Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Archaeology

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Saltovo-Mayaki

u7a4 did not found in Belgorod Oblast like the editor is saying. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saltovo-Mayaki

'A genetic study published in Nature in May 2018 examined three males of the Saltovo-Mayaki culture buried in Belgorod Oblast, Russia between ca. 700 AD and 900 AD.[3] The sample of Y-DNA extracted belonged to haplogroup R1.[4] The three samples of mtDNA extracted belonged to the haplogroups I, J1b4 and #Haplogroup U7|U7a4.[5]

The mtDNA that have been extracted from Belgorod Oblast belonged to haplogroups I (i4a) and D4m2 and not U7'U7a4.

Haplogroup mtDNA U5 been found among Saltovo-Mayaki but not in Belgorod Oblast.

Birka female Viking warrior

I have been working on the article on the Birka female Viking warrior, and I am trying to put more information from academic sources instead of newspapers. I could use the help of someone with more knowledge of archaeology and DNA analysis. I am not sure how to include the information about the population comparison from the study. It seems to be saying that she was northern European, but the jargon is not clear to me. I am also unsure of the title. It seems to have a NPOV problem, as the identification of her as a warrior is controversial. How are similar articles usually named? Tinynanorobots (talk) 10:58, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

I am currently an Archeology Major, and your article was a great read. The details you put into talking about what she was buried with really dipicts the type of warrior she was. [[User:Krobich2 (talk) 02:50, 2 March 2024 (UTC)Krobich2|Krobich2]] (talk) 02:49, 2 March 2024 (UTC)Krobich2 (talk) 02:48, 2 March 2024 (UTC)

Requested move

Please note the RM for this article: Talk:Birka_female_Viking_warrior#Requested_move_25_November_2023. – Joe (talk) 08:12, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

"Groups"

This Category:Archaeological artefact groups, does it make sense? Is "groups" a proper description of these articles? What inclusion criteria would apply? Marcocapelle (talk) 12:21, 23 February 2024 (UTC)

I see most of the articles in that category are about "wares", which is a restricted set of artefacts. There a number of terms used to name collections of artefacts that appear to have a common source: "traditon" (i.e., Cochise tradition), "culture" (i.e., Poverty Point culture), and "complex" (i.e., Old Copper complex) are used in the titles of a number of Wikipedia articles, "period" (i.e., Mount Taylor period), "pattern" (i.e., Post Pattern), "horizon" (i.e., Millingstone Horizon), and "focus" (i.e., Goodall focus) are less frequent. Do you have a suggestion for a better term? "Assemblages" is used in the literature for sets of artefacts collected from a single site, so that doesn't cover what are usually called "traditions" or "cultures". Maybe someone else knows of a better term. Donald Albury 16:00, 23 February 2024 (UTC)

I was asked at my talk, & replied: :Not much [sense] - I mean I can see the idea, but.... There is also Category:Archaeological artefact types - arrow, adze & so on. That's much better populated; the "groups" should either have about x10 the members, or probably nothing. I must confess I find it irritating that our archaeological editors tend to only categorize their stuff in archaeology trees, and not in the wider categories for the type of thing. Also I'm not aware that "group" has a particular meaning in A - or one that would be right for these. Pottery wares are more a "type", I'd say, with "group" being a much small number of distinctive finds. None of the articles in the cat use "group" I think, while several use "type" and/or "style". Are you asking the wikiproject? Some sensible people there. Johnbod (talk) 15:21, 19 February 2024 (UTC) copied Johnbod (talk) 16:30, 23 February 2024 (UTC)

Begazy-Dandybai culture and Talish-Mughan culture

It seems to me that these titles should use endash rather than hyphen as the two elements are independent and equal, per WP:ENDASH. Any thoughts? Colonies Chris (talk) 18:47, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

As there have been no objections, I've gone ahead and made the changes. Colonies Chris (talk) 21:41, 22 March 2024 (UTC)

Proposed redraft of an article on a medieval castle

Hi folks, I've drafted an article where I have a conflict of interest to manage. The situation is outlined at Talk:Lowther Castle Stead, explaining the COI, and there's a link to my sandbox where I prepared the daft. The current article is just a handful of sentences long. I'd welcome any feedback on the article to check it for neutrality and tone. Richard Nevell (talk) 21:58, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

Category:Precolumbian archaeologists

A new IP editor has been adding this category to various articles, such as Toribio Mejía Xesspe. One problem is that the category doesn't exist; the other is, it doesn't really fit with the present scheme of archaeologist categories, which seem to be done more by country or region. All of the articles they are tagging are South American; to me, "Precolumbian" could refer to anywhere in the Americas. It isn't a terrible idea to have a category for South America in "Category:Archaeologists by region of study", or even perhaps to divide it into pre- and post-Columbian categories. Do people have suggestions about how to rationalize the categories? Or should we just delete their changes, or create the new category and live with the hodgepodge? Brianyoumans (talk) 22:16, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

The wide, spreading tree of Category:Archaeologists has many mighty limbs, including "by region of study" and "by period of study", so I don't see why we shouldn't have one (perhaps we do somewhere). We have 35 in Category:Phoenician-punic archaeologists. We have 91 in Category:Mesoamerican archaeologists, and cats for "Californian" and "of Baja California". Johnbod (talk) 23:10, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

Indeed there's Category:Archaeologists by period of study, where a new Category:Precolumbian archaeologists would fit perfectly. – Joe (talk) 15:47, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

Archaeology of the U.S. and by U.S. state

I noticed there is a severe lack of standalone archaeology articles for each U.S. state/territory (and not one for the U.S. as a whole). Shouldn't this be remedied—especially for states with heavy on the archaeological study? The only standalone article I could find was Archaeology of Iowa, and the only list-class is List of archaeological sites in Tennessee. Most Archaeology of X pages redirect to that state's history or prehistory article. None make any mention of historiography. There's a golden opportunity here for content creation and expansion if anyone is interested; I am going to do ones for South Dakota, and perhaps as a project we can consider making a breakout article at Archaeology of the United States (which currently redirects to Archaeology of the Americas). – TCMemoire 16:32, 8 April 2024 (UTC).

@TCMemoire: See also archaeology by country – there's red all over the place. – Joe (talk) 15:45, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

@Joe Roe: Good point, and many of those redirect to history articles or even categories... Archaeology (and the historiography of it) seems to truly be a massive hole in the Wiki's coverage as a whole. This would be a huge undertaking but an important one. Maybe we could make this a focus of the WikiProject, and perhaps interest other folks from other projects to help out? Something like an edit-a-thon? – TCMemoire 20:36, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

Imo modern political boundaries are a poor way of dividing up archaeology, especially sub-national ones. Johnbod (talk) 23:03, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

I agree. I am aware of a couple or so sources covering archaeology in Florida, and their coverage of topics that are not confined to Florida is truncated at the state line. I think it would be more useful to write about "schools" of archaeology. Sometimes, national boundaries do separate approaches to archaeology, but I think it would be rare to find such differences between states in the US. Donald Albury 23:52, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

(ec)Yes; I'll allow exceptions like "A of Hawaii" or Alaska, but generally achie cultures span several states, and a section in "History of Foo" is probably best. User:Wetman used to talk scornfully of Dinosaurs of Minnesota - whether this actually ever existed I don't know. I'd say the same for flora and fauna articles. Johnbod (talk) 09:00, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

I agree that the US states are not a priority. But the situation there is a bit special, with them being recent creations of a colonial power. In Europe and West Asia, dividing the archaeological record along national lines is the rule rather than the exception. – Joe (talk) 08:59, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

It is? Italy, Turkey & maybe Spain, but not Ireland, German-speaking countries, the Low countries or Scandinavia. Nearly all modern countries except Egypt are "recent creations" really. Obviously much detailed records of sites etc are done nationally, but the kind of overviews our articles should be involve trans-national cultures. Johnbod (talk) 09:09, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

I suppose it depends on what type of coverage you're talking about. If you want to describe how e.g. the Ertebølle culture gave way to Funnelbeaker, then I agree that'd be better off in something like Prehistoric Scandinavia. If you want to talk about the history of the discipline, key figures, institutions and legal frameworks, sites of particular heritage value, etc., then I think you'd have a much easier time separating the archaeology of Denmark from the archaeology of Sweden. Also in West Asia: Ancient Levant, but archaeology of Jordan and archaeology of Syria, and so on. Don't know about further afield. – Joe (talk) 09:30, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

That sort of article should be "A in Foo" rather than "A of Foo", imo, the latter covering the stuff found and the former the people finding it. Johnbod (talk) 09:39, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

I agree, but I took a look through all the existing archaeology and prehistory of/in articles recently and didn't find a single one that consistently made that distinction. Since we have so few, I figure it makes sense to start building coverage in one article (archaeology of seems the most common) and then split if needed later. – Joe (talk) 09:46, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

What is a "homestead moat"?

I know what a Motte and bailey is, but am struggling with the term "homestead moat". This is relevant to my draft User:Doug Weller/Pinxton Castle which at the moment calls it both a motte and bailey and and a moated site. This source[1] seems almost confused as I am at the moment, using both terms and saying " The earthworks have been identified as a possible motte and bailey, but the evidence for this, both from the earthworks and excavated evidence, is very weak. It is best regarded as a homestead moat on the available evidence." See [2]which also uses both terms and says " It is termed 'Moat' on the Ordnance Survey map, but it is certainly not to be included under Homestead Moats'." Not a lot of help.:) There's also this.[3] There's certainly a moat there. Some images at User talk:Doug Weller#My draft User:Doug Weller/Pinxton Castle - I must go take another look before it gets overgrown again as it's only a few minutes drive from home. Thanks. Doug Weller talk 15:40, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

Hi. The below papers should help with with the term "homestead moat". One has a PDF linked to it. I will see what can find for the other two.

Johnson, E., 2017. Moated sites in the Wealden landscape. Lived Experience in the Later Middle Ages: Studies of Bodiam and Other Elite Sites in South‐East England, pp.158-170.

Platt, C., 2010. The homestead moat: security or status?. Archaeological Journal, 167(1), pp.115-133.

Williams, A., 1946. A homestead moat at Nuthampstead, Hertfordshire. The Antiquaries Journal, 26(3-4), pp.138-144. Paul H. (talk) 20:55, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

Thanks Paul, they look useful. Doug Weller talk 21:02, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

I can help with access to PDFs of the latter two, but the first one that Paul linked to probably has what you need: The term ‘homestead moat’ has been given to the sites that fall under a lower-status category [7 references]. However, the use of the term ‘homestead moat’ is ambiguous. It often does not differentiate between what may be a peasant’s dwelling place, a lesser manorial centre or even an ecclesiastical centre.

The National Heritage List for England has descriptions for various 'asset types'. 'Homestead moat' isn't in the list, but 'homestead' and 'palisaded homestead' are:

HOMESTEAD — A small settlement, usually consisting of one dwelling with ancillary buildings.

PALISADED HOMESTEAD — A small, defensive settlement, usually consisting of one dwelling and ancillary buildings, surrounded by a palisade.

So reasonably homestead moat (or moated homestead) would be "A small, defensive settlement, usually consisting of one dwelling and ancillary buildings, surrounded by a moat." Richard Nevell (talk) 21:59, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

Transgender archaeology

I started a page for this research area, since its distinct from queer archaeology and more specific than gender archaeology Lajmmoore (talk) 11:57, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

I am curious what that topic would cover. I know there are occasional findings that do not fit the traditional division of labor narratives, such as a woman being buried with armor and weapons, but how much discussion has there been in reliable sources describing such as "transgender"? We have to be careful about projecting modern concepts onto historical or archaeological evidence, and must rely on solid reliable sources. Donald Albury 16:47, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

I agree, which is why I thought starting an article that provides an short introduction to subject, as well as providing links to a wide range of papers across periods would be useful for everyone curious Lajmmoore (talk) 17:33, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

San Pedro Mountains Mummy

Hi all. Eyes needed here, given bizarre its an alien type conspiracy theories. Joe and Doug, ye are good at dealing with with this stuff, would appreciate help. Ceoil (talk) 21:49, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

There endless number of web pages about the "Pedro Mountain Mummy" of Wyoming. Two of the more interesting are "The Tall, But True, Tale Of A Little Mummy Discovered In Wyoming, Now Lost In Time", Jack Nichols, Cowboy State Daily, June 17, 2023, and The Pedro Mountain Mummy by the Wyoming Historical Society. The latter is cited in the Wikipedia article and has a bibliography of primary and secondary sources. The Wyoming Historical Society concluded: "The mummy,..., would be subject to the Native American Graves and Repatriation Act as it is almost certainly the body of an American Indian child taken from a grave."

Paul H. (talk) 04:06, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

Hi folks, I found this after checking to see whether Ceoil had edited since I raised the issue on the article talk page. I rewrote this article so it looked like this. (The previous version reflected an injudicious expansion in its text.) I do not understand why Ceoil cut so much from the article (cumulative change after reinstatement of a couple of refs by a bot). I can see some justification for introducing a section titled Theories, but the Wyoming Historical Society source among others makes clear that the interpretations are intertwined with the history, and the cuts have removed the scientific analysis of the mummy that is the basis for the statement in the intro that it's an anencephalic baby, and lots more beside, even who "Gill" is. And I thought I'd done a pretty good job of rewriting it from references, leaning most heavily on the Wyoming History Society one. Rather than revert, I'm struggling to understand so as to avoid whatever flaws the article had after my rewrite. (And thanks very much for the Nichols source, Paul H..) Doug Weller, Ceoil may have meant you, and I was considering pinging you to the talk page, but judging from your edits to the article and its talk page, and the thanks you gave me for my initial large edit, you have it watchlisted. Is the underlying concern one of notability/hoax? If so, I think the removals have worsened the situation rather than improved it, but I found sufficient sources to be entirely satisfied that it's received significant coverage outside the Fortean/fringe communities. And Ceoil didn't cut the material on the second mummy. If I mucked this up, please tell me. Yngvadottir (talk) 08:09, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

I just happened to see this, I'm not a regular member here, but... it looks to me like you didn't really mess up. I do agree that the sentence about the second mummy was not germane to the subject, but other than that, I don't think the changes made to what you did were improvements.Brianyoumans (talk) 15:08, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

Yngvadottir, ugh I messed up here, had read the article literately the day before you cleaned it up, and in a late at night edit removed paragraphs that that had been dodgy before your edits. To be clear the work since has resolved my concerns. So thanks :) Ceoil (talk) 19:59, 27 April 2024 (UTC)

New List on Archaeologically Attested Women

Our class developed a new list on archaeologically attested women for a WikiEdu project. I added it to the Project:Archaeology using our List's talk page, but is there something else we need to do to get it linked over here? It's also been added to the Category:Archaeology.

Here it is: [of Archaeologically Attested Women from the Ancient Mediterranean Region] --EtruscanMayhem (talk) 21:08, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

Hi EtruscanMayhem. What a great idea, thanks for letting us know about it. The {{WikiProject Archaeology}} template you put on the talk page marks the article as of interest to this project and is all that's needed. – Joe (talk) 13:49, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

Great, thanks! EtruscanMayhem (talk) 13:56, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

Amnya complex

Hello all. The article on Amnya complex describes it as the oldest fort in the world. I've suggested a change of wording on the talk page, in case anyone would like to contribute their thoughts on how to phrase the claims. Richard Nevell (talk) 19:44, 30 April 2024 (UTC)