Talk:Paleoanthropology

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Contents

[edit] First post

The information contained in this article seems to be incorrect when comparing it to the definitions found here: http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=paleoanthropology —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.135.26.183 (talk • contribs) 04:58, 22 March 2005 UTC)

(Note:  Post above referred to an early version of the article.) — Athænara ✉ 23:00, 24 February 2007 (UTC)
I agree that the stub 'Paleoanthropology' defines paleoanthropology in a wider sense than the dictionary linked above, and, indeed, than the Oxford English Dictionary. However, I feel that the explanation given on the page is in line with what a university anthropology student would understand by the term (it is certainly closer to the definition I was given when I was such a student). The article merely puts the simple definition, 'the study of fossil bones' or the OED's 'The branch of anthropology that deals with fossil hominids', into a meaningful context.
Should this stub form part of the article on physical anthropology, or human evolution? The Gilly 05:12, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Human Origin

I understand that this does relate with evolution, but the study of human origin is indeed more interesting than the origin of animal and plant life, though it doesnt exclude those factors. I would enjoy reading more on this subject. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 156.108.100.66 (talk • contribs) 17:36, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Assessment of the article

Time for an assessment. I notice in the history that quite a few users built this up and a few aren't on anymore. Wiki has grown some so maybe it is time for an assessment.

  • The article seems to be in the right place for a "history of palaeoanthropology" topic and it is in fact such a topic. Palaeoanthropology has to be distinguished from its history. There really is no palaeoanthropology in here, only the history. Large parts of it are duplicated under the "History of Palaeoanthropology" subsection of Human evolution. In fact it is cluttering up the Human Evolution article as it appears to be about the evolution of the study of evolution and not about the evolution. The two are distinct; e.g., From Ape to Angel is about the history and Origins Revisited is about the evolution.

Here are my suggestions. 1) Convert this into a history of palaeoanthropology article with a line up front saying "this article is about the history of palaeoanthropology. For information on the evolution of humans, see Human evolution." It shouldn't be too much trouble to clean the article up on that basis. 2)Remove the duplicated material from the Human Evolution article and leave a line stating "For information on the history of anthropolgy .... This will allow a cleaner article, Human Evolution, which also happens to need cleanup.

I would have said something like this in the discussion of Human Evolution but that article is now so sprawling and the discussion so lengthy and fragmented (Wiki-chaos) that I doubt anyone would even see it much less consider it.

These are big topics and I am sure there are many ways to organize them. My suggestions are based on what is there now, which is where we seem to have to start. There are more anthropology articles on Wiki now so I suppose a lot of the cleanup will be offloading material to the other articles and referencing those. After all, one article is not going to cover human evolution, but 50 or 100 might if we use cascades of links. Dave 03:15, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Citations

I have decided to raise some questions about the citations. I do not doubt that there the citations are accurate (though, I do not know that they are either), however, there does seem to be a problem with an article that focuses only upon the history of the subject as opposed to the subject itself (a point made above). There also seems to be a lack of genetic information, and, *of course*, PICTURES! The genetic information would be most likely to yield scientifically reproducible evidence of a truthful kind, the history of the subject does seem to be marred in some politics, and hence, it might be best to remove the section and create a separate article for it. MrASingh 13:53, 24 Feb 2007 (UTC)