classes. The manifestation of a focus at any site is called a component of that focus. The method is comparable to a filing cabinet equipped with labeled drawers to facilitate the orderly arrangement of culture-indicative data." I would suggest as a starting point an article on Midwestern Taxonomic System rather than one of its components. Revcasy (talk) 00:17, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

Template:Infobox World Heritage Site gives altogether the wrong information

This infobox has now succeeded in crowding out other types of infobox in the lead of nearly all relevant articles, but gives completely the wrong type of information for the general reader, with neither the date of the site, its location within a country, nor any description of what the site consists of being compulsory. Instead the box gives a range of bureaucratic file references to the UNESCO process that are of no interest to anyone but bureaucrats. This information should not be displayed but hidden in a show/hide bar, and the template should only display the basic information that general readers would expect. The articles covered by this template include, by definition, the world's most important architectural & heritage sites, and the current form of template lets the project down badly - see Giza Necropolis for a typical example. Please comment at Template talk:Infobox World Heritage Site#Gives altogether the wrong information. Johnbod (talk) 19:05, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

FLC National Treasures of Japan (archaeological materials)

I invite comments, questions and suggestions for the featured list candidacy of List of National Treasures of Japan (archaeological materials). The nomination page can be found here. bamse (talk) 20:42, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

The British Museum wants to give you money and help you write articles!

Yesterday I was lucky enough to attend the Backstage Pass event at the British Museum. It was part of a wider project of engagement with Wikipedia (see WP:GLAM/BM) that has seen them take on a temporary Wikipedian In Residence, User:Witty lama. They see Wikipedia as sharing many of their aims, and they want to encourage involvement by Wikipedians with the museum, and vice versa. They have even offered 5 prizes of £100 at the BM shop for featured articles on BM topics - in any language.
Most Wikipedians probably don't know that the BM has curators dedicated to answering phone/email questions about their specialist areas, and most of their department libraries welcome visitors doing bona fide research - and they now seem to recognise that editing Wikipedia articles, especially about items in the BM's collections, counts for those purposes. I know that the first question most people will have is "Can we have images of all their stuff?" and I'd just ask people to be patient on that front. Let's just say that the museum are well aware of our hopes there, there are staff who see advantages to the museum in doing something, and it's being discussed at the highest level. On the other hand it's a very complex area that needs to be handled diplomatically. Literally in some cases - foreign governments can get very touchy about the dissemination of images of artifacts relating to their cultural history, and the museum needs to respect those concerns.
So for the moment the focus is on using the BM's huge resources of books, expertise etc to improve article content, and hopefully that will include articles being peer-reviewed by BM staff. Some of them are quite nervous about doing stuff on Wikipedia, a mixture of fear of professional ridicule, nervousness about the technical aspects, stories of rapid reverts of good-faith edits and just general culture shock - it's a very different world to the one they come from. So I'd ask everyone to look after any BM people that you see around the place, Wikipedia can gain a lot from their involvement and it would be a shame if they're discouraged for any reason. As I mentioned above, WP:GLAM/BM is the clearing house for the BM's involvement with Wikipedia, and I suggest that further questions/comments are directed there. Le Deluge (talk) 14:27, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

Oldest leather shoe in the world

A Chalcolithic shoe discovered in the Areni-1 cave in Armenia has been getting some press. Please help improve its article. Abductive (reasoning) 20:45, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

Bog body contains a number of apparent bad cites

Bog body contains a number of questionable statements, which are cited to the apparently non-academic and non-reliable site http://www.mummytombs.com .

A knowledgeable person should go through this article and weed out these bad cites.

Thanks. -- 189.60.73.240 (talk) 13:40, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

AFD for Henge monument

I thought that members of this project might like to know that I've nominated the article Henge monument for deletion here. I can't find anything to support the interpretation of a class of monument that the article is suggesting, nor can I find anything to suggest that a henge monument isn't just another way of saying henge. I'd welcome any input from this project in case I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure its a misleading article. Cheers, Ranger Steve (talk) 17:56, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

New cats

Hi

I have added two new categories - "East Anglia" and "Norfolk"

Can someone tell me how to link them to be subsets of Archaeology of United Kingdom ?

thanks Chaosdruid (talk) 18:40, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

Palaeoarchaeology

I've just put my edits where my mouth was on this article. But it would be good if some or all of you could give the article the once over. You'll have better access to sources than I. Uncle G (talk) 18:25, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

• Voted and added refs in my comment Chaosdruid (talk) 20:59, 1 July 2010 (UTC)re
  • In answer to your question: This is not an issue of spelling at all. See what this article was changed from, and how it stood at the point of both deletion nominations. As xe xyrself explained at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Supermegalith, Juan L. Bacigalupo (talk · contribs) is inventing new things and adding them to Wikipedia. Then see my note to Jeff G.

    If there in fact is merit in anything that Juan L. Bacigalupo has provided, which I didn't find any evidence for myself, I hope that participants in this Wikiproject can find a way to re-incorporate it into the article. Uncle G (talk) 00:31, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

NO - my comment about spelling was to Vsmith who said "rename/move to Paleolithic archeology or some "ae" spelling variant"

I already saw the page history and the chats that went on Chaosdruid (talk) 01:00, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

Template for discussion: Template:Infobox castrum

For those interested, there is a request for deletion on Template:Infobox castrum, currently used in a series of articles on Roman castra. For example Porolissum.--Codrin.B (talk) 16:28, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

Template for discussion: Template:Infobox dava

For those interested, there is a request for deletion on Template:Infobox dava, currently used in 91 articles about Dacian cities/fortresses.--Codrin.B (talk) 22:17, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

Olmec colossal heads FA nom

Hi all. I've just posted Olmec colossal heads as a Featured Article Candidate and invite any comments on its review page. Thanks, Simon Burchell (talk) 20:09, 24 June 2012 (UTC)

Template:Infobox artifact

{{Infobox artifact}} has been nominated for deletion as redundant with {{infobox artwork}} -- 76.65.131.248 (talk) 03:06, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Templates_for_discussion/Log/2012_September_9#Template:Infobox_artifact link to template discussion Johnbod (talk) 11:43, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

Articles at AfD

I've taken Ixiamas Fortress, Ruins of Miraflores, Madeira Fortress, Trinchera Fortress and Petroglyphs of Quiaca to AfD as I am concerned that no reliable sources mention them. Dougweller (talk) 15:41, 26 December 2012 (UTC)

• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Madeira Fortress
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Yuri Leveratto
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Petroglyphs of Quiaca
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ruins of Miraflores
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Labyrinth City
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Trinchera Fortress

Dougweller (talk) 16:50, 26 December 2012 (UTC)

File:Treasury big2.jpg

File:Treasury big2.jpg, a former featured picture candidate from 2005, has been nominated for deletion -- 76.65.128.43 (talk) 08:02, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

The notice on its page has been changed to a proposal that the image be moved to Commons. That would be OK, as the image would still be accessible. There are surely some articles that could use this image. • Astynax ^talk 05:53, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

Categories relating to archaeological hoaxes/forgeries

There is a discussion at WP:NPOVN#Hoax Categories vs NPOV - Bat Creek inscription that is relevant to this project. Dougweller (talk) 13:10, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

Human–goat sexual intercourse - deletion discussion ongoing

• Human–goat sexual intercourse

Deletion discussion ongoing about whether or not this article page should exist.

Please see deletion discussion page at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Human–goat sexual intercourse, if you wish to voice your opinion. — Cirt (talk) 15:41, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

File:Iberian woman 100 A.D.jpg

File:Iberian woman 100 A.D.jpg has been nominated for deletion -- 65.94.76.126 (talk) 04:02, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

File:Libyan Fragment.jpg

File:Libyan Fragment.jpg has been nominated for deletion -- 65.94.76.126 (talk) 05:50, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

File:Mars Statue Wareswald.jpg

File:Mars Statue Wareswald.jpg has been nominated for deletion -- 65.94.76.126 (talk) 07:07, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

File:SpiritCaveMan.jpg

File:SpiritCaveMan.jpg has been nominated for deletion -- 65.94.76.126 (talk) 08:35, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

CanaaniteRelief.jpg

image:CanaaniteRelief.jpg has been nominated for deletion -- 76.65.128.222 (talk) 05:50, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

Stone house of Maibang, Dima Hasao, Assam.jpeg

image:Stone house of Maibang, Dima Hasao, Assam.jpeg has been nominated for deletion -- 76.65.128.222 (talk) 13:22, 20 August 2013 (UTC)

September 2013 file nominations

• File:GoldJugVratsa150.jpg (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has been nominated for deletion -- 70.24.244.158 (talk) 08:33, 4 September 2013 (UTC)
• File:Nubia group A.gif (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has been nominated for deletion -- 70.24.244.158 (talk) 08:38, 4 September 2013 (UTC)
• File:Preslav-chariot.jpg (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has been nominated for deletion -- 70.24.244.158 (talk) 07:46, 5 September 2013 (UTC)
• File:Preslav-earings.jpg (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has been nominated for deletion -- 70.24.244.158 (talk) 07:46, 5 September 2013 (UTC)
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FAR notification

I have nominated Sylvanus Morley for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Delist" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Dana boomer (talk) 19:05, 7 September 2013 (UTC)

Notice of CFD: Category:Horse burials

Category:Horse burials has been nominated for deletion, merging, or renaming. Please comment at the category's entry on the Categories for discussion page. Thank you.RevelationDirect (talk) 02:43, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

Fringe/cult/pseudoarchaeology - help needed

We've lost most of the editors keeping an eye on fringe archaeology articles, and few editors at WP:FTN get involved in them, probably because of lack of expertise in this field. I really could use more eyes on some of these articles. Ica stones is a case in point. I've raised some issues on the talk page about it and at WP:RSN but literally no one interested in archaeology has responded. Thanks. Dougweller (talk) 17:05, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

I'd like to help. The problem for me is spotting where we're having issues. I don't have (or particularly want) a lot of fringe topics on my watchlist and while I do try to drop by WP:FTN, WP:RSN, etc. they move a bit fast for my usual level of activity. Since you do seem to keep on top of these things, perhaps you could post them here as they come up? It doesn't have to be an explicit call for "backup". Or if we're feeling really adventurous maybe we could set up some sort of fringe archaeology taskforce with a list of high risk topics for Special:RecentChangesLinked use. joe•roe^t•c 20:18, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

Tumuli in the UK

Hi Archaeologists,

I've been working on a list of scheduled monuments, a lot of which are burial mounds. I'm trying to link the EH descriptions to suitable articles. Bowl barrow was easy enough, but I've also got saucer barrow, ring cairn and round cairn to find. I have some ideas but it would be great if someone with the right expertise could help? --Trappedinburnley (talk) 00:38, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

Have you found the EH thesaurus: http://thesaurus.english-heritage.org.uk/ ? It is completely useless for search but has the definitive definitions of a huge range of monument types PatHadley (talk) 10:38, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

I'd not seen that one before, however I've seen the Monument Class Description site (http://www.eng-h.gov.uk/mpp/mcd/mcdtop1.htm) which seems similar. Rubbish search facilities seem to be a common feature of EH sites:) From what I've read, I think it should just be a case of a few redirects and bit of article expansion. I think the cairns are just barrows with a greater stone content, but for instance I don't think that I could link round cairn to round barrow. The problem is that there are dozens of barrow articles and I'm not the best person to start messing with them. --Trappedinburnley (talk) 18:35, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

ASPRO chronology

We have a new editor, A Timelord (talk · contribs) who has, in his words, started a time war, changing dates to Aspro chronology using "cal BCE". I'm not convinced this is a good idea. Any comments? Dougweller (talk) 06:00, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

For a start that article needs to explain the difference, & no I don't think it is a good idea, though if the cal BCE dates were added in brackets with a link that would be fine. Johnbod (talk) 14:34, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

This is odd and very tricky. The intricacies of radiocarbon calibration is beyond many archaeologists. It is particularly difficult at the beginning of the Neolithic and cal/uncal dates are not used consistently by archaeologists or palaeo-environmentalists working in the area. Dialogue is definitely the first step. PatHadley (talk) 19:27, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

He's continuing to do this. I really don't think this is going to be helpful to our readers. See his comments at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Ancient Near East#ASPRO chronology where I also raised this issue. Dougweller (talk) 22:24, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

God help us, a French Timelord! Pat, & probably you, will know how standard this timescale is - not very I think. We seem to have consensus so far here that he should stop for now. Johnbod (talk) 23:25, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

In my opinion, because the Maison de l'Orient et de la Méditerranée has around three hundred archaeological researchers in Lyon, France and that it's chronology was compiled by the venerable Jesuit archaeologist Francis Hours and developed by Oliver Aurenche for the period in question, it should be the most accurate and up to date in the world and I second the motion raised by A Timelord (talk · contribs) to change the timeline to ASPRO chronology as A Timelord (talk · contribs) suggests. Paul Bedson ❉talk❉ 23:39, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

Um, Paul, I don't mean to be rude, but 'consultant archaeologist'? I thought that you, like me, was an amateur (in the US, 'advocational') archaeologist. In any case, we should use commonly accepted terminology no matter what our thoughts are as to what is most accurate. If it is the most accurate, I expect it will gradually get into the literature as a standard and then we can use it, although perhaps even then only as an alternative. I don't think adding calibrated BCE years is going to help our readers. Dougweller (talk) 07:52, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

I had to invent the term 'Consultant archaeologist for Wikipedia' and change my Facebook status and job title to such in order to assist you with the actions that this A Timelord (talk · contribs) editor seems to be creating. The term does seem to be unique, but is the most accurate response that I can think up for what is going on. Otherwise we will have a load of editors going around changing the time on pages to that which is not the most accurate and authoritative in the world. This would seem to include A Timelord (talk · contribs)'s strong proposal, and I suspect ultimate objective, which is to change the entire of Wikpedia's dating system to BCE/CE, if you hadn't noticed. Paul Bedson ❉talk❉ 11:49, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

Lol. Ok, thanks. I have noticed his agenda. However much I prefer BCE/CE, we can't and shouldn't do that. I find it a bit hard to take him seriously however, and with all the good faith in the world.... Dougweller (talk) 16:07, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

You are still assuming A Timelord (talk · contribs) is male, no matter how funny you think that is. Paul Bedson ❉talk❉ 22:56, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

Sorry to have been gone three and a half days! I now suggest we change the timeline terminology preference to cal. BCE for all articles referencing periods until the end of the ASPRO Chronology. A Timelord (talk) 13:54, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

Oppose that. My understanding is that cal BCE dates are not (yet) consistent between various labs etc, nor are they used as standard among professionals, never mind the the fact that most general readers have no clue what they mean, and will get little help from the ASPRO article whereever that is. At the most they should be given as a 2nd alternative. Johnbod (talk) 14:00, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

I have no clue what they mean also Johnbod, the C now appears to reference both Jesus Christ and James Christ, which is surely not logical for all those labs and professionals to be using? A Timelady (talk) 14:55, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

SPI raised, although this looks simply like trolling and maybe ANI would have been a more suitable alternative. Dougweller (talk) 15:51, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

Turns out it's Paul Bedson (talk · contribs) trolling us. Dougweller (talk) 18:44, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

Well I didn't see that one coming. Way to waste everyone's time, Paul... joe•roe^t•c 20:13, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

And indefinitely blocked at ANI for this & creating a hoax article. The Admin blocking him thought it might be a compromised account but a 2nd Admin, who was about to block, pointed out it is clearly him but that he also clearly has problems: "given his response [to the block notice], and the fact that it took five edits to put up six words, it looks like he's still away with the fairies/on the happy pills/celebrating the arrival of his firstborn or whatever it is that set his feet on this ruinous path." Something is clearly wrong with him. Since this is Wikiproject archaeology, and he mainly edits & creates archaeological articles, I'll copy my ANI comments here: "His edits are a mixed bag. He's admitted in the past that he is here to publicise the (fringe) ideas of Christian O'Brien & has used DYK to push them and related fringe stuff, he's pushed other fringe stuff also but at the same time has created some decent articles although I've had serious concerns though about his use of sources at times. Hopefully that's improved but I've stayed away from him for quite a while." Dougweller (talk) 09:55, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

Template problem

I notice on the Amrit (DYK today) page that in the infobox template (Infobox_ancient_site) there is a field titled "Alternate name". Two problems: "Alternate" doesn't mean "Alternative" (it means one after the other, as in the hours of the day alternate between am and pm). But "Alternative name" is itself wrong if – as here – there is more than one name. So I would change this to "Other name(s)". Can this be addressed and the template changed? Ericoides (talk) 14:55, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

N.B. the template's protected, so we need an admin to change it. joe•roe^t•c 19:20, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

I think alternate is an accurate usage: "Serving or used in place of another; substitute: an alternate plan." And a quick search on google will reveal that "alternate names" is commonly used. Yazan (talk) 19:28, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

@Zozo2kx Ah, you're right. I had always assumed that it meant one after the other – and that the distinction with "alternative" was a useful one to make – but I see that I was wrong and that it means "alternative" as well. A pity. Still, "name" should be "name(s)"... Ericoides (talk) 07:30, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

Alignment (archaeology)

This is being used as an example of an unreferenced article tagged for a very long time (since 2006). Anyone want to have a go referencing it? Dougweller (talk) 06:59, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Pictish Mithraism

We're not sure what to make of this, and could use some eyes on it. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 10:48, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

This article is WP:FRINGE and wholesale copyvio from the probable author's own book draft (you need to rename the file to .pdf to read it). Random example below, 1st passage from the Wikipedia article, 2nd from the pdf at pictish-mithraism.com:

The earth was considered to be at the centre of the universe with the Classical Planets (including the sun and moon) variously rotating around the earth in one direction and the Firmament (Celestial Sphere) rotating in the opposite direction. This is easy to represent in two dimensions as a dot and two concentric circles.

The earth was considered to be at the centre of the universe with the planets (including the sun and moon) rotating around the earth in one direction and the firmament (Celestial Sphere) rotating in the opposite direction. This is easy to represent in two dimensions as a dot and two concentric circles.

The article should be deleted immediately. BabelStone (talk) 11:30, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Really, this article should never have been accepted for creation at WP:AFC. BabelStone (talk) 14:11, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Pictish Mithraism. Dougweller (talk) 13:47, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Solutrean hypothesis

Stanford's new book is out and beginning to appear in our articles. I've run into a problem because there is mention in the news media of a flint 'dagger' found in Virginia and made out of French flint. This is true, but evidently Stanford, although he believes the context is secure, recognises that it isn't bulletproof and that he doesn't have a 'smoking gun'. Take a look at this forum [11] which of course we can't use but provides some background (including a bit of confusion that seems to get cleared up). I'm being told on the talk page that since it's in reliable sources it should be in the article, but the sources don't mention the context problem. If anyone has the book that would be marvelous as I think Stanford is upfront about the problem, but even the best newspapers aren't necessarily interested in the details, just the exciting bits. Dougweller (talk) 12:00, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

The genetic post at the end is quite compelling reading. I guess we can safely say the there is no conclusive evidence for the Solutrean hypothesis, and quite a bit of counter-evidence. Petter Bøckman (talk) 12:28, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Marija Gimbutas

Could use some eyes on it, someone is adding material that doesn't discuss Gimbutas and "In the light of this genetic confirmation, debate over the Kurgan hypothesis can be regarded as settled. The hypothesis is confirmed by linguistics, archeology, and moleculary biology. One would be hard pressed to name another social science hypothesis as strongly confirmed as Marija Gimbutas' Kurgan hypothesis.". Dougweller (talk) 08:33, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

I'm confused - I can't see this quote in the current version. It's not a period/area I know much about but she is a lightning rod for controversy. I'll see if I can stir more knowledgable archaeologists into wiki-action with a chance to fix this! PatHadley (talk) 08:47, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

They restored the OR without the editorial comment. Thanks. I'll take it to WP:NORN as they've restored it. Dougweller (talk) 08:49, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

The source I finally was able to read does mention Gimbutas, the question is whether the paragraph in question represents the sources correctly. I'm holding off from NORN until I can get a better hold on this.

"Although Gimbutas argued for the Kurgan hypothesis on linguistic and archeological grounds, contemporary molecular genetics supports her central thesis of a mass population movement accompanying the spread of the IE languages. The Y-Chromosome Haplogroup R1a1a, a sub-clade of R1a, is correlated to IE speakers and spread from a Eurasian and probable Siberian origin. This molecular phylogeny indicates an expansion of males from the Kurgan culture as the dominant mechanism of IE spread. Semino, O.; Passarino, G; Oefner, PJ; Lin, AA; Arbuzova, S; Beckman, LE; De Benedictis, G; Francalacci, P et al. (2000), "The Genetic Legacy of Paleolithic Homo sapiens sapiens in Extant Europeans: A Y Chromosome Perspective", Science 290 (5494): 1155–59, Bibcode 2000Sci...290.1155S, doi:10.1126/science.290.5494.1155, PMID 11073453. Copy can be found at http://www.historyofmacedonia.org/ConciseMacedonia/Y_Hromosomes.pdf. 10 skeletons from Andronovo culture (South Siberian, i.e. "Kurgan") were sequenced and 9 of the 10 carried haplogroup R1a1a. C. Bouakaze et al, First successful assay of Y-SNP typing by SNaPshot minisequencing on ancient DNA, International Journal of Legal Medicine, vol. 121 (2007), pp. 493-499; C. Keyser et al, Ancient DNA provides new insights into the history of south Siberian Kurgan people, Human Genetics, vol. 126, no. 3 (September 2009), pp. 395-410." This can be found at www.hamagmongol.narod.ru/library/keyser_2009_e.pdf. It does mention the "steppe hypothesis" but isn't use for that. The first pdf I'm not sure about. But this is genetics, so I should ask someone who knows more about genetics and maybe shouldn't have bothered people here. Dougweller (talk) 09:28, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

Archaeo-genetics is tricky - there is still a massive tendency to oversimplify and equate 'archaeological cultures' (which are modern theoretical constructs) with ancient self-identifying 'peoples' and therefore language groups and ehnicities/genetic groups. I doubt I need to point out the numerous problems with this chain of reasoning. On here I guess we should represent these views once published - but in this case I think they belong on the Kurgan hypothesis page rather than on Gimbutas' bio. Thanks for sorting it out Doug PatHadley (talk) 09:48, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

Doug asked me to have a look at this discussion, presumably because I have worked on R1a controversies before. I basically agree with what you are both saying. To add to what PatHedley says, not only are single genetics articles often over-stated and therefore needing to be used with some caution, but these particular genetics articles are old by the standards of this field. There is no consensus in genetics articles that anything has been definitively proven concerning this matter. OTOH, mentioning R1a studies within articles about "steppe hypotheses" seems valid. It is certainly a popular and oft-repeated proposal. But it is always very difficult to justify saying that a controversial subject has been settled. Proving consensus is always pretty difficult, and trying to argue that there is a consensus does not add much to most articles, and is arguably not an "encylopedic" way of writing. The sourcing has to be strong in order to say that. But in this subject there definitely is controversy still. Sorry to use a blog to cite some more recent sources, but it is handy, because this is a blog which summarises a lot of published articles: http://dienekes.blogspot.com/. You can search on "R1a". The latest article today is one about Afghanistan which says, just as a good example of non-consensus

The prevailing Y-chromosome lineage in Pashtun and Tajik (R1a1a-M17), has the highest observed diversity among populations of the Indus Valley [46]. R1a1a-M17 diversity declines toward the Pontic-Caspian steppe where the mid-Holocene R1a1a7-M458 sublineage is dominant [46]. R1a1a7-M458 was absent in Afghanistan, suggesting that R1a1a-M17 does not support, as previously thought [47], expansions from the Pontic Steppe [3], bringing the Indo-European languages to Central Asia and India.

Personally, FWIW, I would say R1a as it is defined by the papers we can cite today is much older than Indo-European, probably Middle-Eastern or Caucasian, but in coming years a better understanding of the branching WITHIN R1a might lead to much more realistic ideas about Indoeuropean dispersion.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 10:32, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. Shall I remove it again? There may be some resistance. :-) Dougweller (talk) 11:01, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

At least in its current form it seems inappropriate to me. There might be sources who mention Gimbutas in a genetics context. In fact I am almost certain of it. So maybe something can be salvaged.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 12:37, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:HighBeam

Wikipedia:HighBeam describes a limited opportunity for Wikipedia editors to have access to HighBeam Research.
—Wavelength (talk) 16:31, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

Giants of Monte Prama

Can someone help? Thanks --Shardan (talk) 21:16, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

Trefael Stone

Could somebody create an article for Trefael Stone? It seems relevant enough: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-18172598. Best regards. 85.50.248.101 (talk) 02:14, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

Petroglyph Point

Would you please take a look at Talk:Petroglyph Point Archeological Site see if the article fits into the Archaeology project and if the importance scale is appropriate? Thank you ... --Bobjgalindo (talk) 00:03, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

Because as far as I can see the site doesn't have any major scholarly significance and isn't well known outside its local area I've changed the importance from high to low, but it is definitely in our scope. We do need clearer guidelines on assessment. joe•roe^t•c 06:19, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

Hi Joe, Sorry got all confused about the names of who was contributing to what thread there.

Anyway we need someone else to weigh in on this thread above, to improve your suggested guidelines which are in my opinion already much better than the current ones. Or perhaps you should just update the current ones to include your guidlines, and have anything else that is not covered using the old guidlines. EdwardLane (talk) 11:00, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

New articles on megalithic structures

Hi, I have recently created a number of new articles about megalithic structures, translated from German Wikipedia. Whilst I was able to track down most of the terminology, I am not a historian and would appreciate any expert eyes out there just to check they make sense (and spot the inevitable typos!). The articles are:

• Nordic megalith architecture
• Megalithic entrance
• Great dolmen
• Guardian stones
• Polygonal dolmen
• Rectangular dolmen
• Simple dolmen
• Ernst Sprockhoff
• Ewald Schuldt

Many thanks in advance. Bermicourt (talk) 18:32, 9 June 2012 (UTC)

Antilia well

I noticed a commons category for Antilia well but not a corresponding English wiki entry. When I google it I get some hits (enough to convince me the term is used by at least a few people), but a whole lot less than I expected. By any chance does this type of well go by another name? (If דם we should obviously link the two). The Hebrew wiki has a very good article, but it's completely unsourced and it has no interwikis. The basic gist is that it's a type of well where the bucket is pulled up on tracks, and then when it reaches the top it spills out and the water is used to water a field or other large area. It also appears to sometimes operate on a water wheel. Just curious to know if anyone knows of a more common English name for this. --Bachrach44 (talk) 21:40, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

Serer

I am finding some remarkable claims for this culture. Timeline of Serer history says: The Serer ancient culture of burying its death accompanied by grave goods, totemism, symbolism such as the serpent (the symbol of the Pangool in Serer religion, ancient Serer saints and ancestral spirits), etc., is not unique to the Serers, but may suggests the existence of the Serer religion, or Serer and African religious behaviour at least during the Middle Paleolithic Era or Middle Stone Age (roughly 300,000 to 30,000 BCE) if not much earlier. According to scholars like Narr and McMahon, although religious behaviour may have occurred during this era, it was not until the succeeding era (Upper Paleolithic, roughly corresponding to the Later Stone Age) that there was undisputed evidence of signs of religious behaviour or religious development. However, some of the earliest evidence of religious symbolism is attributed to the Middle Stone Age in Africa. One of these being the historical site of Thiemassas and the Serer religious depictions especially on the Tassili n'Ajjer with the symbol of the Pangool.

In the section on proto-writing in History of writing, I found: In Africa, they may have emerged much earlier such as the Serer Raampa, from the Serer representation of their Pangool (the ancient Serer saints and ancestral spirits) on the Tassili n'Ajjer c. 10000 BC. I removed that - all of this seems to be one author's speculation, and if it isn't discussed in other reliable sources it doesn't belong here.

Our article on Reincarnation has: About 10,000 BCE, the ancient Serers depicted rupestral engravings of the Pangool on the Tassili n'Ajjer, represented by "man" and coiled "snakes" (the symbol of the Pangool). This era marks the development of Serer religion and the concept of ciiɗ (reincarnation).

A Google books search so far doesn't back any of this claimed time depth, eg chapter 2 in [12]. I'm struggling with the Tiemassassien claims also, for which I can only find 4 sources, all in French. But some of the claims are extraordinary, and I would expect to find at least some mention of them in academic English language sources. Dougweller (talk) 08:59, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

Well, there is the "snake temple" in Botswana, dated at 70 000 YBP and possibly older. Whether it has anything to do with the Sere culture is anyones guess. World’s oldest ritual discovered. Worshipped the python 70,000 years ago. Reference: Coulson S, Staurset S, and Walker N. 2011. Ritualized Behavior in the Middle Stone Age: Evidence from Rhino Cave, Tsodilo Hills, Botswana. PaleoAnthropology [Internet] 2011:18–61. Available from: here. Petter Bøckman (talk) 09:45, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

That example is a very good one as it exemplifies my concern. Take a look at Tsodilo#Alleged as site of earliest known ritual -- seems that this is really much more recent (disclosure, I'm the one that tracked down the more recent research)Robbins, Lawrence H. Alec C. Campbell, George A. Brook, Michael L. Murphy "World's Oldest Ritual Site? The "Python Cave"" at Tsodilo Hills World Heritage Site, Botswana NYAME AKUMA, the Bulletin of the Society of Africanist Archaeologists| June 2007 issue67 [13] Dougweller (talk) 10:43, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

I think you should be aware that the article you cite is criticizing press articles rather than the scientific work done in the cave by Coulson & Co. Coulson answerd the critique here. You may note the actual article I linked to above is from 2011, 5 years more recent than the Robbins & al. I'm not saying Coulson is right on all counts (I'm not an archaeologist, this is well outside my field of expertise), but much of the critical points mentioned in the "Alleged as site of earliest known ritual" section does not actually falsify her conclusions.

All this does not appear to have anything to do with the Serer people though. If this is connected to any modern group at all, it would be the San people (Bushmen). Petter Bøckman (talk) 16:28, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

Though not a prerequisite, it would have been immensely appreciated had the OP decided to consult me as the author of the articles in question. The relevant articles are referenced with reliable sources and where possible, with external links for other editors to examine the sources themselves. I'm affraid it is not my responsibility if an editor is unable to read French. One would find that, the Serer people are most numerous in Senegal (a French speaking country) and this would explain why many Serer sources are written in French. Furthermore, the majority of scholars of Serer history are French or French speaking people, not English. Archaeological Serer history (or sites) can be found in many French scholarly works some of which include : Professor Charles Becker, "Vestiges historiques, trémoins matériels du passé clans les pays sereer", Dakar (1993), CNRS - ORS TO M; Professor Cyr Descamps, "Contribution a la Préhistoire de l'Ouest-sénégalais; Cyr Descamps, Guy Thilmans and Y. Thommeret, "Les tumulus coquilliers des îles du Saloum (Sénégal), Bulletin ASEQUA, Dakar, Université Cheikh Anta Diop, Dakar, 1979, n° 54; among many others. The English link cited by the OP (above) is the work of Professor Galvan. That work deals primarily with the Serer land inheritance system, through the Lamanic lineage, which I'm sure the OP is well aware since they have also contributed to the article States headed by ancient Serer Lamanes. I thank them for the great work they have done in that article and all articles they had contributed in which Serers are mentioned. Furthermore, the content and refs removed in certain articles include the works of the anthropologist Professor David Maranz. I will not be edit warring over that and will just let that past. In all my edits regarding Serer articles, I have never mentioned the snake temple in Botswana, and I challenge anyone to prove otherwise. Indeed, one will not even find this temple in Serer articles. I am interested in improving the Wiki project, not to push POV and I hope that the OP can appreciate that. My thanks to everyone who participated in this discussion and sorry for coming in late.Tamsier (talk) 21:36, 28 June 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, I probably should have let you know, and of course you never mentioned the snake temple. However, without writing we simply cannot be certain about what an engraving meant to the people who engraved it 12,000 years ago. Maybe "This era marks the development of Serer religion and the concept of ciiɗ" is what someone actually said, but that is simply that person's opinion and should be stated as such. Dougweller (talk) 09:17, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

Not a problem, and thanks for sending me a message. I have no objection to that and thanks for your help so far. Just a heads up, Tiemassassien is an industry/civilisation. It takes its name from the historical site of Tiémassas (following its French spelling in Senegal, var : Thiemassass the root of Thies). The name was originally proposed by Descamp which was peer reviewed. In this Senegalese government website [14], Iba Der Thiam is referring to it. Sorry it is in French. It is merely referring to the controversial nature i.e. which period to assign it to. There are two main competing theories : the Descamps camp and the Dagan camp. The issue has been addressed in Timeline of Serer history and Serer ancient history. See those more infor. Best Regards. Tamsier (talk)

Nazareth Archeology

I have some concerns about sourcing for the Nazareth article which I am discussing at Talk:Nazareth. I would like someone with a bit more experience in this area take a look -- my expertise is in technology and engineering, not archeology. Thanks! --Guy Macon (talk) 23:18, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

Shell jewelry anyone?

I am a biologist and part of the gastropod project and the bivalve project. I am thinking about starting an article on shell jewelry, and I know that topic is of great significance archeologically speaking. Is there anyone in this project who might be interested in working on that article? Invertzoo (talk) 20:07, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

I've been working on this one on and off for several years User:Heironymous Rowe/Mississippian culture shell engravings, but as of yet haven't had time to finish it. And am probably not gonna have enough free time anytime soon. Maybe some of the information I have collected would be of use in a general article about the subject, this one is Mississippian culture specific. I will get around to finishing and going live with this one, eventually. Shell gorget may also be of use. Heiro 20:39, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

Another article of possible interest to a biologist with the gastropod and bivalve project is Mississippian culture pottery, a hallmark for which is the use of ground shell as a tempering agent. Heiro 20:46, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

Thanks so much Heiro! As you can see, over the last hour or so I quickly threw together a stub and launched it just now. It's very minimal but it is at least a beginning on a very large subject. Of course there could eventually be a special article on the role of shells in archeology and anthropology, or similar, because there is so much to be said on that subject. Of course I am not really at all familiar with the literature, not like you are! By the way, you will see I already have Heishe, Dentalium shell, Wampum, and Shell gorget listed as "see also"s. Anyone at all who wants to add anything helpful to the article is more than welcome of course! Best wishes to you, Invertzoo (talk) 22:05, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

Wow, I looked at your draft of "Mississippian culture shell engravings", and it is so fabulous! Maybe you should trim off the unfinished parts and put it up anyway? It's really, really nice! Gorgeous photos too. Invertzoo (talk) 22:09, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

Review requested at User:Oddacon/Archaeocryptography

There's an article User:Oddacon/Archaeocryptography at WP:Articles for creation; I'm no expert, but it looks a little WP:Fringey. Can someone take a squint? Thanks! MatthewVanitas (talk) 16:16, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

It does to my amateur eyes seem fringe - but I wonder if that is just that the article is not well written, and that if the article set out to describe how calculating stellar alignments or whatever, and comparing those to various dimensions of buildings might possibly give rise to deductions about the intended use of a structure. Then it might not be so fringe like. I gather for example that several pyramids may have been build to scale and placed to match the stars of orion's belt (that in itself may be fringe - but how they might have gone about proposing that doesn't seem so fringe to me(unlike the current state of the draft article)).EdwardLane (talk) 14:11, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

The Orion correlation theory is one of Graham Hancock's and is definitely fringe, as is this. There is no legitimate field of academic study that seeks to 'decode' monuments and this article is based purely on works by fringe authors (i.e. Carl Munck, Hugh Harleston Jr., Richard C. Hoagland). joe•roe^t•c 18:12, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

No vested interest in the orion thing, it gets mentioned on the odd tv documentary as a possibility. Is there a field (or even a 'real' name for the field) of academic study that looks for paleo-astonomical data and looks to see if there are 'alignments' for stone circles or whatever? So that archaelogists can say "oh yes this clearly a ritual site, because the notch in the hill there, and the pointy stone here, lined up the rising sun on the equinox (6000 years ago) with the front door of this building" or whatever similar stuff is said...? If that field of study does have a proper name then it seems like the 'archaecryptography' should probably redirect there (and have a subsection describing/debunking the fringe version). EdwardLane (talk) 09:48, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps you are referring to Archaeoastronomy. • Astynax ^talk 17:19, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

Yes that looks to about cover everything encyclopedic I might have imagined that proposed article had been intended to talk about. Though the term 'archaecryptography' is one I'd not heard before it might be worth making a redirect for that to Archaeoastronomy as a way of keeping the pseudoscience fringe from spawning the article again? EdwardLane (talk) 09:41, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

Caixa de Rotllan: review

Hello,
Caixa de Rotllan is the first article I wrote in English ("my" fr:Caixa de Rotllan is a featured article) so, I would like a review of its style: if my English is not so bad, I'll continue to translate it from French. What do you think of it? --El Caro (talk) 12:21, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

So far so good, though it needs inline citations of course. Minor languages points (& I didn't really see any) are easily cleared up, so long as the meaning is clear. Johnbod (talk) 13:25, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for the review. I'll add citations in the main text, not in the lead section, as we should do to write good articles. --El Caro (talk) 18:40, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

Dunhuang Project editing event

Hi all,

This is to let you know that I've been working with the International Dunhuang Project group at the British Library to plan a multi-day editing event in late October focused on Central Asian archaeology (details). As well as contributions from IDP staff, we're hoping to get involvement from academics and students at UCL, and planning a session for interested Wikipedians.

If you're interested in taking part (online or offline), or you'd like further information when we've more details organized, please let me know or sign up here. Andrew Gray (talk) 13:21, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

• As a quick followup, this is happening next week - anyone in London is very welcome to come by! Drop me a message if you're interested.

I'm currently organising some of the preparation for next week, and one of the things we're looking at is images. The IDP has a very large collection of manuscript and artefact images, as well as a lot of site photographs, historic material from expeditions, etc. We're hoping to upload a lot of this during the week, but if there's anything specific you'd like to request, please let me know and we'll bump it up the list. Andrew Gray (talk) 19:07, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

Notification of user conduct discussion for Paul Bedson

There is an ongoing user conduct discussion regarding Paul Bedson, which may be of interest to members of this WikiProject, since Paul contributes to many archaeology articles. It can be found here. If you comment there you may wish to review the rules for user conduct comments first. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 00:38, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

Mes Aynak

Someone probably ought to take a look at the page, it's likely to get a few extra hits come january, and it's mostly uncited EdwardLane (talk) 14:38, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

Cult archaeology alert

This Friday night the History Channel presents 'America Unearthed' "n AMERICA UNEARTHED, forensic geologist Scott Wolter, a real-life Indiana Jones, will reveal that the history we all learned in school may not always be the whole story. Across the country, ancient symbols, religious relics and unexplained artifacts suggest that civilizations from around the world have left their mark for us to find today. Wolter not only digs through the surprising burial ground that is America for arcaheological secrets, but he also uncovers compelling evidence that pre-dates the official "discovery" of the New World and turns a lot of what we think we know about American history on its head. America Unearthed proves there is a lot we don't know about our past, and that people have gone to great lengths to cover up these mysteries."[15]. It will also include claims that the Mayas visited Georgia. Dougweller (talk) 19:03, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

A "forensic geologist"... brilliant. joe•roe^t•c 22:01, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

Need subject expert concerning Wikipedia:Fringe theories/Noticeboard#Gregory Deyermenjian

A couple of us have uncovered a large set of articles which seem to be promotional for Gregory Deyermenjian and which have probably been edited by him or by close associates. We need expert assessment of the articles from someone who is familiar with the state of Incan archaeological studies. It would be simplest if the discussion were conducted at the WP:FT/N section linked above. Mangoe (talk) 18:31, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

Mari, Syria collaboration

I am interested in bringing the ancient city of Mari, Syria to GA status, but it's a project well beyond my individual efforts and would probably require some help from people who have some expertise on the subject. I will post this at the WP:ANE as well, just thought to drop a note here to see if anyone is interested as well. Many thanks. Yazan (talk) 16:19, 26 December 2012 (UTC)

Meteoric iron

There is an article about meteoric iron, which is the material iron meteorites are made of. The article has a section about cultural usage of this material. Could somebody look over the section and make sure that it is adequate from the perspective of archaeology? --Tobias1984 (talk) 19:35, 26 December 2012 (UTC)

Links to Archaeology Magazine

Recently I added an Archaeology citation to Bethlehem of Galilee. After a while, I checked the article again and was shocked to find that another editor had commented out my citation because it "gives malware warnings in some anti-virus software." (diff). After a quick Google search, I discovered that the Archaeology website has indeed been inadvertently distributing malware recently. The Google Site Report states that the site had been listed for "suspicious activity 5 time(s) over the past 90 days". Moreover, it would appear that this isn't the first time either: Avast Anti-Virus Blog.

According to Google, over 800 Wikipedia pages contain citations linking to Archaeology. So what does this mean for all these pages? Has Archaeology fixed its malware infection and taken reasonable precautions to prevent its re-occurrence? Or should links to the magazine's website be removed for the safety of Wikipedia's readers? --Mike Agricola (talk) 00:25, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

first 120 volumes of the Archaeological Journal are now available to view online at the ADS.

From the UK mailing list, FYI, Johnbod (talk) 14:27, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Subject: RAI Archaeology Journal now online at ADS To: <ADS-ALL@jiscmail.ac.uk>

The ADS and the Royal Archaeological Institute (RAI) are pleased to announce that the first 120 volumes of the Archaeological Journal are now available to view online at the ADS.

The RAI are a leading national archaeology society and have annually published the Archaeological Journal since 1844. The journal contains papers on the Institute's interests, which span all aspects of the archaeological, architectural and landscape history of the British Isles. It presents the results of archaeological and architectural survey and fieldwork on sites and monuments of all periods as well as syntheses and overviews of such work in the British Isles.

This is an excellent resource for all those interested in British archaeological, architectural and landscape history as well as the development of the disciplines themselves. Follow this link to take a look. link

Best wishes

Katie Green Communications and Access Manager

Infobox merger

A question for the members of this project: Is there any reason why {{Infobox ancient site}} and {{Infobox archaeological site}} can't be merged? They pretty much cover the same ground but with the difference that {{Infobox ancient site}} seems to focus more on the archaeological status of a site whereas {{Infobox archaeological site}}, confusingly, focuses more on the sites geography. What's more, while the latter looks good, it seems to be specifically skewed towards Hellenistic sites. What are others' thoughts. ClaretAsh 11:25, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

I heartily agree. The two should be merged. The language of the resulting template needs to be elastic enough to deal with sites of all periods from all regions. My extra wish would be for some flexibility in the 'archaeologists' and 'excavations' fields as, at a site such as Pompeii this would be lists of hundreds, where as most sites would only have one or two.... PatHadley (talk) 09:32, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

Agree with merge and need for flexibility. Dougweller (talk) 06:00, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

When I get time, I'll do a mock up of some sort of unified infobox and see what others think. ClaretAsh 23:40, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

Actually, I take that back. I think I'll let someone else do it. I know next to nothing about archaeology, which became more apparent when I read over the infoboxes. ClaretAsh 07:50, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

Please take a look at Template talk:Infobox ancient site for my migration proposal. AlexanderVanLoon (talk) 15:58, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

Hillforts research project

Hi all,

I've been in touch with someone at Oxford working on a project to produce an atlas & database of all extant hillforts in Britain and Ireland (see here). They're currently getting started and are interested in the long-term possibility of putting some of the information on Wikipedia, either as per-site pages or by creating composite lists on a county or regional basis.

If you've any ideas for interesting things we could do with this content, or ways to incorporate it effectively into WP articles, please do let me know and I'll pass it on to them - it's unlikely they'll be doing much until they've done the research, but now's a good time to plan ahead :-) Andrew Gray (talk) 10:18, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

Wow! Great news that they're opening up this data! I wasn't quite sure how it was going to be used - the current link I have is here. It would be great to have some sort of automatic data transfer for the key sites (not sure every hillfort will satisfy notability) and use it as an opportunity to set an exemplary standard for templates and metadata quality for archaeological sites generally (which are currently all over the place! PatHadley (talk) 11:28, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

We haven't really talked the intricacies of data licensing yet, but I'm hoping that will come along :-). They're certainly thinking in the right direction and keen to get material out there... Andrew Gray (talk) 11:51, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

Certainly interesting. You won't need to be told this would be a great source anyway, but if we can utilize stuff directly that's a game-changer. Johnbod (talk) 16:20, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

I just stumbled onto Wikipedia:WikiProject Historic Sites, I didn't know it existed, I guess there is some overlap between historic sites and archaeological ones. Anyway I thought I'd mention the project as they might also be interested. EdwardLane (talk) 15:35, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

Prpposed merge of Parietal art

Is there any reason not to merge the neglected Parietal art (almost no hits) with the much viewed rock art? Is there a real difference? Most of Parietal art just covers the European Upper Paleolithic, & could be used to bulk out the rather weedy Rock art in Europe. There seems to be a case for throwing in most of Petroglyph too, leaving a list of sites. Then there's Cave painting .... Too many half-started articles. Johnbod (talk) 16:57, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

sounds sensible to me, but I am not well informed on the matter EdwardLane (talk) 15:03, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

I think when most people think of cave art, they think of the European caves such as Lascaux and Altamira. Those caves are striking, because the art is figurative and representational in a way that most rock art isn't. My personal preference, and bias (having read a couple books on European cave art), would be keep separate cave art and rock art. The Cave painting article is in fairly good shape. I'd be inclined to merge parietal art with the current Cave painting article, since there is considerable overlap, and move the point about rock art to our article on Rock art. There seems to be a useful distinction between rock art and petroglyphs, given that the latter entails engraving. Maybe keep these separate but be sure to have a prominent pointer in the rock art article to the petroglyph article? TimidGuy (talk) 17:43, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

Recent African origin of modern humans

Could we get a few eyes on the info at Talk:Recent African origin of modern humans#New study about hpalogroup A00. --Moxy (talk) 21:30, 5 March 2013 (UTC)

Lissanoure Castle

Lissanoure Castle is an family estate near Loughguile, County Antrim, Northern Ireland link here --> [16] I would really like this to become an article but I not sure really how to start it off I am used to Aviation. I have been to Northern Ireland a number of times and have passed the castle myself but I have not found any links to the castle. Not am not sure how to start if off so I am asking for anyone one that can help me in making Lissanoure Castle article. I would greatly appreciate it. Thank you. Myland1111 (talk) 18:39, 8 March 2013 (GMT)

Note that the above editor has now been blocked as a sockpuppet of community banned editor User:Ryan kirkpatrick. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 23:09, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

Thierry Jamin

Found this at Portal talk:Archaeology which is the wrong venue: Hi,

Sorry if my english is bad. I think it's urgent to review this article. I'm pretty sure that Jamin wrote it himself, lying as usual. Almost all sources quoted were published by Jamin in his sites granpaititi, pusharo, inkari. Some sources don't talk about what they are supposed to back up.

Please see this article from the Ministerio de la Cultura de Perú, so that you can understand the difference between what this article (and Jamin publications in general) claims, and what archaeological authorities say.

El Comandante (talk) 07:18, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

Copied it here. I'm not sure about the dispute (see the article's talk page) other than I think the article needs. work. Dougweller (talk) 11:20, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

Wadi al-Jarf

If anybody would like to help out at Wadi al-Jarf, an Ancient Egyptian port on the Red Sea coast that has hit the lay media, please do. There are links to the articles in the stub, which are open source at least for now. Abductive (reasoning) 02:51, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Hyperdiffusionism in Archaeology

Editors here might be interested in this new article. Glad to see it although it needs work. Dougweller (talk) 18:37, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

Hyperdiffusionism currently redirects to Trans-cultural diffusion, where the section so-called is all I think a summary of stuff covered in the new article. Perhaps it should go there instead? Johnbod (talk) 16:15, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

Talk:Archaeogenetics of the Cucuteni–Trypillian culture#Recent edits and WP:BRD

Hi all

A discussion has started due to recent edits that have been challenged.

Would any interested parties please join the discussion.

Thanks Chaosdruid (talk) 14:46, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

Merger proposal for Jewry Wall Museum

The article for the Jewry Wall Museum has been proposed to be merged with the article for Jewry Wall, which is covered by your wikiproject.

The discussion can be found at Talk:Jewry_Wall_Museum#Merger_proposal if you would like to contribute.

Many Thanks
Rushton2010 (talk) 15:20, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

Mediating Disputes Over "La Ciudad Blanca"

I'd like to ask if you'd be willing to mediate disagreements that I'm having with another Wikipedia editor over the article on La Ciudad Blanca, one that falls under the WikiProject Archaeology for its content about archaeological sites in Honduras. The other editor and I have been going back and forth in edit wars for the past few weeks. Although we thought we'd reached an understanding, it hasn't worked. Most of the debates appear on the talk page for the article, although some also appear on each of our user talk pages. My principal complaints are that: 1) his editing of the article has been based heavily upon a popular magazine article, not reliable scholarly sources; and 2) that he continues to revert a large number of what I consider to be improvements to the article. He has accused me of inserting a personal POV, while I have denied that and have countered that in fact what is happening his that he is editing the article to reflect his POV. Ideally, the article should be as neutral, correct, and factual as possible as well as being based on reliable sources. Any help on this article from someone experienced with issues of both archaeology and especially pseudoarchaeology would be greatly appreciated. Thanks! Hoopes (talk) 20:33, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

This assessment of the situation is non-neutral (and false - I have made no attempt to insert my POV). Please also note that Hoopes has specifically canvassed several users that he feels will support his POV. He has therefore violated canvassing policies in an attempt to "win". --ThaddeusB (talk) 23:11, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

This assessment of the situation is non-neutral and false, hanging on matters of subjective interpretation that require objective evaluation. Requesting support from editors from a relevant WikiProject is not canvassing. The assertion that this is about "an attempt to 'win'" is further evidence of non-neutrality on the part of the editor in question. Hoopes (talk) 19:47, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

House society

I've created the article House society as a stub and added it to this wikiproject. You are more than welcome to take a look and expand it if you want. I will start working more on it later unless you beat me to it!User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 15:47, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

New article on Apollo 11 Cave.

I've created a new article on the Apollo 11 Cave. It is currently awaiting AfC review. I've never created a new article before, I've never participated in a WikiProject, and I know nothing about archaeology, so any help is appreciated. I've not been able to find the process for getting the article added to the WikiProject. Do I just add the tag myself? ColinClark (talk) 20:47, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

Never mind on the last part. The reviewer who accepted the article added it to the project. ColinClark (talk) 21:52, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

Civilisation

The above article seems to be a bit of an orphan as far as WP projects are concerned, and it shows in the quality of it. Should it not be part of this project's oversight? Currently only Sociology is watching.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 21:53, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

Revamping WikiProject Archaeology

Hi all,

I would really like to get more energy and coordination going on WP Archaeology! I've begun a redesign of these project pages in a sandbox and would love to have feedback/improvements and move toward a more coordinated approach. This should also help tempt more archaeologists and wikipedians to contribute to this content! In particular I'd like to get comments on an organisational table for the content on the past. This might be based on this table but it may be easier to work through the kinks in a public googledoc. This may also get better input from archaeologists unfamiliar with mediawiki markup. What does everybody think!? PatHadley (talk) 10:38, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

Well. I've done it now. I hope people approve! PatHadley (talk) 12:53, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

Editor trying to make wholesale change to dates using BP only

As well as not being discussed per our guidelines on era changes, this seems totally inappropriate. See Talk:Upper Paleolithic. Dougweller (talk) 12:03, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

Expert assessment of Anglo-Saxon archaeology

Toby Martin, a UK-based Anglo-Saxon archaeologist has blogged about how the topic is covered on Wikipedia: These Fragments - The Early Anglo-Saxons on Wikipedia: an Assessment. He has some interesting comments and is keen to help but is not (as yet) an editor. He can be contacted through his blog or twitter PatHadley (talk) 19:15, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

Medieval Archaeology

Hi! I'm new to Wikipedia and thought I would 'be bold' by fleshing out the Medieval archaeology stub a little. I would appreciate any help or constructive criticism. --Rhi 16:35, 20 August 2013 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rhianedd (talk • contribs)

Thoughts on the project

Hi all, I've posted a little piece on my website about the challenges of WikiProject Archaeology. Thoughts and feedback are very welcome! Thanks PatHadley (talk) 17:29, 20 August 2013 (UTC)

Missing topics page

I have updated Missing topics related to archaeology. In case people might check what might be missing and what just might need a redirect - Skysmith (talk) 08:24, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

Cheers Skysmith! It's a really useful resource! I was just wondering if there was some clever way we could integrate it into the resources section on the project? Thoughts? PatHadley (talk) 11:24, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

Klaus Schmidt (archaeologist) needs expansion

Because the link at Göbekli Tepe went to the wrong person, I've created an article on the archaeologist but it's a tiny stub at the moment. Dougweller (talk) 09:18, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

Project to add: Chand Baori

The featured photograph today on the Bing search engine is an Indian stepwell called Chand Baori. I came to the linked Wikipedia article to find out more. Other than seeing a breath-taking design, the article is quite stubby with a majority of poor citations. One citation is to the caption of a photo uploaded to Flickr. The article clearly needs help. I am also posting this message to Wikipedia:WikiProject Architecture. Could someone who knows how to format citations please correct the one for the book Steps to Water: The Ancient Stepwells of India? I capitalized the title of the existing citation, added the co-author and publisher, but am stuck from there. The original author has GoogleBooks as the publisher and not just a link, but I don't know how to fix it. Thank you for your time, Wordreader (talk) 16:45, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

Archaeological Services Inc.

Dear archaeologists: The above new article may be of interest. I couldn't find any relevant categories. —Anne Delong (talk) 03:07, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

Request for help on Khalid Nabi Cemetery

I need some help on changing the Khalid Nabi Cemetery article. At the moment there is a fancyful entry on "phallic architecture", reinforcing a popular interpretation of the marker stelae without any merits or sources outside touristic blogs. I finally could access the only English language description by archeologist David Stronach of Berkeley with a commentary by the late William R. Royce.

Standing Stones in the Atrek Region: The Ḥālat Nabī Cemetery, Author(s): David Stronach and William R. Royce, Source: Iran, Vol. 19 (1981), pp. 147-150, Published by: British Institute of Persian Studies,Published by: British Institute of Persian Studies, Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4299712.

He is very clear that the stelae are topped by symbolic headgears. Obviously his description has not been read by anybody who blogged about it or contributed to the Khalid Nabi Cemetery article. I proposed changes on the basis of Stronach's description but meet opposition. As I hate edit wars I would appreciate if someone with archeological knowledge could have a look at the talk page and join the debate. it is always akward to go as a single newcomer to an article against the entrenched local crowd. Kipala (talk) 12:18, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

Mayan caves in the Yucatan (seeking additional information for this article)

Hello ! I have a question about Maya archeology . In the mid- 90s . I watched an interesting TV show . In it a group of people studied karst system in the Yucatan . At the deepest and furthest from the surface of the cave they found a small, stuffy stones input ( such as having the right kind of masonry ) , allegedly leading to the lower world (or sanctuary) Maya. This entry allegedly walled Mayan priests to keep out strangers in a holy place (like Spanish ) when they invaded their land. Log in to open did not. In this TV show is over. For information about entering I have never found . If you know , please tell me : what was this cave , and where in fact this is the input? Thank you in advance. text in Russian - http://www.mezoamerica.ru/forum1/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=2131 . Vyacheslav84 (talk) 11:14, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

Bulldozer archaeology

Bad article. Recently created, claims that the term was "coined by filmmaker Simcha Jacobovici" which is nonsense, it's decades old, eg [17] shows a 1963 use of the term. Dougweller (talk) 09:30, 6 October 2013 (UTC)

I've cleaned it up, but it needs expansion. Dougweller (talk) 09:38, 6 October 2013 (UTC)

Hm, an IP and a new editor, possible sock, have reverted me. It's not just wrong again, but it is pushing some attack over Israeli archeology. I've reverted again. Dougweller (talk) 13:04, 6 October 2013 (UTC)

The new editor is an employee of Jacobovici. It's getting a bit unpleasant. Dougweller (talk) 05:55, 8 October 2013 (UTC)

Sorted by a redirect to a section in Excavation (archaeology). See also WP:Neologism. Dougweller (talk) 16:12, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

Decorated timber 6270 years old found in Wales

This was brought to my attention by someone trying to prove something about ancient calendars, but it's genuine.[www.archaeology.co.uk/articles/news/maerdys-mesolithic-masterpiece.htm] [www.archaeology.co.uk/articles/news/maerdys-mesolithic-masterpiece.htm] - I don't know if it should be added to another article or a new one created for it. Dougweller (talk) 12:51, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

Hmmmm...Worth sitting on for a while I think. Myself and most Mesolithic archaeologists in my circles are quite sceptical. It's impossible to tell from the early announcements what part of the tree (anatomically) the marks are on. They look to me just like bark-beetle marks. However, I hadn't realised that it had come here to York for conservation and I might cheekily find out if I can go and see it. In terms of eventual destination, maybe an Stone Age woodworking article? With the Duvensee paddle, Star Carr platform and some log boats? PatHadley (talk) 14:03, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

Fringe material by David Hatcher Childress being used in articles

Several articles on the deformed Paracas skulls are based partially or largely on work by this fringe writer, who clearly fails WP:RS for this subject. They are, at least, Paracas culture, Artificial cranial deformation, and Elongated human skulls. Brien Foerster, a co-author of the source used, is also mentioned - for more about him, see[18] and [19] (lost technologies all over the world). He runs tours with Lloyd Pye[20] - the Starchild skull guy. Dougweller (talk) 21:29, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for picking this up Doug. I think I'll have a crack at a rough clean-up tonight or tomorrow. PatHadley (talk) 14:24, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

More fringe stuff

I've raised this AfD:Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Atlantida (ancient city). For your watch lists, Pedra da Gávea which isn't too bad. See the quote I added at Talk:Pedra da Gávea on the Brazilian fascination with Phoenicians. Ingá Stone I am having more trouble with. It has its own blog[21] which claims it received national heritage status in Brazil last month, which might make it easier to find material for it. Thomas Bruno Oliveira and Vanderley de Brito are the 2 main archaeologists on this. It's also referred to as 'Itacoatiara' or 'Itacoatiaras' or “Itacoatiaras do Ingá”. I'm pretty sure no one here speaks Portuguese, but [22] is relevant - on the tourist implications. So is [23] which seems to be in English and is free if you have a current academic position, which I don't. Dougweller (talk) 16:53, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

Asked for the last one at Wikipedia:WikiProject Resource Exchange/Resource Request. Dougweller (talk) 16:59, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

Editors changing BP to BCE

This is a problem not addressed in our MOS, see Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Dates and numbers#BP dates - guidance needs to say don't change BP to BC/BCE and comment please. Thanks. Dougweller (talk) 13:41, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

Now reads ""Do not convert other notations to or from BP" which is better but more suggestions to refine our MOS on this are welcome. Dougweller (talk) 17:00, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

York Museums Trust GLAM partnership

Hi all, I'm PatHadley (talk) a regular Archaeology editor and now Wikipedian in Residence at York Museums Trust. The trust has a huge archaeology collection and is really hoping to make the most of sharing our resources through Wikipedia and Commons. Please do leave messages on the project talk page if you think we can help: I can make contact with curators, check archives or other resources. We will also be hosting back-stage events and edit-a-thons in the near future. We have already been discussing the work on the Wade's Causeway article with User:PocklingtonDan and the images and resources are detailed within the project sub-pages. Hope to hear from some of you soon! Thanks, PatHadley (talk) 14:32, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Hi all, we've got a NEW UPLOAD! I've been working with the numismatics curators on images of coins from the Middleham Hoard. The whole set can be found here: Category:Coins from the Middleham Hoard (23 out of 54 so far), I hope that they're useful! Unfortunately the hoard itself is lacking an article. I've just started the bones here: Articles for creation/Middleham Hoard and it would be great if you guys could help the curators (new editors) and myself get the article ready for submission. Also, the coverage of hoards generally is a little ropey. Perhaps some of you might like to help? It would be great to improve the List of hoards in Britain for a start and we're keen to help and provide resources if possible. What do people think? PatHadley (talk) 15:54, 14 January 2014 (UTC)

"Early Commercial Architecture"

I noticed there exists a Early Commercial architecture... which redirects to a US Landmarks article. It seems to me this should be a topic on the first specialized commercial structures from the dawn of human civilization, and not just the start of US history... -- 70.50.148.122 (talk) 05:37, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

There could be a more general article about "Commercial architecture", out of which an "Early commercial architecture" could be a section or could be split out, but "Early Commercial Architecture" as a proper noun phrase is specifically used by a U.S. landmarks registry. Go ahead and create an article about the more general topic, if you have any sources to work from. Cheers, --doncram 06:21, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

Megalithic yard

Can someone take a look at the newest edits to Megalithic Yard (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)? Thanks. Dougweller (talk) 16:08, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

Archived some threads

I've archived some inactive threads to subsections which were notifications about discussions that have since been closed. — Cirt (talk) 07:51, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

Narragansett Runestone

Narragansett Runestone (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) is a new fringe archaeology article based almost entirely on sources that fail WP:RS, eg the cult archaeology magazine Ancient American, edited for years by Frank Collin under the name Frank Joseph, and a pdf by RM. de Jonge (coincidentally an editor here, see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Early discovery of the Faroe Islands and User:Dr. R.M. de Jonge and his website.[24] The pdf downloads automatically but is from the Migration-Diffusion website[25] - the copyright status of the pdf is unclear but it hosts complete copies of articles from the hyperdiffusionist journal "Migration & Diffusion - an international journal". Dougweller (talk) 11:05, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

These[26][27] say that the owner of the website was producer/editor of the journal, so it appears that copyright is a non-issue. Dougweller (talk) 11:23, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Hammerum

Dear Archaeologists: This old Afc submission is soon to be deleted as a stale draft. Is this a notable archaeological site, and should the article be kept? —Anne Delong (talk) 21:22, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

Ħaġar Qim

This is to let you know that the article on the Maltese temple complex of Ħaġar Qim has been found to have substantial copyright violation problems, and is currently blanked from view and listed at the WP:Copyright problems page. The article needs to be almost entirely rewritten. The existing images and references can be accessed through the article history, but the existing text should not be re-used unless it can be shown to have been added recently (see this copyright investigation). I may try to make a start on it myself, but I hope that someone much better qualified will come forward. Thanks, Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 00:06, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Dominic Powlesland

Dear archaeology experts: Is this old abandoned Afc submission about a notable person? It will soon be deleted as a stale draft unless someone takes an interest in it. —Anne Delong (talk) 16:33, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

Semir Osmanagić and Osmanagić pyramid hypothesis

We need editors keeping an eye on these. Looks like there is going to be a campaign to have these articles reflect Osmanagic's views, see [28]. Dougweller (talk) 06:27, 21 March 2014 (UTC)

Three-age system

I have come to the article Three-age system from the article on Smelting, hoping to find some further information on the discovery (discoveries, actually, including the independent discovery in the Americas) of the art of smelting ores to purify metals and to create alloys. The article on the Three-age system was of limited use for that purpose, but in any event I found it to be fascinating in its own right.

What surprised me was that much of the meat of the article, particularly the Dating section and following, struck me as reading like an essay - well-written and authoritative-sounding, but nonetheless unlike what I would expect to find in a properly sourced Wikipedia article. Most or all of this was added in 2011 by User:Botteville (aka "Dave"), who appears to no longer be an active editor. He also discusses much of his work on that article's talkpage.

"Dave" may well be a trustworthy authority; and the Three-age system article may be deemed by the Archaeology WikiProject to meet Wikipedia standards. I'm merely suggesting that it might warrant a close review. Milkunderwood (talk) 09:56, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

I'm not that inactive now. I had my crisis but the latest WM thrust toward disclosure of paid editors gave me some hope that WP's extensive editing problems might be addressable. It boils down to whether you decide to be a positivist or a negativist. I try to help where I can and it is my hope you intend the same. As we have only your word for it, that is a matter of YOUR conscience. What do you say, do you have a word? Now, for your comments, I should begin by saying, the article is not "mine." We are not allowed to write individual creations. Those who have that intent are soon rudely jolted. The article had a history before I started. You are missing the main point. It is not that this is a perfect article and I fall short of perfection. Few of these articles are that good. If you want good articles you read the experts. I'm not an expert nor am I authoritative. No, in my view, the value of WP is a rough and ready reference. If you are thinking to rely on this as a research source you are entirely on the wrong track. Don't be lazy. Do your own research. All I do is make improvements to existing articles. Some people start articles, and these are notoriously bad, but they help get the author a typically undeserved role as administrator. If I see something that needs work I try to make it better. You should have seen it before I started. I do have some archaeology and I did more of the historical investigation. Do you think this reads like an essay? Nolo contendere. It is a tough judgement call to make. You are welcome to try fixing it, anyone is. As for the great review you are talking about, that probably will not happen. I made those changes some time ago and before then I was the only one who worked on it for an even longer time. There should be an archaeology project, no doubt, it is just that no one seems to be on it. I expect the article will move on now. But little material one adds remains, however, it seems to me, the net effect is an improvement. What are YOU going to do? You can not touch it and carp away, and maybe that approach will result in improvement, maybe not. You can try it yourself, but that will open you up to carping as well. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. If you wanted some kind of personal confrontation with me, forget it. Go jump in the lake. I got other things to do. You aren't going to hear from me again unless you request it. It is up to you now. I did my part. Put up or shut up, as we used to say in New England, but of course you will do as you like. Ciao, and good luck with it.Branigan 16:38, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

Milkunderwood is correct in saying this needs a review. I wish I had time to work on this. Large parts do read like an essay, as do section headings such as "The elusive Mesolithic of Hodder Westropp" and sentences such as "Lubbock's savagery was now Westropp's barbarism." This is original research:"Brown in 1892 does not mention Mas-d'Azil. He refers to the "transition or 'Mesolithic' forms" but to him these are "rough hewn axes chipped over the entire surface" mentioned by Evans as the earliest of the Neolithic. Where Piette believed he had discovered something new, Brown wanted to break out known tools considered Neolithic." The article needs pruning and tightening at least to make it reach Wikipedia standards and make it more readable. Hm, maybe a GA review? Perhaps User:Maunus has the time or inclination. Dave, I am very unhappy with your comment "By the way my name is Dave. It does not matter, though, does it? Call me Doug if you like." Why were you dragging me into this then? Dougweller (talk) 06:40, 21 March 2014 (UTC)

There's some great content in this article - kudos. However, it does definitely jar with a Wikipedian style and structure. It may need not only a restructuring but some content may need redistributing/copying to other articles. The history of the concept certainly needs bolstering on the Mesolithic article for example. The great strength of this article is that it reinforces the fact that these concepts (Stone Age, Bronze Age....) are modern labels attached to ancient material. Elsewhere on Wikipedia one might get the impression that there were self-identifying 'Beaker folk'. PatHadley (talk) 10:05, 21 March 2014 (UTC)

Given the complexities of the material (and my lack of focused time) I've started reworking this in a sandbox. People are welcome to chip in. The lede is very rough and a little weaselly for now PatHadley (talk) 23:53, 21 March 2014 (UTC)

Help needed at List of countries and islands by first human settlement

The intro states "The Americas were populated by humans at least as early as 14,800 years ago,[6] though there is great uncertainty about the exact time and manner in which the Americas were populated" which isn't too bad. But then we get sections such as the one for Canada "25,000-40,000 BP", United States "50,000 BP" which says, with no cite, "Dr. Albert Goodyear carbon dates plant back to 50,000 years and sediment in Allendale County,USA." Allendale County, South Carolina says "possible evidence of a pre-Clovis culture dating back 50,000 years" again with no citation. Brazil has "41,000-56,000 BP" linking to Pedra Furada sites which says there are artefacts there "carrying the range of dates up to 60,000 BP." That's sourced to "Guidon, Niède. 1986 "Las Unidades Culturales de Sao Raimundo Nonato - Sudeste del Estado de Piaui-Brasil"; New Evidence for the Pleistocene Peopling of the Americas: 157-171. Edited by Alan Bryan. Center for the Study of Early Man. University of Maine. Orono."

All of this is controversial but is in the List as fact. Some help with this would be appreciated from anyone familiar with the literature. The linked articles probably need work also, especially the Pedra Furada one which needs updating. Thanks. Dougweller (talk) 08:59, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

Jasper used in Viking artefacts may have originated at Notre Dame Bay

See[29]. Dougweller (talk) 15:42, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Eureka Ridge

Dear archaeologists: The above old Afc submission appear to have references, but they are not on line. Also, there may be copyright problems with http://www.academia.edu/6005784/Looking_for_Lovitt_in_All_the_Wrong_Places_Migration_Models_and_the_Athapaskan_Diaspora_as_Viewed_from_Eastern_Colorado , but I don't have access to this site to check. If it's a small amount, it can be rewritten, but if it is mostly similar it will have to go. Can anyone here check for me? —Anne Delong (talk) 15:12, 13 April 2014 (UTC)

AfC submission - 23/04

Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Altimiris. FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 14:58, 23 April 2014 (UTC)

'Treasure Trove' rename discussion

As I've written in the talk page (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category_talk:Treasure_troves_in_England), the use of 'Treasure Trove' in this category is nearly 20-years outdated. Changes needed to this category and other sub-cats, such as https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Viking_treasure_trove ?

Thoughts? Zakhx150 (talk) 10:26, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

Paleoanthropology and Michael Cremo

An editor has added a pov tag to Paleoanthropology on the basis that mainstream archaeology is biased and that Michael Cremo must be included. I've removed it as a misunderstanding of NPOV and the purpose of the article but I expect him to put it back. See Talk:Paleoanthropology#Controversy section Dougweller (talk) 17:48, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

New article for review: Philosophy of archaeology

Attention experts, please review the newly created Philosophy of archaeology and see if any corrective action is needed. In particular, the lead and History sections may need attention for accuracy, and tone. Thanks, --Animalparty-- (talk) 22:28, 15 May 2014 (UTC)

ORCID

Those of you who practice archaeology may be interested in ORCID. ORCID is an open system of identifiers for people - particularly researchers and the authors of academic papers; but also contributors to other works, not least Wikipedia editors. ORCIDs are a bit like ISBNs for books or DOIs for papers. You can register for one, free, at http://orcid.org As well as including your ORCID in any works to which you contribute, you can include it in your user page using {{Authority control}} thus: {{Authority control|ORCID=0000-0001-5882-6823}} (that template can also include other identifies, such as VIAF and LCCN - there's an example on my user page). ORCID identifiers can also be added to biographical articles, either directly or via Wikidata. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:36, 17 May 2014 (UTC)

Leaflet For Wikiproject Archaeology At Wikimania 2014

Are you looking to recruit more contributors to your project?
We are offering to design and print physical paper leaflets to be distributed at Wikimania 2014 for all projects that apply.
For more information, click the link below.
Project leaflets
Adikhajuria (talk) 11:30, 25 May 2014 (UTC)

Assessment Criteria

You guys don't have assessment criteria for C class, nor do you list it on your list of classes, but there are about 15 articles classified as C class under your project. I just wanted to mention something because I figure one of the two of those is an oversight. Zell Faze (talk) 12:58, 15 June 2014 (UTC)

Leaflet for Wikiproject Archaeology at Wikimania 2014(updated version)

Please note: This is an updated version of a previous post that I made.

Hi all,

My name is Adi Khajuria and I am helping out with Wikimania 2014 in London.

One of our initiatives is to create leaflets to increase the discoverability of various wikimedia projects, and showcase the breadth of activity within wikimedia. Any kind of project can have a physical paper leaflet designed - for free - as a tool to help recruit new contributors. These leaflets will be printed at Wikimania 2014, and the designs can be re-used in the future at other events and locations.

This is particularly aimed at highlighting less discoverable but successful projects, e.g:

• Active Wikiprojects: Wikiproject Medicine, WikiProject Video Games, Wikiproject Film

• Tech projects/Tools, which may be looking for either users or developers.

• Less known major projects: Wikinews, Wikidata, Wikivoyage, etc.

• Wiki Loves Parliaments, Wiki Loves Monuments, Wiki Loves ____

• Wikimedia thematic organisations, Wikiwomen’s Collaborative, The Signpost

The deadline for submissions is 1st July 2014

For more information or to sign up for one for your project, go to:

Project leaflets
Adikhajuria (talk) 13:34, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

Radiocarbon dating

User:Mike Christie has just made important revisions to the article on Radiocarbon dating. At Talk:Radiocarbon dating#Next steps for the article he has listed what he thinks the next steps for the article should be. Any editor with expertise in the use of radiocarbon dating in archaeology who might be interested in contributing to this article should see in particular the second and third items in the first bulleted list in that section on the article's talk page. CorinneSD (talk) 23:13, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

Lost city of Ubar

I need some help finding the Lost city of Ubar, or more specifically some clarification on what SIR-C/X-SAR found and how Iram of the Pillars relates (or not). Please follow up here. Thanks! -- ke4roh (talk) 21:13, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

Prehistoric Norfolk

Can someone take a look at Prehistoric Norfolk ? There's 6 different kinds of references going on here, and references and content running into each other, several separate references sections in the middle of content sections. It's rather a mess, and has been so since atleast 2009. -- 65.94.171.126 (talk) 11:21, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

Problems with article about Secondary Burial

As stated in my comment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Secondary_burial , the article Secondary Burial seems to be a mixture of two different subjects. JRoseAndersen (talk) 14:34, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

Requested move at talk:Neanderthal extinction hypotheses

There's a move discussion for Neanderthal extinction hypotheses → Neanderthal extinction, where I'd like to have more input. --Cold Season (talk) 00:13, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

New article about Bronze Age site in Hungary

Százhalombatta-Földvár has just entered mainspace from AFC. The article needs quite a lot of help from subject specialists. It seems like the original author has listed practically everything that has ever been written about the site as references - the list is longer than the rest of the entire article! I've also tagged it for better categories, orphan, etc. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 16:06, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

Curious object

Item found at Reculver in Kent, England, before 1784

Hi, I wonder if anyone here might know what the illustrated item is, or know someone who does! Presumably it's a badge of some sort. It was reported found "clinging to the tine of a harrow" at Reculver in Kent, England, in 1784, and is illustrated at Bibliotheca Topographica Britannica I, 1784, Plate V, fig. 8 (facing p. 85). There's no indication of its size but, given the size of the illustration in relation to the other items shown in the plate, I suspect the illustration in the book might be actual size (i.e. about half the size of the thumbnail image here). The description is here, and the plate is a couple of pages before. I've searched for this or any similar item online but not found anything terribly helpful. Any helpful thoughts gratefully received. Cheers. Nortonius (talk) 11:30, 4 June 2014 (UTC)

Based on the compass and square with an enclosed C/G at the bottom of the 4, Hebrew-like lettering and 6-pointed star, it seems to be Masonic and likely does not long predate the publication of the book. Perhaps someone familiar with such imagery may be able to tell you more. • Astynax ^talk 18:08, 4 June 2014 (UTC)

Great, thanks for the response – I'm sure you're right, having just had a look around at masonic symbols and their meanings online. I'm not aware of knowing any masons, but then I don't suppose I would be unless I were one, hmm a bit of a Catch 22 there. Thinking of the "G" between the compass and square, Reculver seems a bit of a remote spot to find a badge featuring a symbol that might have originated in North America and not been around very long in 1784 (per this). I'm very grateful, if you or anyone else think of anything to add please do. Cheers. Nortonius (talk) 18:55, 4 June 2014 (UTC)

Hi Nortonius - have you found an answer to this? If not, you can certainly ask WP:WikiProject Freemasonry. -- Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 16:16, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

That's very kind, thank you – I've got no further than what's here so that would be a good next step. Cheers. Nortonius (talk) 12:42, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

2013 paper on the Solutrean hypothesis

"Refuting the technological cornerstone of the Ice-Age Atlantic crossing hypothesis" Journal of Archaeological Science 40 (2013) [30]. Dougweller (talk) 18:00, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

Internet Archaeology goes open access

Internet Archaeology has just announced that it is to become an open access journal. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 20:04, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

ORCID

Speaking of Internet Archaeology (see above), I see that they are using ORCID identifiers. ORCID is an open system of identifiers for people - particularly researchers and the authors of academic papers; but also contributors to other works, not least Wikipedia editors. ORCIDs are a bit like ISBNs for books or DOIs for papers. You can register for one, free, at http://orcid.org As well as including your ORCID in any works to which you contribute, you can include it in your user page using {{Authority control}} thus: {{Authority control|ORCID=0000-0001-5882-6823}} (that template can also include other identifies, such as VIAF and LCCN - there's an example on my user page). ORCID identifiers can also be added to biographical articles, either directly or via Wikidata. See WP:ORCID for more. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 20:08, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

Comment on the WikiProject X proposal

Hello there! As you may already know, most WikiProjects here on Wikipedia struggle to stay active after they've been founded. I believe there is a lot of potential for WikiProjects to facilitate collaboration across subject areas, so I have submitted a grant proposal with the Wikimedia Foundation for the "WikiProject X" project. WikiProject X will study what makes WikiProjects succeed in retaining editors and then design a prototype WikiProject system that will recruit contributors to WikiProjects and help them run effectively. Please review the proposal here and leave feedback. If you have any questions, you can ask on the proposal page or leave a message on my talk page. Thank you for your time! (Also, sorry about the posting mistake earlier. If someone already moved my message to the talk page, feel free to remove this posting.) Harej (talk) 22:47, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

Archaeological finds Roland de Vaux at Qumran

In the book is written - de Vaux died in 1971 without having published all of the material from his excavations...Although we still await a final excavation report, in 1994 Humbert and a Belgian archaeologist name Alain Chambon published a large volume described as the first in a series....Although this volume contains some previously unpublished information, there is still much that is unpublished and inaccessible.

As is currently the situation is with the full publication of all archaeological finds Roland de Vaux at Qumran? Published, planned to be published or unpublished, will never be published? Vyacheslav84 (talk) 12:01, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

Where is the article on Sally Binford?

I don't have the sources for an article on her... anyone up to the challenge? Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 19:02, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

I don't know of Sally Binford, but you might try asking the History of Archaeology Network at UCL. http://www.ucl.ac.uk/archaeology/research/directory/historyofarchaeology_network. Claire 75 (talk) 16:10, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

Danube civilization

I deleted an earlier version of this as copyvio. This version may not be copyvio but it is a mess. I can't find any consensus for a "Danube civilization" as a name for a set of related cultures. This seems to be related to Childe's Danubian culture but again I think that may be an obsolete term. The article also calls it "Old Europe" which this apparently reliable source[31] says "refers to a cycle of related cultures that thrived in southeastern Europe during the fifth and fourth millennia BC" but the article says " It was a cycle of cultures beginning around 7,200 BC, its time of peak was between 5,500–3,500 BC. At around 3,500 BC the civilization fell into decline, and by 3000–2700 BC only fragments of the civilization remained." The various linked cultures, eg Cucuteni-Trypillian culture, don't mention this. A lot of the sources don't seem to mention a Danube Civilization. The editor named the article "Danube Civilization on the basis that Harald Haardman calls it that. Haardman seems to be, for these subjects, a fringe write who argues that it all started with Noah's flood 9000 years ago.[32] The author of the article, User:Lactasamir is I'm sure trying to write a good article but only seems to have a superficial knowlege of the subject (I wouldn't claim much more either, but I do know quite a bit about archaeology in general). I can't find a consensus for any of these titles, which makes it difficult. "Danube Valley cultures" would at least not suggest that there is one, so a move might be a good start. Dougweller (talk) 15:51, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

• Hello Dougweller :) if you read the sources you will se that what i wrote, are what the reliable sourses say. The term Danube civilization or old Europe civilization (another term) are used by scholars many places. see -

From the exhibition and book from Princeton University press. This exhibition focused on the period 5000-3500 B.C.

Acta Terrae Septemcastrensis is a yearly journal centred on the Transylvania heritage

Alfred J. Andrea, Ph.D. (1969) in History, Cornell University,

Marco Merlini, Ph.D. is a cultural manager, journalist and archaeo semiologist.

Marija Gimbutas, she called it Old Europe, the same civilization, different term.

Brukenthal National Museum, Romania, with map of Danube civilization. Harald Haarmann is the leading expert on linguistics in the world. He does not advocate for the biblical flood, but The flood of the Black sea, see Black Sea deluge hypothesis Harald Haarmann believes this flood maybe where the roots of the biblical flood. The flood really happened, after the last Ice Age the sea level rose and flooded a fertile region, which today is called the Black Sea. The people of this region founded new settlements in the Danube Valley. That is what Harald Haarmann means. Lactasamir (talk) 17:41, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

Haarmann is not the leading expert on linguistics in the world, and even if he were, what does that have to do with anything? His linguistic speciality seems to be ethnolinguistics and sociolinguistics, not writing systems. And he certainly is not an archaeologist. He thinks the Old Europeans went to Crete and founded the Minoan civilization - ah, I see you cited him. You wrote "Minoan civilization presents the most vital offspring of the old Danube civilization." He wrote "Ancient Crete presents the most vital offspring of Old European culture". Not only does he not say what you wrote, you used his language without attribution or quoting and that's still copyvio. He's not a reliable source for that claim and I'm reverting you there as well. Funnily enough, recent DNA studies show "The population showed particular genetic affinities with Bronze Age populations from Sardinia and Iberia and Neolithic samples from Scandinavia and France."[33] - not the Danube valley. The flood is disputed. You say that "Danube Civilization" and "Old Europe" mean the same thing, but you don't show any archaeological sources. Yes, a handful of people, mainly on the fringe, talk about this. You have exactly one archaeologist among your sources, Gimbutas. Andrea is a historian. Merlini and Haarman are of course colleagues so not surprisingly they agree, and neither is an archaeologist. There is no such thing as an "archaeo semiologist" - the only person claiming to be one is Merlin, who I see writes for the Acta Terrae Septemcastrensis which is not an archaeology journal or peer reviewed. I'm not finding any consensus that there was such a civilization (a very strong word & unudual for archaeologists to use for that period). Dougweller (talk) 18:32, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

Some really broad statements presented as fact, eg "Old Europe was agrarian and peaceful" - one of the sources being a book by Mike Buttsworth published by -- Buttsworth press. Ironically his book is an attack on Gimbutas. And I repeat, most of the sources used in the article don't seem to discuss this "Danube Civilization" or "Old Europe". As for the list of the largest settlements, what's the source for them being part of a DC or an OE? And the cultures? Merlini isn't an archaeologist so he certainly isn't a reliable source. Dougweller (talk) 18:53, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

Please read the sources. Regarding the DNA of the Minoans, yes recent DNA studies show the population was close to the people of Sardinia, Iberia, Scandinavia and France. But the highest frequency of sharing (33%) is with the Neolithic populations of Southern Europe (Balkans). Have a nice day :) Lactasamir (talk) 20:11, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

Could be, but it's off-topic anyway. Haarman isn't a reliable source for that, and the DNA studies don't discuss a DC. Dougweller (talk) 20:42, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

Vijayanagara literature in Kannada considered for Main Page

There is an ongoing discussion on whether to feature the WP:FA quality article Vijayanagara literature in Kannada on the Main Page.

You may participate at Wikipedia:Today's featured article/requests/Vijayanagara literature in Kannada.

Thank you, — Cirt (talk) 17:29, 31 October 2014 (UTC)

AfD for Danube Valley Civilization

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Danube civilization Dougweller (talk) 17:05, 6 November 2014 (UTC)

{{::Template:Prehistoric technology}}

Please see Template talk:Prehistoric technology#Inclusions. I've only just looked at the template, and don't understand why it doesn't focus on technology. Here's the template:

A discussion has been started on the talk page about what should be in it. There's nothing on lithic technology for instance. And there's quite a bit that I don't think belongs in this template. And no criteria for named sites. Dougweller (talk) 17:59, 10 November 2014 (UTC)

Muslims discovered America?

See [[34]]. I thought this might be about Khashkhash Ibn Saeed Ibn Aswad which was just edited by someone removing an unsourced statement (which sadly I can't source) but it seems to relate more directly to the Sung Document which is also mentioned at Pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact, 1170s and 1178. Also mentioned in the article is Abu Bakr II. These could all benefit from more watchers. Dougweller (talk) 15:06, 16 November 2014 (UTC)

References

An AfD of interest

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Natural Winter Solstice Alignment Cave in Manchester, Kentucky. I was going to bring another related article, Red Bird River Shelter Petroglyphs to the attention of this board also. Both have claims of Old World inscriptions. Dougweller (talk) 17:08, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Francesco Perono Cacciafoco

Although a BLP, it is basically an article about the Teoria della Conciliazione or New Convergence Theory - an attempt to " 'reconciliate' apparently irreconcilable approaches to the topic of Indo-European origins" according to the article's author. I couldn't find evidence that it meets our criteria for notability. Dougweller (talk) 10:02, 20 November 2014 (UTC)

Problems at Red Bird River Shelter Petroglyphs

Please see discussion on talk page concerning accuracy of article. Mangoe (talk) 20:15, 21 November 2014 (UTC)

Partage editing

Hi,

I am writing because I am concerned about the neutrality of the brief "Partage" article. Although I am not an archaeologist, I follow cultural heritage news and know that James Cuno, whose beliefs on the subject are dominant in the article, is not considered a neutral party. Cuno is the only person quoted in the article. His controversial book "Who Owns Antiquity?" is listed as the first source. Lee Rosenbaum, an American arts journalist who is not, according to her published work, in favor of partage, is also listed as a source in a link which seems to promote partage. While beneficial to archaeologists and museums in consumer or imperial cultures, the historical practice of partage is now regarded by many source countries and cultural heritage professionals as a period of institutionalized pillage. This, of course, is not a neutral viewpoint either, but neglecting to mention it, while promoting James Cuno's view, is unbalanced. Certainly the author did not mean to convey this. In a project as large as Wikipedia's Archaeology section, I appreciate that professionals from the field took the time to create a page on what may seem a small sidebar. But if an article on the subject exists, then the Archaeology community has the responsibility to present the subject to the public in a fair manner. For this reason, I have had the article flagged, and am asking the Wikipedia group to edit it. The neutrality flag was added 11.07.14, and this letter posted 11.25.14. In two weeks, on 12.09.14, when the article will have been flagged for one month, I'll check back. If no changes have been made, I will edit the article myself.

Thank you. Sarahevil (talk) 01:30, 26 November 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for posting your concerns. Others here may respond by editing the article, but in the meantime, there is no need for you to wait another two weeks. If you have good sources that you can use to improve the article, please go ahead -- there is no privilege required for editing; all of us here are simply interested volunteers, like yourself. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 01:37, 26 November 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, Mike Christie! I appreciate your encouragement, but I definitely want to leave this open for discussion for the noted length of time; I understand that Wikipedia contributors are volunteers, and that no changes are permanent, but am interested to hear feedback from archaeology contributors. Also, I looked at your page, and am impressed to hear that Wikipedia helps regular contributors access JSTOR. That is a wonderful idea.

Sarahevil (talk) 02:23, 26 November 2014 (UTC)

RFC on Gojoseon about the founding legends

Feel free to discuss it at its talkpage. --Cold Season (talk) 01:54, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

Request for help with article about a disputed site

I have gotten my self in the middle of a dispute in San Buenaventura de Potano over which of two sites 12 miles apart is the true location of a town visited by Hernando de Soto. The only other editors on the article are the archaeologist advocating one of the sites, and someone closely associated with the archaeologist advocating the other site. I would appreciate anybody willing to keep an eye on the article.

Also, any opinions on the usefulness of The Digital Archaeological Record? -- Donald Albury 14:42, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

'Boo!' to the dispute, 'Yay!' to professional archaeologists actually caring about the throughput of their data to Wikipedia. Sorry you've got caught in the middle. I don't have the expertise to trawl through this material but it seems like a reasonably balanced article for now. In general tDAR is a pretty great resource, it's got lots of praise from the community for opening up data. PatHadley (talk) 17:01, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for looking at it. As it stands now I've tried to keep it organized, well sourced and neutral in tone. I suspect neither of the parties will be entirely satisfied with it. I am trying to avoid discouraging the parties from engaging with the article, while educating them on WP policies and guidelines. However, as the only disinterested editor, so far, I worry about owning the article. -- Donald Albury 15:11, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

GA nomination of Exhumation of Richard III of England

I've nominated Exhumation of Richard III of England for consideration as a Good Article in advance of his reburial next March, which will attract a huge amount of interest. The article is in good shape and is quite comprehensive, so I'm sure it will be a good GA candidate. I'd be grateful for any help with the GA review. Prioryman (talk) 18:51, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

Coast Salish defensive sites has been nominated for deletion

Please see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Coast Salish defensive sites.Skookum1 (talk) 08:15, 26 December 2014 (UTC)

WikiCup 2015

Hi there; this is just a quick note to let you all know that the 2015 WikiCup will begin on January 1st. The WikiCup is an annual competition to encourage high-quality contributions to Wikipedia by adding a little friendly competition to editing. At the time of writing, more than fifty users have signed up to take part in the competition; interested parties, no matter their level of experience or their editing interests, are warmly invited to sign up. Questions are welcome on the WikiCup talk page. Thanks! Miyagawa (talk) 21:48, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

Category:Native American archeology

Category:Native American archeology, which is within the scope of this WikiProject, has been nominated for renaming to use "indigenous peoples of North America" so that the US and Canadian First Nations categories can be merged in a follow-up nomination. 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. Thank you.RevelationDirect (talk) 15:06, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

Discussion re table format for lists of ancient monuments

A discussion has been started at Wikipedia talk:Featured list candidates#Column widths in table layout about the best way to display lists of ancient monuments which may be of interest to members of this wikiproject.— Rod ^talk 07:12, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

WikiProject X is live!

Hello everyone!

You may have received a message from me earlier asking you to comment on my WikiProject X proposal. The good news is that WikiProject X is now live! In our first phase, we are focusing on research. At this time, we are looking for people to share their experiences with WikiProjects: good, bad, or neutral. We are also looking for WikiProjects that may be interested in trying out new tools and layouts that will make participating easier and projects easier to maintain. If you or your WikiProject are interested, check us out! Note that this is an opt-in program; no WikiProject will be required to change anything against its wishes. Please let me know if you have any questions. Thank you!

Note: To receive additional notifications about WikiProject X on this talk page, please add this page to Wikipedia:WikiProject X/Newsletter. Otherwise, this will be the last notification sent about WikiProject X.

Harej (talk) 16:56, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

Featured article nomination of Exhumation of Richard III

I've nominated Exhumation of Richard III of England for consideration as a featured article candidate, in advance of Richard's reburial on 26 March 2015. If anyone would like to contribute to the review, please feel free to do so at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Exhumation of Richard III of England/archive1. Prioryman (talk) 13:10, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

Paititi

Could someone take a look at this? I'm wondering if it is being used as a vehicle for promotion in any way, particularly of Gregory Deyermenjian who I've templated for notability - hopefully that can be fixed by someone. I note that the source "Expedition 2006 at explorers.org" (PDF). doesn't seem to exist anymore (ie 408 and using the search facility to search for Paititi turns up nothing. Thanks. Ah, see also my request 3 years ago for subject experts to discuss this at FTN.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Fringe_theories/Noticeboard/Archive_34#Gregory_Deyermenjian Dougweller (talk) 16:05, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

Also Mameria and Inkarri. Dougweller (talk) 16:28, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

RfC on "Indigenous Aryans"

I've opened an RfC at Talk:Indigenous Aryans#RfC: the "Indigenous Aryans" theory is fringe-theory. Comments would be welcome. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 16:29, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

Gunung Padang Megalithic Site - an Indonesian version of the alleged Bosnian pyramids

Just pruned it a lot, needs work but even more needs to be added to watch lists. See this. Dougweller (talk) 16:42, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

Should we create a new category for articles relating to Hyperdiffusionism in archaeology?

It would help users find related articles such as Olmec colossal heads, Pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact, etc. Even if we don't, Hyperdiffusionism in archaeology needs to be added as a see also to a lot of articles. Dougweller (talk) 15:15, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

The category seams reasonable enough - provided that it is sourced when added. The Hyperdiffusionism in archaeology article itself needs work though - I'm still trying to work out what is 'logical' about a pyramid... AndyTheGrump (talk) 16:23, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

I think the logical part about a pyramid is that the narrow part is on top and the broad part on the bottom. A lot easier than building the opposite kind of stucture.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 21:12, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

I'd agree, and I think the category is a good idea - although a strict approach to sourcing would mean that many of the most difficult examples are excluded from the category. It's like other parts of the WP:FRINGE problem: If reliable mainstream sources don't bother wasting time on a meticulous takedown of speculation, then we're less likely to have sources saying that the we-all-descent-from-Atlanteans ideas are hyperdiffusionism. bobrayner (talk) 21:09, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

A search just on hyperdiffusionism turns up quite a few sources we could use for specific articles. Take a look at Talk:Hyperdiffusionism in archaeology as well, User:Maunus, User:Bobrayner, User:Hoopes. Dougweller (talk) 21:51, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

Category:Hyperdiffusionism in archaeology now exists. Dougweller (talk) 19:01, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

New archaeology article

Can you verify if this subject Malmo Mounds and Village Site is suitable for a stand-alone article? I mostly see some mentions but not much. Hajme 09:05, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

Telling it like it is

I've gone ahead and made a new category of tells. Just letting everyone know so that we can get to organising all the tells that have articles. I forsee the list being 200 or 300 and so should it be broken down into sub categories by area after we find all the tells? Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie | ^{Say Shalom!} 18 Adar 5775 20:33, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

Category discussions

Ancient Greek sites by country. (nomination to rename)

Ancient Greek sites in Russia, Serbia, Cyprus. (nomination to upmerge)

Ancient Greek sites in Montenegro. (nomination to delete)

Ancient Greek sites in Attica, Central Greece, Western Greece. (nomination to upmerge)

Ancient Greek sites in France. (nomination to delete)

Greek colonies by time of foundation. (nomination to upmerge)

5th-century BC Greek colonies. (nomination to delete)

Ancient Greek sites in Syria and Iraq. (nomination to rename)

Ancient Greek sites in Iran. (nomination to delete)

Marcocapelle (talk) 06:06, 10 March 2015 (UTC).

Hafting

The article on hafting is an editing mess that leaves me still not knowing how a hafted point is secured to a shaft, whether the notched points are only useful for tying, and which sentences refer to which method of hafting. Therefore, being ignorant on the subject myself, I'm asking someone from the project take a look.

Additionally, if someone has even more background on ancient technology, a creation of wood bending, perhaps. Thanks guys. SamuelRiv (talk) 02:52, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

There is an RFC that may affect a page in this project

There is an RFC that may affect a page in this project at WikiProject Tree of Life. The topic is Confusion over taxonomy of subtribe Panina and taxon homininae (are chimps hominins)?

Please feel free to comment there. SPACKlick (talk) 17:04, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

IP adding links to Solutrean hypothesis to cultures as the successor culture

See [35] - first added links saying that the culture succeeding various cultures was Paleo-Indians, and now Paleo-Siberian, not even a culture. (Also added some lithic links as successor cultures, eg Mousterian still says that it was succeeded by Châtelperronian, Emireh point. Maybe someone else could fix that one please. And if these could all be added to some more watchlists that would be helpful. Thanks. Dougweller (talk) 09:14, 10 April 2015 (UTC)

Settlement of the Americas

I've raised an issue about possible OR at Talk:Settlement of the Americas and would appreciate comments, or at least eyes. Thanks. Dougweller (talk) 14:45, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

WikiProject X Newsletter • Issue 3

Greetings! For this month's issue...

We have demos!

After a lengthy research and design process, we decided for WikiProject X to focus on two things:

• A WikiProject workflow that focuses on action items: discussions you can participate in and tasks you can perform to improve the encyclopedia; and
• An automatically updating WikiProject directory that gives you lists of users participating in the WikiProject and editing in that subject area.

We have a live demonstration of the new WikiProject workflow at WikiProject Women in Technology, a brand new WikiProject that was set up as an adjunct to a related edit-a-thon in Washington, DC. The goal is to surface action items for editors, and we intend on doing that through automatically updated working lists. We are looking into using SuggestBot to generate lists of outstanding tasks, and we are looking into additional options for automatic worklist generation. This takes the burden off of WikiProject editors to generate these worklists, though there is also a "requests" section for Wikipedians to make individual requests. (As of writing, these automated lists are not yet live, so you will see a blank space under "edit articles" on the demo WikiProject. Sorry about that!) I invite you to check out the WikiProject and leave feedback on WikiProject X's talk page.

Once the demo is sufficiently developed, we will be working on a limited deployment on our pilot WikiProjects. We have selected five for the first round of testing based on the highest potential for impact and will scale up from there.

While a re-designed WikiProject experience is much needed, that alone isn't enough. A WikiProject isn't any good if people have no way of discovering it. This is why we are also developing an automatically updated WikiProject directory. This directory will surface project-related metrics, including a count of active WikiProject participants and of active editors in that project's subject area. The purpose of these metrics is to highlight how active the WikiProject is at the given point of time, but also to highlight that project's potential for success. The directory is not yet live but there is a demonstration featuring a sampling of WikiProjects.

Each directory entry will link to a WikiProject description page which automatically list the active WikiProject participants and subject-area article editors. This allows Wikipedians to find each other based on the areas they are interested in, and this information can be used to revive a WikiProject, start a new one, or even for some other purpose. These description pages are not online yet, but they will use this template, if you want to get a feel of what they will look like.

We need volunteers!

WikiProject X is a huge undertaking, and we need volunteers to support our efforts, including testers and coders. Check out our volunteer portal and see what you can do to help us!

As an aside...

Wouldn't it be cool if lists of requested articles could not only be integrated directly with WikiProjects, but also shared between WikiProjects? Well, we got the crazy idea of having experimental software feature Flow deployed (on a totally experimental basis) on the new Article Request Workshop, which seeks to be a place where editors can "workshop" article ideas before they get created. It uses Flow because Flow allows, essentially, section-level categorization, and in the future will allow "sections" (known as "topics" within Flow) to be included across different pages. What this means is that you have a recommendation for a new article tagged by multiple WikiProjects, allowing for the recommendation to appear on lists for each WikiProject. This will facilitate inter-WikiProject collaboration and will help to reduce duplicated work. The Article Request Workshop is not entirely ready yet due to some bugs with Flow, but we hope to integrate it into our pilot WikiProjects at some point.

Harej (talk) 01:58, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

Talk:Kennewick Man

Could use some added eyes. Dougweller (talk) 21:02, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

Lothal FAR

I have nominated Lothal for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Delist" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:24, 30 April 2015 (UTC)

Paleo-Hebrew/Phoenician

Seeking any comments/opinions on a mild dispute regarding the Siloam_inscription, Paleo-Hebrew and Phoenician_alphabet. The article had described the inscription as Paleo-Hebrew since it's creation. Recently, User:Oncenawhile added Phoenician Alphabet as a qualifier after Paleo-Hebrew. I consider this to be unnecessary as Paleo-Hebrew is already defined as a variant of Phoenician and the inscription is routinely described as Hebrew/Ancient Hebrew (which denotes Phoenician characters) (http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/13662-siloam-inscription, http://www.livius.org/source-content/the-siloam-inscription/, https://web.archive.org/web/20140428204959/http://www.sacred-texts.com/ane/rp/rp201/rp20140.htm) The additional information, in my opinion, comes across as confusing (why not tag modern English writings as "Latin alphabet"? etc) To me it does not jive with standard encyclopedia practice. Any insight would be appreciated. Thanks Drsmoo (talk) 02:46, 29 April 2015 (UTC)

Thanks Drsmoo. My perspective on this is that the clarification is helpful because for more than half the time that the Siloam inscription has been known to modern scholars, its script was referred to exclusively as Phoenician. Use of the terminology "paleo Hebrew" for this artifact and other artifacts with the same script found within the borders of Israel started from the second half of the 20th century. Frankly neither term is perfect because both imply a relation to an ethnic group, without proof of that relationship. "Northwest Semitic script" is therefore quickly becoming more common in scholarly usage. Oncenawhile (talk) 16:47, 29 April 2015 (UTC)

The comment about it being referred to in the past exclusively as Phoenecian is both untrue and irrelevant. What's meaningful is how best to explain it now. The term paleo-hebrew is the most accurate description of the language used. Drsmoo (talk) 00:16, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

not knowing much, and not wishing to cause offence as there seems to be some religious overtones to the edges of this thread (not from you guys but I saw mention of religious scholars) having had a quick squint at the pages for Paleo-Hebrew alphabet, abjad, and Phoenician alphabet I'm wondering if this question is effectively a discussion on whether to merge the Paleo-Hebrew and Phoenician pages ? I think those articles all have some good content, and it might be possible to merge them (probably under the Phoenician alphabet) with Paleo Hebrew as a redirect to that.

Incidentally I see that paleo Hebrew article says it is "an abjad variation of the Phoenician", but the abjad article says that old Phoenician was a 'true abjad' - so it seems that if that's the case then paleo Hebrew would be "a variation of the abjad Phoenician" (not, "an abjad variation of the (implied 'non abjad'?) Phoenician") ? EdwardLane (talk) 06:56, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

Chetro Ketl Peer Review

Hello! I'd like to invite interested editors to comment at Wikipedia:Peer review/Chetro Ketl/archive1. Thanks! RO^(talk) 21:51, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

Where is this project in the Wikiproject directory?

Somebody helped me find this project because it looks as though it's not listed in the directory. I assume that it should be, so who can take care of that? RO^(talk) 18:59, 15 May 2015 (UTC)

Draft:Philippine Jade Artifacts

Any thoughts about this article at AFC? My comments are on the draft page. Thanks, Calliopejen1 (talk) 22:17, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

Laguna de Bay Archaeological Site

Could someone please take a look at this and see if it is viable? Many thanks.

User:Laguna de Bay Archaeological Site (now at Draft:Laguna de Bay Archaeological Site)

Anna Frodesiak (talk) 11:04, 21 May 2015 (UTC)

Discussion is taking place here. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 01:08, 22 May 2015 (UTC)

Invitation to Peer Review

I've had Wikipedia:Peer review/Chetro Ketl/archive1 up for a while now, but I still would like some more feedback before closing it in about two weeks. Thanks! RO^(talk) 19:03, 9 June 2015 (UTC)

WikiProject X Newsletter • Issue 4

Newsletter • May/June 2015

Hello friends! We have been hard at work these past two months. For this report:

The directory is live!

For the first time, we are happy to bring you an exhaustive, comprehensive WikiProject Directory. This directory endeavors to list every single WikiProject on the English Wikipedia, including those that don't participate in article assessment. In constructing the broadest possible definition, we have come up with a list of approximately 2,600 WikiProjects. The directory tracks activity statistics on the WikiProject's pages, and, for where it's available, statistics on the number of articles tracked by the WikiProject and the number of editors active on those articles. Complementing the directory are description pages for each project, listing usernames of people active on the WikiProject pages and the articles in the WikiProject's scope. This will help Wikipedians interested in a subject find each other, whether to seek feedback on an article or to revive an old project. (There is an opt-out option.) We have also come up with listings of related WikiProjects, listing the ten most relevant WikiProjects based on what articles they have in common. We would like to promote WikiProjects as interconnected systems, rather than isolated silos.

A tremendous amount of work went into preparing this directory. WikiProjects do not consistently categorize their pages, meaning we had to develop our own index to match WikiProjects with the articles in their scope. We also had to make some adjustments to how WikiProjects were categorized; indeed, I personally have racked up a few hundred edits re-categorizing WikiProjects. There remains more work to be done to make the WikiProject directory truly useful. In the meantime, take a look and feel free to leave feedback at the WikiProject X talk page.

Stuff in the works!

What have we been working on?

• A new design template—This has been in the works for a while, of course. But our goal is to design something that is useful and cleanly presented on all browsers and at all screen resolutions while working within the confines of what MediaWiki has to offer. Additionally, we are working on designs for the sub-components featured on the main project page.
• A new WikiProject talk page banner in Lua—Work has begun on implementing the WikiProject banner in Lua. The goal is to create a banner template that can be usable by any WikiProject in lieu of having its own template. Work has slowed down for now to focus on higher priority items, but we are interested in your thoughts on how we could go about creating a more useful project banner. We have a draft module on Test Wikipedia, with a demonstration.
• New discussion reports—We have over 4.8 million articles on the English Wikipedia, and almost as many talk pages as well. But what happens when someone posts on a talk page? What if no one is watching that talk page? We are currently testing out a system for an automatically-updating new discussions list, like RFC for WikiProjects. We currently have five test pages up for the WikiProjects on cannabis, cognitive science, evolutionary biology, and Ghana.
• SuggestBot for WikiProjects—We have asked the maintainer of SuggestBot to make some minor adjustments to SuggestBot that will allow it to post regular reports to those WikiProjects that ask for them. Stay tuned!
• Semi-automated article assessment—Using the new revision scoring service and another system currently under development, WikiProjects will be getting a new tool to facilitate the article assessment process by providing article quality/importance predictions for articles yet to be assessed. Aside from helping WikiProjects get through their backlogs, the goal is to help WikiProjects with collecting metrics and triaging their work. Semi-automation of this process will help achieve consistent results and keep the process running smoothly, as automation does on other parts of Wikipedia.

Want us to work on any other tools? Interested in volunteering? Leave a note on our talk page.

The WikiProject watchers report is back!

The database report which lists WikiProjects according to the number of watchers (i.e., people that have the project on their watchlist), is back! The report stopped being updated a year ago, following the deactivation of the Toolserver, but a replacement report has been generated.

Until next time, Harej (talk) 22:20, 17 June 2015 (UTC)

About the concept of Type or Typology

I have a question about the concept of Type or Typology

I think that the traditional concept in the old world(or not the United States Archaeological School) from the O.Montelius era is so different form the one of Unites States Archaeology.

Originally the concept of Montelius didn't include the different shape vessels(i.e. Bottle,Jar,etc.), but include only one vessles(ie.Only Jar). About the change of shpe (or adornment,etc.) of one Vessels(i.e.jar)from time to time, O.Montelius argued. This way is now using in the old world archaeology. Of course using "Type" concept of U.S's Archaeology , dpended on the archaeologist, it's school and the situation, if the site has not many complete or semi-complete vessels or is not investigated and accumulated the ceramic data, it can't use the traditional montelius Type concept. But, originally the Montelius's concept is very different form the U.S's Type copncept.

On the other hand, the traditional U.S's concept of Type(i.e.Southwestern archaeology) is very different from this concept of the Old Worldd Archaeology. In United States this concept include various vessel shapes from Bottle,Jar,etc. like as Krieger's concept or Gofford's Type-Variety concept. This concept across the various shape vessels.

I would like to hear the opinion about this theme.

Prehistoric Egypt renaming

A discussion has been initiated for Prehistoric Egypt to be moved to Predynastic Egypt, see the discussion at Talk:Prehistoric Egypt#Requested move 27 July 2015 -- 67.70.32.190 (talk) 07:39, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

Category:Predynastic_Egypt renaming

"Category:Predynastic Egypt]] has been proposed for renaming, see Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2015_July_27#Category:Predynastic_Egypt -- 67.70.32.190 (talk) 07:51, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

GT nom English Heritage properties in Somerset and FT nom Scheduled monuments in Somerset

Would anyone be willing to review a couple of nominations which are relevant to this project? I nominated English Heritage properties in Somerset as a good topic back in April and it has only received 2 comments, while Scheduled monuments in Somerset has been almost a month without any comments on its featured topic nomination. Any comments would be very welcome.— Rod ^talk 20:04, 2 July 2015 (UTC)

"Battlefield"

As battlefield archaeology is an article under your remit, you may be interested in the discussion about what the topic of "battlefield" is, at Draft talk:battlefield -- 67.70.32.190 (talk) 04:42, 18 July 2015 (UTC)

Category:Pseudoarchaeology should not be a child of Category:Pseudoscience

Pseudoarchaeology is a fringe type of archaeology, not fringe science, as archaeology in English speaking countries is not taught as a science but as part of humanities or social sciences. I tried to change this but was reverted, and have started a discussion at Category talk:Pseudoarchaeology. Doug Weller (talk) 15:40, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

Levantine Archaeology or Syro-Palestinian Archaeology?

There is an ongoing discussion at the Syro-Palestinian Archaeology talkpage over whether the current name fits as the WP:Commonname. The name of the article has continued to be a source of disagreement, additional examples include 2, 3, 4. An academic journal article wrote about Levantine Archaeology being a preferred term by individuals in the field. The article is here with a section of the relevant text being as follows:

Regardless of the manner in which the term has come into common use, for a couple of additional reasons it seems clear that the Levant will remain the term of choice. In the Àrst place scholars have shown a penchant for the term Levant, despite the fact that the term ‘Syria-Palestine’ has been advocated since the late 1970s. This is evident from the fact that no journal or series today has adopted a title that includes ‘Syria-Palestine’. However, the journal Levant has been published since 1969 and since 1990 Ägypten und Levante has also attracted a plethora of papers relating to the archaeology of this region. Furthermore, a search through any electronic database of titles reveals an overwhelming adoption of the term ‘Levant’ when compared to ‘Syria-Palestine’ for archaeological studies.

— Aaron Burke

I hope editors experienced in the field of archaeology will offer their opinions. Thank you. Drsmoo (talk) 19:01, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

Khaled al-Asaad

The distinguished Syrian archaeologist Khaled al-Asaad was recently murdered. At the moment, the article is mostly about his death, because that event is in the news and the news coverage readily accessible to non-experts. Any expert assistance to expand the article on him with more detail on his life and work would be greatly appreciated. -- The Anome (talk) 20:56, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

Windover Archeological Site

Please add to your watchlists and improve if possible - we've an IP citing Gavin Menzies to prove the bodies found there were European. Doug Weller (talk) 16:07, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

Is it promotional in archaeological articles to mention the university leading an excavation?

Please see Wikipedia Talk:What Wikipedia is not#Is it promotional in archaeological articles to mention the university leading an excavation?. Doug Weller (talk) 11:45, 7 September 2015 (UTC)

LIDAR pictures for English archaeological sites

Hi everyone! With the UK government releasing high-res (2m to 25cm) LIDAR data of most of England, it makes it possible to create images of archaeological sites that there are no other libre maps for.

I've just downloaded some data, and had a go (here for this hillfort), and though I don't think I've got the time or expertise to create hundreds of these, together we might be able to work out how to get the best quality images possible (and maybe make a small tutorial, which could continue to be useful as more LIDAR data from across the globe starts to become freely available).

I was wondering if there's any support out there for this, if any editors would be willing to maybe work together and come up with a list of half a dozen interesting sites, find the best way to get pictures of them from this data, and go from there. Let me know what you think :) ‑‑Yodin^T 12:45, 16 October 2015 (UTC)

P.S. It could actually be better to use these as the basis for SVG plans of the sites, to improve clarity. ‑‑Yodin^T 12:54, 16 October 2015 (UTC)

This is an interesting development and in principle I would like to see a lot more of this sort of data released under suitable licences. As far as the specific image on King's Castle, Wells I do not find it particularly useful to illustrate the layout of the site or identify relevant features, perhaps something with greater contrast between the raised earthworks and surrounding land would help to "see through" the trees to the remaining ground features.— Rod ^talk 15:02, 16 October 2015 (UTC)

Cheers Rodw: yes, agreed, and unfortunately this is without trees. I've now found other software that allows you to build 3D colourised models with the data, which will hopefully make it much clearer. Maybe there's another forum out there that is the best place to work out how to get high quality images, rather than hoping that an editor will know. ‑‑Yodin^T 12:44, 17 October 2015 (UTC)

WikiProject X Newsletter • Issue 5

Newsletter • October 2015

Hello there! Happy to be writing this newsletter once more. This month:

We did it!

In July, we launched five pilot WikiProjects: WikiProjects Cannabis, Evolutionary Biology, Ghana, Hampshire, and Women's Health. We also use the new design, named "WPX UI," on WikiProject Women in Technology, Women in Red, WikiProject Occupational Safety and Health. We are currently looking for projects for the next round of testing. If you are interested, please sign up on the Pilots page.

Shortly after our launch we presented at Wikimania 2015. Our slides are on Wikimedia Commons.

Then after all that work, we went through the process of figuring out whether we accomplished our goal. We reached out to participants on the redesigned WikiProjects, and we asked them to complete a survey. (If you filled out your survey—thank you!) While there are still some issues with the WikiProject tools and the new design, there appears to be general satisfaction (at least among those who responded). The results of the survey and more are documented in our grant report filed with the Wikimedia Foundation.

The work continues!

There is more work that needs to be done, so we have applied for a renewal of our grant. Comments on the proposal are welcome. We would like to improve what we have already started on the English Wikipedia and to also expand to Wikimedia Commons and Wikidata. Why those? Because they are multilingual projects and because there needs to be better coordination across Wikimedia projects. More details are available in the renewal proposal.

How can the Wikimedia Foundation support WikiProjects?

The Wikimedia Developer Summit will be held in San Francisco in January 2016. The recently established Community Tech team at the Wikimedia Foundation is interested in investigating what technical support they can provide for WikiProjects, i.e., support beyond just templates and bots. I have plenty of opinions myself, but I want to hear what you think. The session is being planned on Phabricator, the Wikimedia bug tracker. If you are not familiar with Phabricator, you can log in with your Wikipedia username and password through the "Login or Register: MediaWiki" button on the login page. Your feedback can help make editing Wikipedia a better experience.

Until next time,

Harej (talk) 09:03, 26 October 2015 (UTC)

Ice Age engravings found at Jersey archaeological site

This is relevant to UK archaeology.[36] Doug Weller (talk) 14:03, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

Reviews of fringe archaeology books in Antiquity Magazine

This is great - I ran across What Archaeologists Really Think About Ancient Aliens, Lost Colonies, And Fingerprints Of The Gods which mentions that section in Antiquity Magazine with 9 reviews of fringe books which are here. Doug Weller (talk) 16:47, 8 November 2015 (UTC)

Special prize about archaeology in a writing contest

Hello. I want to invite you to participate in a writing contest about three state museums in Madrid (Museum of Romaticism, Museo del Traje and National Archaeological Museum), from December 14, 2015 till January 14, 2016. There is a prize also for the participant with more points about the National Archaeological Museum of Spain. You can join it in every language. More information in GLAMing Madrid Challenge. Thanks. --Millars (talk) 00:47, 17 December 2015 (UTC)

Proposed article move from Syro-Palestinian archaeology to Levantine archaeology

There is a proposal to move from Syro-Palestinian archaeology to Levantine archaeology here. Your opinions would be welcome, thanks! Drsmoo (talk) 00:47, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

New project starting

I'm not quite sure where on the WikiProject Archaeology pages to post this. If there is a project area page where this may be more appropriate, please feel free to move it. While History of medicine has not been tagged as being of interest to your project, the related subarticle, Prehistoric medicine is. This article, in particular, currently has some very low quality references, and can greatly benefit from users familiar with current resources and the state of knowledge on the topic.

History of medicine. I'm proposing an overhaul of this article, both to improve the quality of its discussion of Western Medicine, and to improve its world view of other medical traditions in the rest of the world. All are welcome to join in the discussion. Hi-storian (talk) 23:36, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

Image request

I'm writing an article on the Shadewll Dock Forgeries, also known as Billy and Charlies. Crude, mid-nineteenth century forgeries of medieval artifacts (see British Museum catalogue entry), named after the two London men who manufactured several thousand of them. Today, they are collected as examples of folk art.

There are plenty of pictures of them, but I've been unable to find a copyright-free picture of one. Any suggestions? Catsmeat (talk) 13:08, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

Have you tried getting in touch with any of the museums which have them in their collections? If there's a Wikimedian in residence at any, they should be able to help. ‑‑Yodin^T 13:57, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

Assistance with creating an image to represent the Southern Levant?

The current Southern Levant article simply uses an image of the Levant as a whole. It would be preferable to have a specific image for the Southern Levant. Would anyone here be willing/able to assist in the creation of an image representing the Southern Levant specifically? Thank you Drsmoo (talk) 15:35, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

I've created a simple image here, it's based on an image that has appeared in the Hebrew, French and German wikipedias as a map of the Southern Levant. Any feedback or help sprucing it up would be appreciated, thanks! Drsmoo (talk) 03:45, 7 January 2016 (UTC)

It's minimalist, but looks good! Are parts of Lebanon/southern Syria also sometimes considered part of the Southern Levant? ‑‑Yodin^T 14:05, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

Levantine Archaeology

Syro-Palestinian archaeology was moved today to Levantine archaeology. Most content overlaps, but any help expanding the page would be appreciated. Some excellent sources are. The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology of the Levant and The Archaeology of the Levant in North America: The Transformation of Biblical and Syro-Palestinian Archaeology Drsmoo (talk) 06:25, 12 January 2016 (UTC)

WikiProject X Newsletter • Issue 6

Newsletter • January 2016

Hello there! Happy to be writing this newsletter once more. This month:

What comes next

Some good news: the Wikimedia Foundation has renewed WikiProject X. This means we can continue focusing on making WikiProjects better.

During our first round of work, we created a prototype WikiProject based on two ideas: (1) WikiProjects should clearly present things for people to do, and (2) The content of WikiProjects should be automated as much as possible. We launched pilots, and for the most part it works. But this approach will not work for the long term. While it makes certain aspects of running a WikiProject easier, it makes the maintenance aspects harder.

We are working on a major overhaul that will address these issues. New features will include:

• Creating WikiProjects by simply filling out a form, choosing which reports you want to generate for your project. This will work with existing bots in addition to the Reports Bot reports. (Of course, you can also have sections curated by humans.)
• One-click button to join a WikiProject, with optional notifications.
• Be able to define your WikiProject's scope within the WikiProject itself by listing relevant pages and categories, eliminating the need to tag every talk page with a banner. (You will still be allowed to do that, of course. It just won't be required.)

The end goal is a collaboration tool that can be used by WikiProjects but also by any edit-a-thon or group of people that want to coordinate on improving articles. Though implemented as an extension, the underlying content will be wikitext, meaning that you can continue to use categories, templates, and other features as you normally would.

This will take a lot of work, and we are just getting started. What would you like to see? I invite you to discuss on our talk page.

Until next time,

Harej (talk) 02:53, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

Mark Lehner

This has just been tagged, correctly IMHO, as a BLP with self-published sources. Needs some work. Doug Weller talk 14:56, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

Draft:The Museum of Underwater Archaeology

Dear archaeology experts: This draft is about an online collection of archaeology images. Is this a notable topic? If it's not edited it will disappear soon under db-g13.—Anne Delong (talk) 02:00, 4 February 2016 (UTC)

An AfD of interest here and confusion over what "Pre-Roman Iron Age" means

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Roman Iron Age. I got there from Talk:Pre-Roman_Iron_Age#Move_to_Pre-Roman_Iron_Age_of_Northern_Europe which could use comments from other editors. Our article on the Pre-Roman Iron Age suggests there wasn't one anywhere other than northern Europe. Doug Weller talk 15:07, 13 February 2016 (UTC)

I think this a case of editors from "northern Europe", who largely monopolize these articles (through lack of interest from others) taking terms that are fine in a clearly local/regional context, but need further specifying when turned into English and used as article titles. Btw, I have been giving articles such as Hallstatt culture, La Tène culture and Situla (vessel)/culture a going over and would welcome any comments, additions or corrections. Johnbod (talk) 17:22, 13 February 2016 (UTC)

Dates of Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (see Jericho wall, tower)

There is a 1500-year discrepancy between the PPNA dates given in 2008 by specialised archaeologists here, and the dates used by the WP articles on Pre-Pottery Neolithic A, Jericho, the Wall of Jericho and the Tower of Jericho: ≈11,500–10,500 cal B.P. vs. 8000 to 7000 BC. The PNAS article is referring specifically to the PPNA site at Dhra', but Jericho is only a stone throw away, so regional differences can hardly play a part. Or is it connected to calibrated carbon dates vs. what has become common dating standards? Thanks, ArmindenArminden (talk) 19:56, 19 February 2016 (UTC)

WikiProject X Newsletter • Issue 7

Newsletter • February 2016

This month:

One database for Wikipedia requests

Development of the extension for setting up WikiProjects, as described in the last issue of this newsletter, is currently underway. No terribly exciting news on this front.

In the meantime, we are working on a prototype for a new service we hope to announce soon. The problem: there are requests scattered all across Wikipedia, including requests for new articles and requests for improvements to existing articles. We Wikipedians are very good at coming up with lists of things to do. But once we write these lists, where do they end up? How can we make them useful for all editors—even those who do not browse the missing articles lists, or the particular WikiProjects that have lists?

Introducing Wikipedia Requests, a new tool to centralize the various lists of requests around Wikipedia. Requests will be tagged by category and WikiProject, making it easier to find requests based on what your interests are. Accompanying this service will be a bot that will let you generate reports from this database on any wiki page, including WikiProjects. This means that once a request is filed centrally, it can syndicated all throughout Wikipedia, and once it is fulfilled, it will be marked as "complete" throughout Wikipedia. The idea for this service came about when I saw that it was easy to put together to-do lists based on database queries, but it was harder to do this for human-generated requests when those requests are scattered throughout the wiki, siloed throughout several pages. This should especially be useful for WikiProjects that have overlapping interests.

The newsletter this month is fairly brief; not a lot of news, just checking in to say that we are hard at work and hope to have more for you soon.

Until next time,

Harej (talk) 01:44, 24 February 2016 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Margaret Murray/archive1

Hello everyone; there's an article languishing at FAC about Margaret Murray, a pioneering early archaeologist and folklorist. It doesn't seem to be capturing the attention of FAC reviewers (other than me)- if anyone has a few hours free, your comments would surely be welcomed by the article's author. Thanks, Josh Milburn (talk) 08:53, 27 February 2016 (UTC)

Excavation (archaeology) tagged as confusing, incomprehensible and too technical

The article was tagged a couple of days ago by an editor but with no comments on the talk page. I fixed a few things and removed the tags. They've been replaced, and the editor has added a sentence to the talk page he doesn't understand, saying there are many more. Anyone want to have a go? Doug Weller talk 16:17, 29 February 2016 (UTC)

And as that is from Stratication (archaeology) it needs fixing there first. Doug Weller talk 12:00, 1 March 2016 (UTC)

Article alerts

This project has a useful tool Wikipedia:WikiProject Archaeology/Article alerts that as far as I can tell is not linked anywhere from the project's pages. I suggest adding it either to this talk page or the main page, as a transcluded template, and I further suggest all project members should watchlist it. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 07:56, 18 March 2016 (UTC)

Indeed, it used to be included on the main page but it looks like it was lost (along with several other useful things) whenever this fancy tabbed design was put in. We'll try and find a new place for it.Joe Roe (talk) 12:49, 19 April 2016 (UTC)

Okay, I've just added it as a tab for now. Looking back, it might useful to reinstate a number of other sections (e.g. new page alerts, featured content) removed by User:PatHadley when they switched to the tabbed project page, but I think it'd take a bit of restructuring to fit them back in nicely. Joe Roe (talk) 14:50, 19 April 2016 (UTC)

WikiProject X Newsletter • Issue 8

Newsletter • March / April 2016

This month:

Transclude article requests anywhere on Wikipedia

In the last issue of the WikiProject X Newsletter, I discussed the upcoming Wikipedia Requests system: a central database for outstanding work on Wikipedia. I am pleased to announce Wikipedia Requests is live! Its purpose is to supplement automatically generated lists, such as those from SuggestBot, Reports bot, or Wikidata. It is currently being demonstrated on WikiProject Occupational Safety and Health (which I work on as part of my NIOSH duties) and WikiProject Women scientists.

Adding a request is as simple as filling out a form. Just go to the Add form to add your request. Adding sources will help ensure that your request is fulfilled more quickly. And when a request is fulfilled, simply click "mark as complete" and it will be removed from all the lists it's on. All at the click of a button! (If anyone is concerned, all actions are logged.)

With this new service is a template to transclude these requests: {{Wikipedia Requests}}. It's simple to use: add the template to a page, specifying article=, category=, or wikiproject=, and the list will be transcluded. For example, for requests having to do with all living people, just do {{Wikipedia Requests|category=Living people}}. Use these lists on WikiProjects but also for edit-a-thons where you want a convenient list of things to do on hand. Give it a shot!

Help us build our list!

The value of Wikipedia Requests comes from being a centralized database. The long work to migrating individual lists into this combined list is slowly underway. As of writing, we have 883 open tasks logged in Wikipedia Requests. We need your help building this list.

If you know of a list of missing articles, or of outstanding tasks for existing articles, that you would like to migrate to this new system, head on over to Wikipedia:Wikipedia Requests#Transition project and help out. Doing this will help put your list in front of more eyes—more than just your own WikiProject.

An open database means new tools

WikiProject X maintains a database that associates article talk pages (and draft talk pages) with WikiProjects. This database powers many of the reports that Reports bot generates. However, until very recently, this database was not made available to others who might find its data useful. It's only common sense to open up the database and let others build tools with it.

And indeed: Citation Hunt, the game to add citations to Wikipedia, now lets you filter by WikiProject, using the data from our database.

Are you a tool developer interested in using this? Here are some details: the database resides on Tool Labs with the name s52475__wpx_p. The table that associates WikiProjects with articles and drafts is called projectindex. Pages are stored by talk page title but in the future this should change. Have fun!

On the horizon

• The work on the CollaborationKit extension continues. The extension will initially focus on reducing template and Lua bloat on WikiProjects (especially our WPX UI demonstration projects), and will from there create custom interfaces for creating and maintaining WikiProjects.
• The WikiCite meeting will be in Berlin in May. The goal of the meeting is to figure out how to build a bibliographic database for use on the Wikimedia projects. This fits in quite nicely with WikiProject X's work: we want to make it easier for people to find things to work on, and with a powerful, open bibliographic database, we can build recommendations for sources. This feature was requested by the Wikipedia Library back in September, and this meeting is a major next step. We look forward to seeing what comes out of this meeting.

Until next time,

Harej (talk) 01:29, 20 April 2016 (UTC)

New article: Werehpai

Hi!

I recently started the above article about the Werehpai archaeological site in Suriname. I barely know anything about archaeology though, so I thought perhaps someone of this Wikiproject should take a look at it? Best regards, Fentener van Vlissingen (talk) 14:30, 20 April 2016 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Archaeological industry

Closed as redirect! Sometimes I despair. Johnbod (talk) 12:40, 17 March 2016 (UTC)

I saw your post-AfD comment. Sorry about not notifying this project; I suppose I expect experts to eventually show up at AfD discussions, but sometimes they don't. I will keep it in mind for the future. The article was really quite poor, just a nearly unsourced stub that didn't do a great job of explaining the concept. I interpret the closing decision as the redirect target being a better discussion of archaeological industry than the current article, not that there cannot be an article on this important topic. That is, deletion due to WP:TNT rather than WP:GNG. I'd certainly support turning the redirect into a properly sourced article. --Mark viking (talk) 19:44, 17 March 2016 (UTC)

I've recreated, expanded and referenced archaeological industry (will move to Industry (archaeology) shortly). Hopefully it'll stick this time. Joe Roe (talk) 14:32, 21 April 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for creating the article. This is a solidly referenced stub that should have no problem with deletion. It is much, much better than the original article. --Mark viking (talk) 19:33, 21 April 2016 (UTC)

Archaeological X articles

Moving archaeological industry to industry (archaeology) as suggested above turns out to be a bit of a rabbit hole. There are a number of awkward disambiguated article titles in that vein, e.g.:

• Archaeological site
• Archaeological sequence
• Archaeological field survey
• Archaeological context
• Archaeological plan
• Archaeological association
• Archaeological section
• Archaeological field survey

I think most if not all of these would be more naturally titled X (archaeology), because nobody says "Hey, I'm going to do an archaeological plan of this archaeological site to show the archaeological association between these archaeological contexts". Any objections to me moving them? Joe Roe (talk) 10:20, 22 April 2016 (UTC)

True, but equally they may come up more easily on searches as they are. And at least Archaeological context and Archaeological sequence, perhaps more, can come up as such, especially in more general writings. Lots of people don't like disam-ed titles, and I think lots of readers sort of blank them out. I'd be tempted just to ensuse that both styles have redirects, and are represented as appropriate on disam pages. And covering both spellings I suppose. As I said there, the successful Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Archaeological industry, which went through without an iota of archaeological expertise being brought to bear, was a remarkable cock-up, now rescued by Joe, and much improved. My complaint after the event that this project was not notified got a very snotty response from the nominator. Apparently it was all our fault!

I noticed at the new "industry" that Technocomplex was bolded as an alternative term, but did not in fact exist as a redirect to there or anywhere else (now set up). The same seems to be true for "locus" at the "context" article. Such things might be checked and redirects set up as necessary (alternative terms should only be bolded if they redirect to that article).

Archaeological phase might be added to the list.

Johnbod (talk) 12:08, 22 April 2016 (UTC)

Outlines of archaeology

We have two outlines of archaeology attached to this project page: Wikipedia:WikiProject Archaeology/Content on the past and Wikipedia:WikiProject Archaeology/Content on the discipline. But there's also an Outline of archaeology in article space. Is there any advantage in maintaining a separate outline for the project? Or can we merge them (and improve the somewhat neglected outline of archaeology in the process)? Joe Roe (talk) 15:26, 22 April 2016 (UTC)

@Joe Roe: My instinct is the other way round. I can no longer find it, but I remember reading on some of the WikiProject discussion threads that the 'Outline Pages' were legacies of the early days and were generally being deprecated. I would like to have more detail on the outlines I started here because I think it would help coordinate content across the project. But as I'm hardly editing at all at the moment I will happily defer to others. PatHadley (talk) 17:05, 22 April 2016 (UTC)

I do agree with that. Outlines seem like one of those articles that get started and then never properly maintained, but as you say they are very handy for WikiProjects. But would it be appropriate to redirect an article space page to a WikiProject? Joe Roe (talk) 17:10, 22 April 2016 (UTC)

Had a quick look round, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Outlines#Outlines and WikiProjects is interesting, especially Dbachmann's comment. I'm thinking keeping the outline here and abandoning Outline of archaeology would be the way to go – though I wonder if we could get away with merging the two separate outlines into one? Joe Roe (talk) 17:22, 22 April 2016 (UTC)

I dislike outlines in article space. Few people know about them and they often conflict with the main articles. I doubt that anyone updates them when a main article is changed. Doug Weller talk 18:27, 22 April 2016 (UTC)

Template:Infobox archaeological culture

Currently there's no param for adding an image, only a map. The docs mentions that the map field can be used for an illustrative image when there's no map, but adding a proper field for this is better. map_caption also seems like a good idea. See Micoquien for an article where this would be an improvement. jonkerz ♠talk 14:47, 24 April 2016 (UTC)

Input needed at Rhamnous

Specifically, the dedication of the smaller temple at the site. Mangoe (talk) 22:02, 3 May 2016 (UTC)

Merger proposal

Please feel free to comment at Talk:Valley of the Statues#Merger proposal – I think this article and San Agustín Archaeological Park are about the same subject and should be merged... I've been there and ought to know myself(!) but hopefully somebody on this WikiProject more knowledgeable than me will be able to confirm. Richard3120 (talk) 23:30, 26 May 2016 (UTC)

WikiProject X Newsletter • Issue 9

Newsletter • May / June 2016

Check out this month's issue of the WikiProject X newsletter, featuring the first screenshot of our new CollaborationKit software!

Harej (talk) 00:23, 25 June 2016 (UTC)

Looking for feedback on a tool on Visual Editor to add open license text from other sources

Hi all

I'm designing a tool for Visual Editor to make it easy for people to add open license text from other sources, there are a huge number of open license sources compatible with Wikipedia including around 9000 journals. I can see a very large opportunity to easily create a high volume of good quality articles quickly. I have done a small project with open license text from UNESCO as a proof of concept, any thoughts, feedback or endorsements (on the Meta page) would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

--John Cummings (talk) 14:52, 28 June 2016 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Southern Levant

There is currently a proposal to delete the article on the Southern Levant Drsmoo (talk) 00:38, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

Input requested at Southern Levant

Currently working to expand Southern Levant, particularly in the areas of geography and archaeology. Any help from editors knowledgeable int he field would be appreciated! Drsmoo (talk) 21:12, 25 July 2016 (UTC)

Category:Methods in archaeology

Category:Methods in archaeology has been nominated for deletion/conversion to a list, please see the discussion at CfD. Joe Roe (talk) 11:23, 31 July 2016 (UTC)

Template:Infobox ancient site

I have proposed that Template:Infobox ancient site be moved to Template:Infobox archaeological site. Please see the discussion on the template's talk page. Joe Roe (talk) 18:49, 31 July 2016 (UTC)

Nomination of Archaeological sequence for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Archaeological sequence is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Archaeological sequence 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 article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article. Joe Roe (talk) 07:11, 1 August 2016 (UTC)

Navigation template for prehistoric caves

I've asked at Template talk:Navbox#Copying/translating a template from another wiki for help creating an English copy of fr:Modèle:Palette Grottes ornées. I'm also trying to create an infobox for such caves, see User:Doug Weller/draft/Template:Prehistoric caves. Doug Weller talk 14:17, 24 July 2016 (UTC)

Great idea! I think I can help with the template stuff, see my reply att Template talk:Navbox#Copying/translating a template from another wiki. Joe Roe (talk) 19:14, 24 July 2016 (UTC)

Thanks very much. I'll start by looking for red links I can turn blue through translation, and headings. I'll leave other red links but try to find their English common name, as red links can be useful and some have articles on other language wikis we can translate. Doug Weller talk 14:56, 25 July 2016 (UTC)

Thanks to help from others, {{Navbox prehistoric caves}} now exists and we have at least 3 new prehistoric cave articles (or maybe only 2, I rewrote Spy Cave. Doug Weller talk 14:00, 4 August 2016 (UTC)

Women in archaeology task force

I've been slowly getting things together for a push on improving our coverage of women in archaeology at Women in archaeology task force (inspired by WP:WOMRED, WP:CSB, etc). I've populated Category:Women in archaeology articles (by adding a |women=yes parameter to {{WikiProject Archaeology}}), fleshed out WiR's archaeologist redlist and set up some milestones and basic metrics on the task force page.

My plans for the next steps are to:

• Assess all the articles
• Start ticking things off the redlist
• Try and get everything up to at least B-Class

So if anyone is interested in joining me in the effort, please take this as an open invitation. Joe Roe (talk) 14:04, 5 August 2016 (UTC)

Nomination of Ancestral health for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Ancestral health is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ancestral health 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 article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article. Joe Roe (talk) 18:39, 6 August 2016 (UTC)

New biography Douglas W. Schwartz

Could use quite a bit of amplification! And does anyone want to create an article for the Arroyo Hondo Pueblo site? Doug Weller talk 11:13, 7 August 2016 (UTC)

Turkey husbandry? I'm all over it. Joe Roe (talk) 17:17, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

Thanks. I was just too busy and am trying to finish adding thr prehistoric caves navbox, follow my watchlist, do the odd Arbitration stuff, etc. Doug Weller talk 18:59, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

References

One of your project's articles has been selected for improvement!

Hello, Please note that Archaeological record, which is within this project's scope, has been selected as one of Today's articles for improvement. The article was scheduled to appear on Wikipedia's Community portal in the "Today's articles for improvement" section for one week, beginning today. Everyone is encouraged to collaborate to improve the article. Thanks, and happy editing! Delivered by — MusikBot talk 00:10, 15 August 2016 (UTC) on behalf of the TAFI team

Funny, I stumbled across this just yesterday and thought it didn't have much of a hope beyond being a dictionary definition. Does anybody have any ideas on what we can add? Joe Roe (talk) 09:54, 15 August 2016 (UTC)

Well, you seem to have found the answer yourself! Well done. It gets 40-50 views pd, so worth it. Johnbod (talk) 13:56, 15 August 2016 (UTC)

Well I fleshed out the definition and theory, but I'm not sure where to go from there. I don't think people particularly want to *read* articles about terminology and theory, so it would be nice to include more substantive sections on what's in the archaeological record, how we get it, etc. – but would that be duplicating content elsewhere? Joe Roe (talk) 14:29, 15 August 2016 (UTC)

It seems plenty long enough - I'd just give examples, and pictures, both with links for further exploration. Johnbod (talk) 14:33, 15 August 2016 (UTC)

Merger discussion for Dating methodologies in archaeology

An article that you have been involved in editing—Dating methodologies in archaeology—has been proposed for merging with Chronological dating. If you are interested, please participate in the merger discussion. Thank you. Joe Roe (talk) 10:35, 18 August 2016 (UTC)

Problem with Iron Age

Please chime in at Talk:Iron Age#Use of tertiary sources from the 19th century. Thanks. Doug Weller talk 05:49, 23 August 2016 (UTC)

Deletion sorting

I've created a category for archaeology at deletion sorting. Since articles up for deletion are often not tagged and therefore don't show up in our article alerts, and people are spotty at best about notifying WikiProjects, I thought it might be a helpful tool. Joe Roe (talk) 09:47, 23 August 2016 (UTC)

Thanks. I didn't know that they didn't often show up in our article alerts. Useful. Doug Weller talk 10:53, 23 August 2016 (UTC)

Copyright violations

Hi, I checked 2 of the sources for Obi-Rakhmat Grotto after editing the article; unfortunately, I discovered that many of the sentences in the article were copied directly or almost directly from the 2 sources checked. I suspect the bulk of the article might suffer from the same problem, since the core of the article is primarily the work of one author. I think this article probably needs to be re-worked completely. Fraenir (talk) 11:52, 24 August 2016 (UTC)

Example from Glantz 2008:

• Article (pre-edit): "Carnivore remains are rare. Evidence of human modification of the bones, including cut marks, conchoidal impact scars, and burning, is consistently present. The lithic artifacts and faunal remains recovered at Obi-Rakhmat suggest that the site was repeatedly used by hominins as a short-term hunting and butchery station"
• Source: "Evidence of human modification of the bones, including cut marks, conchoidal impact scars, and burning, is consistently present. By contrast, carnivore remains are quite rare, and the near absence of gnawing and digestion marks on the bones implies minimal carnivore activity at the site (Wrinn, 2004). The lithic artifacts and faunal remains recovered at Obi-Rakhmat suggest that the site was repeatedly used by humans as a short-term hunting and butchery station."

Example from Krause 2007:

• Article (pre-edit): "These absence of deep mtDNA divergence, shows that central Asian, Caucasian and European Neanderthals were not separated for a long time, suporting the view that central Asia (most of the Russian plains) was relatively recently colonized by Neanderthals, maybe not before an exceptionally warm episode 125,000 years ago (MIS 5e) ... The presence of the Neanderthals so far in Siberia, raises the possibility their presence even farther to the east, maybe till Mongolia and China"
• Source: "However, the fact that no deep mtDNA divergence is seen between the central Asian Neanderthals and European and Caucasian Neanderthals shows that they were not separated for a long time. This supports the view that central Asia was colonized relatively recently by Neanderthals 26 . In fact, it has been suggested that Neanderthals did not colonize most of the Russian plains before an exceptionally warm episode 125,000 years ago ... Intriguingly, their presence in southern Siberia raises the possibility that they may have been present even farther to the east, in Mongolia and China."

Archaeological Sites of Exceptional Importance

This is actually about Serbian sites with the highest protection status. Clearly needs a rename. suggestions? Doug Weller talk 20:08, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

There is also Archaeological Sites of Great Importance (Serbia). I am no expert. Perhaps merge both into Protected archaeological sites in Serbia? --Mark viking (talk) 00:07, 3 September 2016 (UTC)

That might be confusing because "Protected Archaeological Sites" is a third legal category. Template:Cultural Heritage of Serbia lists twelve different categories of protection (we're missing articles on two). We could merge them all into the parent article Cultural Heritage of Serbia, or List of cultural heritage sites in Serbia or something, but some of the individual lists are quite long (and apparently there are 2,458 in total). I'd suggest just moving them (back) to their current titles with (Serbia) at the end. Joe Roe (talk) 00:29, 3 September 2016 (UTC)

(N.B. there's an inactive Wikipedia:WikiProject Cultural Heritage of Serbia that seems to have created and previously maintained all of these.) Joe Roe (talk) 00:36, 3 September 2016 (UTC)

I was not aware of that legal category. Given the legal nuances and the lengths of the lists, your suggestion makes good sense. --Mark viking (talk) 00:33, 3 September 2016 (UTC)

 Done The redirects were a bit of a mess, but I think I've moved them all. Joe Roe (talk) 18:32, 4 September 2016 (UTC)

Great, thank you. --Mark viking (talk) 20:29, 4 September 2016 (UTC)

TfD of Template:Navbox prehistoric caves

Template:Navbox prehistoric caves, which a few of us from the project have been working on, has been nominated for deletion. See the discussion at Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2016 September 7#Template:Navbox prehistoric caves. Joe Roe (talk) 18:23, 7 September 2016 (UTC)

City Cimmerian people

A good faith new article but needs a better name. There's also an attempt to state that this is the city Homer wrote about when he wrote "So she came to the deep flowing Ocean that surrounds the earth, and the city and country of the Cimmerians"[37]. I've just reverted this from Timeline of ancient history. Doug Weller talk 13:04, 8 September 2016 (UTC)

Women in archaeology online editathon in October

You are invited...
	Women in Architecture & Women in Archaeology editathons Hosted by Women in Red - October 2016 - #wikiwomeninred

--Ipigott (talk) 15:07, 24 September 2016 (UTC) (To subscribe, Women in Red/Invite list. Unsubscribe, Women in Red/Opt-out list)

@Doug Weller and Joe Roe: Perhaps you could forward this to anyone you think might be interested.--Ipigott (talk) 15:13, 24 September 2016 (UTC)

@Ipigott: This is great! Thanks so much for organising it. I don't know who's in control of the @WikiWomenInRed twitter account, but it might be an idea to tweet @trowelblazers to get the word out. Joe Roe (talk) 13:01, 28 September 2016 (UTC)

@Joe Roe: Glad to see you're interested. I'll forward this to Victuallers who is our Twitter Tweeter and will soon be back from his holidays. Anything you can do in the meantime to alert active editors interested in archaeology would be greatly appreciated.--Ipigott (talk) 13:54, 28 September 2016 (UTC)

Purposes of causewayed enclosures

I'm sure I wrote an essay about this once but that was in another galaxy far away and alas the wench is dead. Or in other words, ideas have advanced since then and it's lost anyway. Someone wants to delete the section in this poor article. See Talk:Causewayed enclosure#Remove Function Section?. I have too many projects on the (back) burners to handle this one. I went out (to Amazon) and bought some books on cave art and haven't even opened them yet! Doug Weller talk 18:49, 9 October 2016 (UTC)

Undiscussed split of significant article

Most of Pottery of ancient Greece has been moved off to a new Ancient Greek vase painting (formerly a redirect to the other). I've made my views on this clear at this talk page section. Comments from others are invited. Johnbod (talk) 12:27, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

Deletion discussion for Category:Ancient lost cities and towns

I proposed this for deletion but I now think the real problem is the ambiguity in the title. We could use some comments at the deletion discussion at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2016 November 10#Category:Ancient lost cities and towns. Doug Weller talk 21:36, 10 November 2016 (UTC)

TAG 2016 Conference

Hi all, slightly off topic and a little "social" but hopefully you can forgive me - this is just a quick note that the annual Theoretical Archaeology Group conference takes place this December in Southampton. Is anyone here thinking of going? -- samtar ^{talk or stalk} 20:32, 14 November 2016 (UTC)

Category:Archaeological corpora is being discussed for deletion

Just an FYI in response to an earlier request to notify this project of deletion discussions relevant to archaeology. The discussion is taking place at Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2016_November_21#Category:Archaeological_corpora. --Mark viking (talk) 20:23, 21 November 2016 (UTC)

Corinthian Chytra

I wolud like to submit this image for your attention; it might be interesting to insert a date into this caption (as well as into the file description page on Commons). I was not able to find out more about the Chytra in general; perhaps a redirect page could be helpful. --Pegasovagante (talk) 08:51, 28 November 2016 (UTC)

What's with the blobby black detailing? It looks like someone tried to restore it with a sharpie (or MS Paint)? Joe Roe (talk) 13:09, 28 November 2016 (UTC)

New book on rock art

New book, maybe relevant for rock art or a new article (I can't find an article on the Pecos mural but didn't look too hard): The White Shaman Mural: An Enduring Creation Narrative in the Rock Art of the Lower Pecos by Carolyn E. Boyd with Kim Cox, 2016, University of Texas Press. Jodi.a.schneider (talk) 15:53, 28 November 2016 (UTC)

Archaeological corpora

Please join the deletion discussion in Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2016_November_21#Category:Archaeological_corpora. Marcocapelle (talk) 07:27, 29 November 2016 (UTC)

Palestine Exploration Quarterly

Hi! Does anyone know if Palestine Exploration Quarterly would be considered a major journal in the field of archaeology? It is peer reviewed but I personally would describe it as a minor journal. Gaia Octavia Agrippa ^Talk 22:44, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

I think you could call it major. It's one of the oldest archaeological journals and associated with the PEF, so gets prestige from that, and it's certainly amongst the top tier of journals in Near Eastern archaeology. Joe Roe (talk) 02:41, 1 December 2016 (UTC)

Glossary of archaeology

I've started a glossary of archaeology to help with those odd technical terms that need explanation but don't necessarily merit an article. Any help expanding it would be much appreciated! Joe Roe (talk) 01:58, 20 December 2016 (UTC)