Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Archaeology

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plan of the stonehenge site This article is part of WikiProject Archaeology, an attempt to build a comprehensive and detailed guide to archaeology on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, you can edit the article attached to this page, or visit the project page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion.

Contents

[edit] Science pearls

Hello, Please notice this project. I hope that a new list for archaeology will becreated and adopted by the archeology porject. Thanks,APH 06:27, 13 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Articles for the Wikipedia 1.0 Project

Hi, I'm a member of the Wikipedia:Version_1.0_Editorial_Team, which is looking to identify quality articles in Wikipedia for future publication on CD or paper. We recently began assessing using these criteria, and we are looking for A-Class and good B-Class articles, with no POV or copyright problems. As you note on your main project page, archaeology is one of our 100-200 "core topic" articles, and it was assessed as A-class (though a couple more pictures might help it nicely). Can you recommend any other articles on archaeology? Besides Art in Ancient Greece, are there any other featured articles in this area?. Please post your suggestions here. Cheers, Walkerma 05:41, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Category Cleanup

I have been working in Category:Archaeological sites and its derivatives to make sure that articles are in the most specific category they qualify for. This is not being limited to significant sites, but significant sites may be listed in higher level categories also. Pschemp | Talk 05:07, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Cultural Heritage Management

I've done some general and POV tidying on Cultural resources management. This article is categorized as archaeological sub-disciplines. Should I just add the project archaeology tag to its discussion page? Not sure how it works in terms of bringing existing articles under the project banner? Viv Hamilton 21:02, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Archaeological looting in Iraq

Hello. I've just begun reading and quite thoroughly enjoying Roger Atwood's "Stealing History." Thus, I will probably in the near future be creating and editing quite a number of pages on various aspects of the looting problem. I was hoping to ask for some help in expanding and improving both my article on Archaeological looting in Iraq and on mentioning the looters and the effects of their actions on the article pages of the individual archaeological sites. Thanks. LordAmeth 00:57, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] List of archaeological periods

I have renamed and restructured these articles - so we now have a formal Levantive article, North American article and a start of one for Mesoamerica. :: Kevinalewis : (Talk Page) 12:43, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] List of Indo-European languages

Hi, User:Kintetsubuffalo just put a tag on Talk:List of Indo-European languages identifying it as part of this WikiProject. That seems misplaced since it's just a list of languages and has nothing at all to do with archaeology. Proto-Indo-Europeans might be of interest to this WikiProject, though. Angr (talk • contribs) 21:12, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Archaeological sub-disciplies

In the list of articles, I've added Landscape archaeology and Urban archaeology under archaeological practice, and moved Maritime archaeology to that group. These are all categorised as archaeological sub-disciples. If anyone has any better thoughts on how they should be listed please improve! Viv Hamilton 10:49, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] proposed merging Archaeoinformation science into Computational archaeology

I proposed merging archaeoinformation science into computational archaeology, which is part of this WikiProject. The discussion is at Talk:computational archaeology. Joriki 06:50, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

There is or ought to be a subtle differentiation between the two. Computational archaeology should mean number crunching i.e. all the various computationally intense analyses and computer models that support archaeological research. Archeoinformation science wouldn't necessarily include the mathematical modelling implicit in computational modelling, but should include the management of (unstructured) information such as archaeological reports. I'm not sure the difference is strong enough to support having two articles, but if anything I would suggest keeping information science as the main term Viv Hamilton 08:53, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] WikiProject Mesoamerica

Hi all, this to advise of a recently-developed WikiProject which would be related to this one, namely WikiProject Mesoamerica. This project has as its scope the improvement in content and coverage of articles etc relating to the region and its historical cultures and civilizations. Archaeology is of course one discipline which provides information on Mesoamerican topics, however other disciplines such as history, geography, anthropology, linguistics, epigraphy etc are relevant to the project also. Cross-collaboration and participation is invited, anyone interested in the archaeology (or other fields) of this particular region is welcome to look around the project's pages and contribute (Note that there's also a sub-project, WikiProject Aztec, in operation as well, looking at Aztec-specific material.) Regards, --cjllw | TALK 08:27, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Historical archaeology

hi everyone, I just joined today. I'not a native speaker and a complete novice to working with Wikipedia, so I apologise for the enormous amount of mistakes I'm bound to make either in English or at Wikipedia ;-).

I noticed that there's no mention of Historical Archaeology untill now, unless you count the mainly British way of captioning this under Post-Medieval archaeology. Americans, Australians and a lot of Europeans call it Historical Archaeology however. Maybe an idea to add the alternative term to this subject?

I miss the Historical Archaeology mentioned in the regional archaeology subcategories of North America as well as South America. At the moment it's "indians" galore, visitors of these wikipages might come to the conclusion that no other research areas have been studied. A lot of people (f.i. James Deetz, Leone, Kathleen Deagan) have been carrying out historical archaeology in the America's. Why not pay attention to their research?

I miss the very well established African American archaeology and Caribbean archaeology as separate sub-categories within the regional divison. I do understand that you might want to categorise them under the regions North and South America, but I think this is unwise. The main argument against placing African American Archaeology under North America: - African-American people do not only live in North Americaq, but in Meso-America, the Caribbean and South America as well. In each of these regions special attention has been given to the archaeological research of African-American peoples.

Caribbean archaeology has a very distinctive research history when compared to the other regions to the south, west and north. Broadly one can state that only the last few decades (or years) some islands have their own residential privately funded and/or government-appointed archaeologist. Most research has been carried out by visiting researchers (of whom not even all were archaeologists/anthropologists) or local amateurs, in the good sense of the word of course.

As for archaeological theory, I stumbled upon a "new approach" called symmetrical archaeology. I'm not quite sure it is entirely new or should be added to critical theory. I'm not that up to date on this theory-stuff and don't really get a lot of theory at our Uni. Symmetrical Archaeology was however presented at TAG and SHA-conferences in 2005 and 2006. Maybe also something to look into?

My final thoughts: the regional North-South division of the Americas. I've been reading a lot of papers and books on the archaeology and history of the Circumcaribbean area, and have the strong feeling that you might consider dividing The America's into 4 regions. Most of the researchers there do the same. The regions broadly are: North America, Mesoamerica, South America and the (Circum-)Caribbean.

I'm glad to help out, but I haven't got a lot of time as I'm preparing my final thesis. I can help out with some of the relevant papers / references and the occasional bit of text. Just let me know.

BlaaatBlaatBlaaat

[edit] Lumps of stuff with people buried in them

I have been trying to figure out the proper categorisation scheme for mounds containing graves. At the moment I have found burial mound, tumulus and kurgan, which seem to be being used interchangeably. Can someone point me to a definitive description of what the difference is, or which is preferred usage. In particular, I just noticed that wiki commons has two categories, tumulus and burial mound, competing for people to add examples to them. While that is there not here, the pictures end up here. What does anyone suggest as preferred naming scheme? Sandpiper 00:16, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

American archaeology tends to use "burial mound" by preference, if the primary function of the mound is deposition of human remains. Mound is used generally for any deliberately constructed pile of dirt. Old World archaeology tends to use tumulus as a generic term for piles of dirt that involve burials. Kurgan is restricted to the Kurgan Burial culture and related groups of Indo-Europeans and the peoples that descend from the Indo-Europeans, as far as I know. As you have perhaps noticed, the "tumulus" and "mound" articles need some work. Perhaps in response to your query I will work on those articles. So to answer your question, it really depends on which area you are in as to which term is preferable. TriNotch 01:53, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for getting back, though that sounds awfully like throw a dice. However, I think I will push for burial mound on commons as the main category name. I would anticipate that this will spring up sub-categories in the future, and this seems to be the most self-explanatory generic starting point. I did find the proliferation of mound-type articles here very confusing. I am still not convinved I have found them all. Also, i am not sure if the categorisation clearly allows someone to search for articles about specific mounds, which I was also trying to do. Sandpiper 12:36, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
I've made some edits to the relevant articles (especially mound) that clarify things a little bit. I would suggest "mound" rather than "burial mound" for the category, since mound is more general and does not imply the inclusion of human remains... This being important because a significant fraction of known mounds never had a single burial. Incidentally, effigy mound needs quite a bit of work, but I don't have any books on the subject, so I can't get to it right now. TriNotch 17:37, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Category tidy-up

I put some suggestions for tidying up the categories on Portal_talk:Archaeology - Viv Hamilton 16:11, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Anthropology wikiproject?

I just made a proposal for an anthropology wikiproject on the "list of proposed wikiprojects" page. If you're interested, you can sign up at our entry and on the temporary project page. Thanks. Ungovernable ForceThe Wiki Kitchen! 21:10, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Copyright and Royalties on Archeological Objects and Sites and images of them

I would like to ask for your help. I have published some photos from archeological sites and museum objects but later discovered that this is contrary to the domestic law in various countries. Please see the request of deletion of images of archaelogical sites and museum objects from Greece I started in the commons: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Deletion_requests/%CE%A6%CE%95%CE%9A:_%CE%92_1491_20051027. Could you contribute in this? Does anyone know if there is copyright on archeological discovery, excavation, restoration and exhibition? Is there such thing as royalties stemming from cultural property? Many users deny such questions, arguing that if they accept the domestic laws of states and practices of museums as legitimate, then Wikipedia will be stripped of much of its content. Do you agree? --Conudrum 23:45, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Key articles list - periods and stages

There seems to be a problem with the articles and periods section of the key articles. Stone age seems to be a reasonable parent article for the first half of the list, but then what about the Three-age system article, instead or as well as Prehistory. However, looking at the List of archaeological periods, what we have listed here is the European view, so presumably we should also include archaic period, (which needs a clean-up or merge) formative stage, lithic stage etc. Needs some serious clean-up or perhaps a true parent article on Periods in archaeology or we could expand the List of archaeological periods, to provide an explanation, and wikify the right hand column Viv Hamilton 17:07, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

How many layers are considered appropriate?
For example, we could have a major parent category which was prehistory. That could contain articles like 'prehistory' or 'three age system'. It could also have subcategories like Stone Age (which would then get subcategories of palaeolithic, mesolithic, neolithic), Bronze Age, Iron Age.
It is true though that is a Euro-centric viewpoint and we need to work out a way to incorporate the systems of other regions. I bow to the judgement of those with greater expertise in those areas though for those. Silverthorn 09:41, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
Deciding which articles should be key in this is beyond my expertise. I have however, wikified the List of archaeological periods and given it an expanded top section, which should help to explain the relationships. Viv Hamilton 14:56, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Locating classical ruined cities?

I have a bit of a problem, and I'm hoping some Archeology buff might be able to help :)

I'm currently involved with the the Classical warfare task force of the Military history WikiProject. I'm looking to expand the article on the Mercenary War in Carthaginian history. I'd like to create and add some maps about the conflict to the article, similar to the ones that I added to the Third Servile War article. However, I don't know where some of these cities are! While Tunis and El Kef have survived into the modern era and are easy to locate, I have little idea where to locate Utica and Hippacritae, or even where the Bagradas River might be, or the canyon known as "The Saw" - location of the Battle of "The Saw". I suspect they might exist only as archaeological sites. Does anyone have any idea how I might be able to track the location of these down? - Vedexent 13:46, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] UNreferenced articles

I've noticed a number of archaeology articles that have no references whatsoever:

These articles need to have references added so that the content in them can be verified by those who are not already familiar with the topic. This list is incomplete (many many more archaeology articles need attention), and many of these articles need some other attention, to copyedit content and check them against each other for overlaps and gaps in coverage. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 20:32, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

doing what i can in the methods and principles cat.. i think I have transgressed npov a few times. need someone to have a browse through *Excavation and most of the linked articles which I have or am modifying. my style is poor but the framework is a good one i think? Boris 23:34, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
I have just accessed this talk page as the next stage in my attempts to get an almost totally unreferenced article (Deva Victrix) referenced. The background is that this article is about the Roman City that eventually became Chester, and, as such, also falls into the Cheshire WikiProject. One user, without a user page: User:Chestertouristcom, who also seems to be greatly concerned with an external tourist site (Chester Tourist Site) has added most of the information in this article without giving anything like sufficient numbers of references or citations. The user has responded neither to messages on his/her talk page nor to email requesting them to start adding the references (both happened in February, 2007), and the article has been flagged as having no references since January 2007. It seems that adding references and citations is quite difficult for someone else to do retrospectively, especially if, like most of us in the Cheshire WikiProject, they are unfamilar with the subject, and so unless some means of verifying the information can be done, it might be better to delete all the information and start again. However, I want to try to avoid this if possible, and so I'm asking (begging really) if anyone can assist in improving this article by suplying citations and references, or suggest what other way forward there can be? Many thanks.  DDStretch  (talk) 11:47, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] RE; UNreferenced articles

I have expanded Excavation , Archaeological plan and Archaeological section .Given a single reference, though I am far from happy with my intermediate results or the general organization of topics relating to methodolgy. most topics relating to excavation concepts and method can be verified through the molas manual.Boris 17:32, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Project directory

Hello. The WikiProject Council has recently updated the Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory. This new directory includes a variety of categories and subcategories which will, with luck, potentially draw new members to the projects who are interested in those specific subjects. Please review the directory and make any changes to the entries for your project that you see fit. There is also a directory of portals, at User:B2T2/Portal, listing all the existing portals. Feel free to add any of them to the portals or comments section of your entries in the directory. The three columns regarding assessment, peer review, and collaboration are included in the directory for both the use of the projects themselves and for that of others. Having such departments will allow a project to more quickly and easily identify its most important articles and its articles in greatest need of improvement. If you have not already done so, please consider whether your project would benefit from having departments which deal in these matters. It is my hope that all the changes to the directory can be finished by the first of next month. Please feel free to make any changes you see fit to the entries for your project before then. If you should have any questions regarding this matter, please do not hesitate to contact me. Thank you. B2T2 23:26, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] methodologies

the rationale for creating Dating methodology (archaeology) amongst other heavy edits and new articles was to try and draw together the myriad pieces on various methods, many of which do not seem to explain how they are used in archaeology, also to try and patch over some obvious admissions such as the concept of residual information or finds, which is a pretty central concept in dating and excavation. the methodology cat in general could do with being more detailed and comprehensive compared with the introductory articles on archaeology. while most users may want to know about Mesopotamia etc. after a while they may come to ask "how do they know that culture x existed 3000 yrs ago" or "how exactly does that process work" . I am also trying to avoid creating small articles on every term without some larger pieces on how these various concepts work together. its ok creating apiece on this or that form of dating or technique but they should be designed in such a way they can be brought together to form a larger block of interconnected knowledge especially in areas such as methodology and even more so in a inter-disciplinarian science like archaeology. the function of [[Category:Methods and principles in archaeology]] doesn,t seem to work IMO as a tool for understanding how archaeology functions in detail as a discipline in its current form. So to this end i working on a framework of articles that attempt to link together in a logical way. my weakness is my writing style is appalling along with my spelling. I also have a limited time frame for substantial wiki editing at the moment due to injury but shortly i will not be able to put as much time in. I have done a fair bit of reorganising stuff but would appreciate some feedback and follow up if people have the time cheers Boris 12:57, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Stub split

Owing to the large number of stubs in Cat:Archaeology stubs, the stub sorting wikiproject has split the category by creating a sub-type for Cat:European archaeology stubs, with the template euro-archaeology-stub. Hopefully this will make it a bit easier to find stubs relating to particular areas of expertise. The European ones were chosen to split out simply by weight of numbers - about 1/3 of the archaeology stubs relate to Europe. It may be that more subtypes like this will be splitout if the numbers build up again - if you wish to suggest any such splits, please feel free to do so at WP:WSS/P. Grutness...wha? 03:32, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

hopefully we can remove a lot of the method and principle stubs out of stub status pretty soon. archaeology methods and principle +practice+sub disciplines+science can all be chucked into a archaeological techniques cat? Boris 16:21, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Northeast Asia-related articles

Hi ! I and some editors have been working on some Northeast Asian stuff, and would appreciate if those who may be interested would make constructive comments, corrections, assess relative importance, etc. Here is a partial list of some:

Thank you! Mumun 17:45, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Stablepedia

Beginning cross-post.

See Wikipedia talk:Version 1.0 Editorial Team#Stablepedia. If you wish to comment, please comment there. ★MESSEDROCKER★ 02:55, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

End cross-post. Please do not comment more in this section.

[edit] What are the holy grails of archeology?

Could some from your WikiProject have a look at the list of holy grails related to archeology, to see if there's anything missing or out of place? Thank you. –MT 05:31, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Professor Bruce Trigger

Professor Bruce Trigger passed away recently after a long illness. He was truly a great Canadian and giant in world archaeology. Let us honour the great contributions to world archaeology made by Professor Trigger by expanding the Bruce Trigger article and give a more detailed accounting of his work. Mumun 11:59, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Expert needed

Langweiler although it is a nasty word in german language (boring person), the article is part of archeology!--Stone 22:32, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

In this case it can also mean "long hamlet"(=long farm that is not in a village). Wandalstouring 17:23, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia Day Awards

Hello, all. It was initially my hope to try to have this done as part of Esperanza's proposal for an appreciation week to end on Wikipedia Day, January 15. However, several people have once again proposed the entirety of Esperanza for deletion, so that might not work. It was the intention of the Appreciation Week proposal to set aside a given time when the various individuals who have made significant, valuable contributions to the encyclopedia would be recognized and honored. I believe that, with some effort, this could still be done. My proposal is to, with luck, try to organize the various WikiProjects and other entities of wikipedia to take part in a larger celebrartion of its contributors to take place in January, probably beginning January 15, 2007. I have created yet another new subpage for myself (a weakness of mine, I'm afraid) at User talk:Badbilltucker/Appreciation Week where I would greatly appreciate any indications from the members of this project as to whether and how they might be willing and/or able to assist in recognizing the contributions of our editors. Thank you for your attention. Badbilltucker 16:46, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Need some help on Punic Carthage

Can someone recommend me some editors and sources on the subject? Wandalstouring 17:24, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Couple of missing topics

Could anyone of you have time to have a look at this page about missing archaeological topics? I've tried to find any reasonable redirects but I may have missed something obvious to others... - Skysmith 11:39, 13 February 2007 (UTC)¨

Could you tell me/us perhaps how you intend this to work? Other than google there are yahoo.com and ask.com which tend to show sometimes results which don't appear on google. Wandalstouring 14:15, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
Sorry but I don't understand the question. What does Google or Yahoo or even Ask have to do with anything here at all.! :: Kevinalewis : (Talk Page)/(Desk) 14:44, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
I used the search options to check if there were similar titles or connections in the article text (among other things). As far as I am concerned, others can use any search they desire to. However, If You notice that the subject of any of the proposed articles already exists under some other title, I would welcome your assistance. And if you can write about any of the topics, all the better. - Skysmith 16:38, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
Ok, so what you are both saying is that these topics have been looked for throughout "Wikipedia" and cannot be found as standalone article or within others of different name. So it is your belief that wikipedia has nothing on these subjects and believe it should have. Have I got that right. :: Kevinalewis : (Talk Page)/(Desk) 17:02, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
That seems to be the issue, and a couple of us were planning to do something about the lack of structured articles covering archaeological methods. A lot of this list is outside my subject area, but looking at the historic ships, I don't think these have articles. I presume from the links against each missing article that each of these appears in at least one of encarta, Britannic etc? It seems a useful list of missing articles. Is there any reason we shouldn't add the link to the page in our things you can do under missing articles? Viv Hamilton 18:43, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Textile arts?

If anyone here is an expert on the archaeology of early textiles (the origins of embroidery, weaving, tablet braiding, etc.), we'd love your participation in Wikipedia:WikiProject Textile Arts. - PKM 21:16, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Kenewick Man

I may be spelling it incorrectly, but I was looking for an article on this skeleton found near Kenewick, Oregon, and failed to find one. I looked in the article that has a list of complete human skeletons, and failed to find it - is it under a different name? I find it surprising that I could not easily find an article on Kenewick man given it's importance in regards to the prehistorical 'ethnic' make-up of the North American continent, given that the skull resembles that of an Ainu of Japan, as opposed to your 'standard' stereotypical Native American skull. Does anybody know? If there is as page can someone leave me a comment on my talk page? I'm not sure if I will be able to make my way back here! JonCatalan 19:24, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

I think you spelled it wrong - here's the page Kennewick Man . Peace -- Oaxaca dan 19:30, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Conversion templates

Hello! This is to announce that several templates for automatic convertion between metric and imperial units and for displaying consistently formatted output have been created: {{km to mi}}, {{mi to km}}, {{m to ft}}, {{ft to m}}, {{km2 to mi2}}, {{mi2 to km2}}, {{m2 to ft2}}, and {{ft2 to m2}}. Hopefully, they will be useful to the participants of this WikiProject. The templates are all documented, provide parameters to fine-tune the output, and can be substituted if necessary.

Any suggestions, requests for improvement/features, or bug reports are welcome.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 17:10, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Landscape history

I have started to add some articles on landscape history including dispersed settlement and nucleated village. I have tagged them as archaeology stubs (hope that's OK). 'm not sure how they best fit into this project. All being well, I will add another stub on field systems shortly. Rjm at sleepers 09:50, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Spelling

I've noticed quite a few uses of the spelling "archeology" spread throughout WP, even in article titles. I know that here in the USA we sometimes spell it without the ae or æ diphthong, but not frequently. Should something be done for consistency? Inside Wikipedia, Google Search finds 1,970 instances of "archeology", 14,500 instances of "archaeology" and 100 of "archæology". Obviously the second two are actually the same spelling, but what do you project members think? Delfeye 12:12, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

IMO "archeology" is OK although I generally use "archaeology". The important thing is ensuring they redirect correctly Rjm at sleepers 15:12, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

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