Talk:Archaeology of the Americas

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[edit]

This page has problems. When I got here, this was a series of barely related opinions on the Peopling of the New World, alongside Willey and Phillip's chronology and some slightly unclear statements about the NAGPRA legislation. I've removed many items that should really go in more specific articles, and tried to leave in wiki-links to the pages where such topics are covered. Nevertheless, this is still not a very good page. I gave the page a stub status to indicate the lack of present coverage of the topic. For a good article on this topic, I think the history of archaeology aspect should be covered first, with a focus on the contributions made in the Americas. This would certainly allow for Willey's chronology to be covered, as well as various other important advancements (Midwestern Taxonomic Method, maybe). The actual complexities of performing archaeology in a given part of the Americas- like the NAGPRA section- might fit nicely at the end. The peopling of the Americas should probably NOT be covered in depth, since there are separate articles to deal with that.

For the record, the opinions of the Andamanese Society are probably not sufficient as professional references for American archaeology. I have removed those links as well. They would be more useful/interesting/relevant as part of the Models of migration to the New World page, but I would encourage future editors to use that source of information cautiously. TriNotch 09:43, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

Great work. American archaeology is quite patchily covered in the wiki at present so I hope you will be able to offer further guidance. adamsan 13:45, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Archaeology vs Archeology

I want to thank Bob A, but I had to revert that edit due to some curious confusion about the word- See the usage section of main archaeology article for a discussion of why "archaeology" is preferable to "archeology" in the Americas. TriNotch 23:15, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

i converted the spelling primarily because the title of the article itself is spelled that way. way is that? Bob A 01:31, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the debate was move. —Nightstallion (?) 10:56, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Requested move

Archeology of the Americas → Archaeology of the Americas – {The "ae" spelling is more prevalent in WP, and used for the main archaeology article itself. Straightfoward move cannot be effected since the one with "ae" spelling (currently a redirect) has some edit history of its own beyond the redirect creation}.

since there seems to be a clear majority in the voting, i switched the two articles. i'm not sure if we need to move the talk page. Bob A 03:01, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
Pages should be moved using the "move" function, not via copy-and-paste, so I have restored the article for now. — Knowledge Seeker দ 03:44, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
Since the alternate page Archaeology of the Americas has an edit history of its own, if the page is to be moved I gather it will have to be done by an admin.--cjllw | TALK 03:36, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Voting

Add *Support or *Oppose followed by an optional one-sentence explanation, then sign your vote with ~~~~
  • Support. as per the nomination.--cjllw | TALK 01:47, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Support In the history of American Archaeology, the spelling without the extra "a" has specific theoretical implications. See below.TriNotch 18:07, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Oppose, for the reason that a google search for "archeology of the americas" and "archeology americas" both give more results than their respective ae equivalents. Bob A 03:19, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Support, Spaceriqui 20:57, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment I have contributed to this state of affairs by editing the article using the ae spelling in spite of the title. I won't be voting as this is primarily a question for our American friends but would point out that The Americas also includes Canada, where I imagine they use the International English ae spelling but it also includes South America where the Spanish (and Portuguese) term is is arqueología without the ae. On the other hand of course, this is the Engish wiki and archaeology has been the commonest spelling so far. adamsan 21:59, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Support. Being from the United States, I use American spellings, but even here, I believe that archaeology is more prevalent. My dictionary of choice, Merriam-Webster, lists archaeology as the main spelling, with archeology as the variant. That's enough for me to support. — Knowledge Seeker দ 23:22, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Support, archaeology is much the more common spelling. Paul B 00:10, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Oppose - archaeology looks pretentious and pedantic. CDThieme 00:23, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Discussion

FWIW, when conducting unadulterated Google Tests, bear in mind that when searching for the phrase "Archeology of the Americas" you will bring up quite a number of Wiki mirrors which also carry the article at that spelling, so using this as a comparison is really self-referential. A search "Archeology of the Americas" returns 949 hits, but subtracting WP & its mirrors "archeology of the Americas" -wikipedia" brings it down to 392. There is also a specific publication called Archeology of the Americas, which counts for quite a few more. The alternative spelling has "archaeology of the Americas" returns about the same number (913), subtracting WP+mirrors brings it down to 769. Also FWIW, searching +archaeology +Americas returns about 963,000 hits, compared to only 223,000 for +archeology +Americas. Within en.wiki itself, the "ae" spelling occurs about 4 times as often as the "e" spelling, and is used in the categories, stubs, main articles, etc etc....--cjllw | TALK 06:50, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Somehow, that's not true for me. "archæology americas" (without quotes) returns 10,200,000:13,400,000 and "archæorogy of the americas" returns 1,010,000:1,380,000 (ae:e).

In the 1960's or 1970's a member of the "New Archaeology" or early "Processual" archaeology proposed returning the the single "a" spelling to indicate the difference between their archaeology and the older, less scientific archaeology. This was not widely embraced, and as a result, most of the discipline (IN THE AMERICAS) embraced the two "a" spelling of "archaeology." Therefore, in an article on Archaeology of the Americas, the two "a" spelling is preferable for historical reasons. Today, as far as I can find only a handful of scholars and the U.S. government use the single "a" spelling (archeology) by preference; the flagship journal of American Archaeology, American Antiquity, requires the two "a" spelling. I support the change to the requested move.TriNotch 18:07, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Whatever the interpretation of comparative Google results, it would seem rather odd to have the main article archeology of the Americas with a different spelling to its main category Cat:Archaeology of the Americas, which has been at the "ae" spelling unproblematically for some time now. "Archeology" is the aberrant spelling, at least in the context of the articles to which this one is related.--cjllw | TALK 03:44, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.