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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Diditman (talk | contribs) at 19:09, 10 April 2023 (→Semi-protected edit request on 10 April 2023: signed). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

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Citation for pig domestication?

Under Origin, "By about 6900–6400 BC, it included domesticated cattle and pigs"

This contradicts what Animal_husbandry#Birth_of_husbandry has, which cites [1]

Obachuka (talk) 21:17, 6 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  1. ^ Nelson, Sarah M. Ancestors for the Pigs: Pigs in Prehistory. University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. ISBN 9781931707091.

The passage you cite was misinformation and it is significant that no page number is cited in the supposed source. The date of 13,000 BC is far too early and I have corrected it in the animal husbandry article. Dudley Miles (talk) 22:22, 6 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Climate estimates

This source,

Kaufman, D., McKay, N., Routson, C. et al. Holocene global mean surface temperature, a multi-method reconstruction approach. Sci Data 7, 201 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-020-0530-7

says that "The warmest 200-year-long interval was also centered on 6.5 ka and was 0.7 °C (0.3, 1.8) warmer than the 19th Century.". This means that between 4.530 BC and 4.330 BC was very warm globally for Holocene standards. Kaufman is the main source cited in the 6th report of the IPCC on climate change. Please help me double check if this is correct, the literature sometimes gets too technical and complex, and I have misread before abbreviations from the report. Forich (talk) 16:16, 18 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

"Some parts of the world..." bit in the lead.

This part of the lead didn't have a valid citation: Some other parts of the world (including Oceania and the northern regions of the Americas) remained broadly in the Neolithic stage of development until European contact. The previous cite didn't mention the Neolithic, the Bronze Age, European contact with the Americas or Oceania (or, in fact, anything at all regarding the Americas or Oceania), nor anything that could be remotely construed as supporting any part of this sentence; neither am I convinced, as the edit-summary restoring it with no citation said, that it is still true & needs saying. I actually searched a bit before removing it and found no mention of the Americas still being in the neolithic prior to European contact, say. We can only leave things uncited in the lead when they are cited in the body and this simply isn't - the body makes no mention of Oceania at all, while regarding the Americas it says only that in later periods cities of considerable size developed, and some metallurgy by 700 BC. Either way, if it's so clearly true, it should be easy to find sources saying it unambiguously. --Aquillion (talk) 02:34, 21 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Try searching using "Stone Age". What age exactly do you think north America or Oceania were in at first European contact? Johnbod (talk) 03:35, 21 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
My quick search earlier suggests that the term "neolithic" and "bronze age" are rarely applied to them at all, but I'm not seeing anything useful for "stone age" either (though I feel we do need a source using the term "neolithic" if we're going to emphasize it in the lead of this page; I think it's entirely possible that modern scholars don't really use the term or concept of neolithic / bronze age when discussing those civilizations, which means we shouldn't be making such sweeping declarative statements in the lead using them, either.) Again, if you think that this is so obviously true, it should be easy for you to find sources for it - just present the source that has you so solidly convinced - but we can't include it just because you feel it is true. And, ultimately, the WP:BURDEN to find sources verifying the text you've restored lies on you, not me; I've done a quick search and I'll search a bit more, but I'm going to swing back and remove it eventually if you haven't found a source by then. --Aquillion (talk) 04:07, 21 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
The Old Copper Culture has been described as Chalcolithic. But that I guess is irrelevant here. What is relevant is that cultures in North America are normally classified as:
The Lithic stage
The Archaic stage
The Formative stage
The Classic stage
The Post-Classic stage
Although Pre-Columbian era doesn't exactly match that for North America and has a different take entirely on South America. Doug Weller talk 09:46, 21 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    • Of course sources don't use "neolithic" and "bronze age" about most of the world, though at the simplest level nearly all human populations reached the "neolithic" stage, meaning stone tools + farming. The Arctic & partly Australia are exceptions. I don't know why you bring "Bronze Age" into it (the article doesn't). None of the Americas reached this (pre-contact), with metal usage almost totally restricted to ornamental use of copper and precious metals, plus some meteoric iron in the Andes and the far north. See Metallurgy in pre-Columbian America and the articles linked there. So you won't find that term used, because it wasn't there. Of course coyness about the modern pejorative associations of "Stone Age" no doubt reduces usage of that term to refer to relatively recent times, but there is no doubt about the facts, & I think our readers deserve to be told. The article's "broadly in the Neolithic stage of development" means there was farming and stone tools were normal. The bottom sections of the article cover Australia & the Americas, explaining that the term "neolithic" is generally not used for them. Johnbod (talk) 14:26, 21 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
      • Another editor has kindly added 2 refs, & I have added Britannica's "Stone Age", which gives a global survey. Johnbod (talk) 14:39, 21 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
        • These sources are still not satisfactory for the claim. To say that the peoples of the New World and Oceania found themselves in conditions that resembled the Neolithic more than the post-neolithic conditions all populations find themselves in after the discovery of agriculture (maize, taro), domestication (llamas, dingos to a degree), advanced management, infrastructure(the pre-colonial empires of SA) and terraforming (fire-farming of the Australian Aboriginals) is at best an uninformed assumption and at worst a very presumptuous claim that these societies did not progress beyond the stone age in a meaningful way just because their societies were "undeveloped" in comparison to Old World nation-states. There are words for this kind of presumption. I have checked the sources and they are much less general than the statement being made here. What the sources support is that the idea that a very specific part of New Guinea has cultures that, at the time of contact and even today, appear to us as examples of "Neolithic horticulturalists". The claim about Oceania and America *in general* is not supported, but the reader is given a different — misleading — idea of the many societies that existed in Precolonial America and Oceania. I am highly in favour of removing the sentence. 62.101.195.234 (talk) 09:37, 12 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]
          • I agree that the sentence "Some other parts of the world (including Oceania and some regions of the Americas) remained broadly comparable to the Neolithic stage of development until first contact" should be deleted from the summary paragraphs. The primary reference for this sentence seems to be the Encyclopedia Britannica, and I don't believe the EB article supports the inclusion of this sentence.
          • Moreover, the stone-to-metal progression as a way of describing societies in the Old World doesn't work in the New World. I don't think any authorities doubt that civilization as commonly defined existed in Peru and Mexico long before first contact with the Old World -- and long before people in large parts of Europe and Asia became "civilized." To say that New World civilizations were comparable to the Neolithic stage of development in the Old World, is using only one of several factors related to civilization -- metal-working -- to judge the whole. That's a generalization implying that ancient American civilizations weren't really civilizations and that they should be judged by Old World classifications of what comprises development. Different they were, yes, but they successfully manipulated their environments for accomplishments in agriculture, monumental architecture, societal organization, and urbanization. You can't base a judgement of their development on the single factor of metal working. Smallchief (talk) 11:46, 12 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The consensus seems to be that the sentence in question is not neutral, not referenced, and should be removed. I'll do the dirty work.Smallchief (talk) 13:24, 14 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, great! You've now left a gaping hole in the lead. Probably the Americas and Australia sections should be removed completely now. Johnbod (talk) 17:25, 14 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Better a gaping hole than Eurocentric bias. Your problem can be easily resolved by adding a sentence to the summary paragraphs: "The Neolithic is not a term commonly used to describe cultures in the Americas and Australia."
In the main text, the first paragraph of the Americas section and the Australian section are fine with me. The second para of the Americas section is internally contradictory. A solution would be to replace the present text with a couple of sentences on the evolution of the advanced cultures of Mexico and Peru, rather than, or in addition to, the present text about U.S. cultures.Smallchief (talk) 18:36, 14 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Phoeey - if there is any "Eurocentric bias" you have increased it. The lead still begins by defining the Neolithic as an "an Old World archaeological period", and the sentence you have removed attempted to say why it only applies there. Just saying "The Neolithic is not a term commonly used to describe cultures in the Americas and Australia" begs the question in the reader's mind - "why not?". Better to just remove all non-Old World stuff now, and stick to the subject as now defined in the lead. Johnbod (talk) 19:06, 14 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I've suggested a way to meet your concerns. Have a nice day. Smallchief (talk) 19:57, 14 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]
No, you haven't. And btw, describing as "Eurocentic" an article mostly about Asia, the Middle East and Africa is a ... little strange. Johnbod (talk) 17:45, 15 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Nice.

This Wikipedia help me did homework, thanks for made this page my work won't finish if I don't have this. 2001:44C8:44CD:7160:E346:8991:7E09:4D4D (talk) 13:28, 18 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

That's good news. Make sure you check out the sources, to make sure that the article is correct.  Tewdar  16:11, 18 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Commons files used on this page or its Wikidata item have been nominated for deletion

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Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 03:48, 4 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Semi-protected edit request on 10 April 2023

The first stanza, which reads "...is an Old World archaeological period...", should be changed to "... is an Afro-Eurasian archaeological period..." for higher comprehensibility as Old World is an ambiguous term. Diditman (talk) 15:38, 10 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Old World is more old-fashioned than ambiguous, but Afro-Eurasia is too little known - compare their views: 850 vs 550 per day. Johnbod (talk) 16:02, 10 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Johnbod: Afro-Eurasia would be most appropriate as Old World has a connotation to the Age of Discovery, which is quite a stretch from the Neolithic period. Diditman (talk) 19:09, 10 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
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