Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Anthropology

New Project Page

I'm not the best person to have created this page, although I am very much interested in seeing a project dealing with this area be successful. Please feel free to make any changes you like. The Guide has some pointers. Personally, I think one of the first things you all might do is create a project banner, letting people know the project is up and running, and also place it as a new project on the Wikipedia:Community Portal. Anyway, best of luck. Badbilltucker 21:52, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Most important thing you can do is to invite other interesting, active editors to join this project; the rest will sort itself out. linas

Some articles to work on

Wikipedia's articles on important anthropologists could really use some loving. Franz Boas looks pretty good, though it could stand to be trimmed a bit. Marvin Harris, Alfred Kroeber, Bronislaw Malinowski, Alfred Radcliffe-Brown and E.E. Evans-Pritchard all need serious expansion. It would be especially good to have more information on their influence and importance to the field as a whole. My anthro books are at school right now; I'll start working on these when I have access to them again. Stilgar135 04:56, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

And to start us off on more inclusive footing, also consider: Eleanor Leacock, Ruth Benedict (which needs cleanup), William Allison Davis, Manchester school (anthropology), Rhodes-Livingstone Institute. The otherwise extensive W.E.B. DuBois page discusses The Philadelphia Negro only in the context of criminology, and gives little attention to his role in pushing a framework of research into African American society more generally. Likewise Jomo Kenyatta anthropological work gets a one sentence mention.--Carwil 17:53, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

All the articles in the context of Kinship and decent need attention, even it isn't a thrill topic. --Sven Lotz 12:02, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

COTM template

I stole the Star Wars Collaboration of the Week template and turned it into a Collaboration of the Month template. I'm going to put in Marvin Harris for our first collaboration, since his article should be far longer. As the project gathers momentum, we'll start voting for collaborations and possibly move it to a weekly format. Any improvements you can make to the template, feel free. Stilgar135 05:55, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Hello, new project member here. I see that the COTM has now run for more than a month. Perhaps its time to move to another collaboration? Robotforaday 15:57, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Article that needs serious work

Ok, so I created feminist anthropology way back when and it needs some serious expansion. Any takers? Ungovernable Force^{Got something to say?} 05:38, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

What is a good article?

FYI, you may be interested in reviewing the subtle debates about "inline citations" over at Wikipedia talk:What is a good article?. And, if you have not already done so, you may want to review Wikipedia:Scientific citation guidelines. linas 05:28, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

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 22:30, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Missing topics

I have a short list of missing topics related to anthropology (and ethnic groups). I have tried to omit any topics that already have an equivalent Wikipedia article but I would appreciate is anyone of you could have a look at it - Skysmith 10:51, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

HBE & DIT

Anyone care to rate these articles: human behavioral ecology and dual inheritance theory? EPM 23:17, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Pages for "races"

People in this project may be interested in a variety of the questions raised by White people, Black people and Brown people. Without pushing my own position here, numerous discussions on the social vs. genetic status of these categories, and the encyclopedic nature of certain issues is underway.--Carwil 17:35, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Peer review for Taiwanese aborigines

Taiwanese aborigines is currently in WP:GAC, but we're thinking of withdrawing it from GAC and moving it directly into WP:FAC.

Your comments would be greatly appreciated! It has two peer review pages (use whichever one you prefer):

• Wikipedia:Peer review/Taiwanese aborigines
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Ethnic groups/Peer review/Taiwanese aborigines

Thanks! --Ling.Nut 20:48, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Comment on overlapping areas

It seems unlikely that the Linguistics WikiProject would fall under the auspices of Anthropology, since even linguistic anthropologists largely stick to sociolinguistics or discourse analysis; most anthropologists really aren't competent to generate or review articles on hard-core linguistics topics in syntax or semantics. (I say this as an anthropologist with several friends who are linguists.) I suggest deleting the asterisk after Linguistics. :-) Mccajor 06:31, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

• {{sofixit}}  :-) -- Ling.Nut 11:35, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
• Done, unless someone objects. Mccajor 17:25, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
• I have a professor who asserts emphatically that Linguistics is a subfield of Anthro. I always kinda cock an eyebrow at her... but hey, she has some fairly notable/respectable publications, and I have diddly-squat. Moreover, the school she graduated from is much more upper-crust that the school where she teaches/I study... :-) --Ling.Nut 19:40, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
• Sorry, wasn't paying attention at the right time. Parentage is possibly a bit extreme, but there are hugh areas of overlap that would require a lot of coordination over time. Having a quick look at the Linguistics Wikipedia project page, my department (Anthropology) is deeply involved in over half the topics covered. Although in the dark ages of 25 years ago, I trained in both anthropology and lingusitics, and while there is a clear division of emphasis between the two disciplines, some anthropologists contribute to all areas of linugistics from phonetics to philosophy of language and pretty much everything in between. The major difference I remember between the two departments at Texas was an emphasis in Linguistics to technical aspects of syntax (as was the fashion at that time) and formal semantics, whereas anthropologists tened towards research on language families through phonological reconstruction, learning to read Mayan Hierglyphs, child language acquistion. My work was acceptable to both departments, and this blend continues to shape my work today. Mdfischer 09:47, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
• There are certainly substantial areas of interface and anthropologists, especially linguistic anthropologists or those with dual training, have contibuted much to linguistics. (It also seems significant to me that a couple commentators on this trained in both anthro and linguistics or came out of joint departments.) My point was that historically, linguistics is not simply a subfield of anthropology (it has roots in Classics, study of modern languages, and philosophy, among others), and that there are many technical areas in linguistics that most sociocultural anthropologists, archaeologists, and biological anthropologists are not competent to oversee, unless they have additional background in linguistics. These include formal semantics, syntax, and morphology. I think that few anthropologists are up on current issues in phonology (optimality theory, anyone, or autosegmental phonology?), though many anthropologists have a good working knowledge of phonetics, and we often do more work in sociolinguistics than most linguists do. Obviously there may be people on here who want to join both WikiProjects. Mccajor 20:08, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Taiwanese Issues

Hey all,

We're having some issues with making acceptable ledes for:

Culture of Taiwan

Taiwanese People

If anyone is in for a good challenge of contemporary theory, please have a look.

Also,

Taiwanese Aborigines is looking for some FAC reviewers and any additional help.

I thought this would be a good community to ask, for a neutral viewpoint, rooted in good social theory and not politics.Maowang 07:52, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

help on anarchy

Every single editor except for me on anarchy is an anarchist. They are adding original research to the article and there's no way stop them because they all agree with each other from an anarchist POV. Please help me on this page by bringing in a third opinion, anyone!?--Urthogie 19:37, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Infobox for anthropologists

Is there an infobox for anthropologists? I'm working on Niara Sudarkasa and can't find anything. Any assistance is appreciated. – Freechild (¡!¡!¡!¡) 19:30, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

List of project articles?

Is there a full list of articles which have been tagged with the template? I'm trying to go around tagging Talk pages, partly in hope that they're being picked up and put on some central page. --Smilo Don 01:27, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

An RfC on the appropriateness of an image in the Culture section of the WP:FA India

It would be very helpful if members of this project could weigh in on a dispute about the appropriateness of an image in the Culture section of a country page. The RfC is posted here. The image is about the Toda people much studied by anthropologists. 22:50, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

Fosterage

The article on fosterage needs serious attention, but could be a useful article, covering the different cultures that have used fosterage of children to establish political relationships between families (as distinct from modern foster care). The original editor seems to have copied and pasted a passage about fosterage in the Hebrides, as if it's specific to there. I'm aware that fosterage was extensively practiced in early Ireland, and dimly aware that there was (is?) an Islamic version called "milk kinship", and I've no doubt there are versions of the practice all over the world. I've added an introduction and a globalise tag, and will see what I can add on Irish fosterage from my sources, but I thought perhaps any anthropologists with an interest in this area might like to contribute their knowledge. --Nicknack009 19:08, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Boskop Man

I've come across the article Boskops, which is apparently a Palaeolithic man, while patrolling new articles for COI (it has been created by a SPA with the name of Boskop). I know nothing at all about this topic and so cannot judge the credibility of the article. Would you guys look it over please? Thanks. --Malcolmxl5 20:50, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Good catch, Malcolmxl5! If there ever was a "Boskops" man, it is no longer called that. Might be a hoax (is the name of a German punk band) or might be finds which are now called something else. If is the latter, then it would be good to salvage the piece and note what became of "Boskop" finds. Smilo Don 13:58, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Update. I tried another search and DID find Boskop man. Very old articles, so must have been rejected or renamed.

• Recent discoveries bearing on human history in southern Africa Dart, Raymond
• The Boskop skull Pycraft, WP NATURE,vol.117,pp.196-197,1926
• The Boskop skull Broom, R NATURE,vol.117,pp.589-589,1926
• The Boskop skull. Broom, R NATURE,vol.116,pp.897-897,1925
• Boskop remains from the South-east African coast.
• Dart, RA NATURE,vol.112,pp.623-625,1923
• Research Work [Fossil human skull from Boskop, Transvaal] Fitzsimons, F. W. Port Elizabeth Museum Director's Report 1914 1915: (3-5).

CONCLUSION----let's keep this article but find out what happened. Anyone know what became of BOSKOPS????? Smilo Don 14:04, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Narova

Is there such a people? Thanks--victor falk 23:26, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

Race of Ancient Egyptians

There is currently some controversy regarding the scope and title of the above article, and, potentially, other articles which may be related to the same subject. Editors interested in this project may be interested in that article as well. John Carter 13:59, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Recent single origin hypothesis

There is a dispute regarding the origins of human behavior on this article. I would welcome any comments.Muntuwandi 04:30, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Please come and have a look at this dispute. The dispute is over a claim by the above editor that all cultural universals developed in Africa prior to the dispersal of homo sapiens. Other voices are needed here. Thanks.PelleSmith 12:46, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Articles Instancing Known Cultural Landscapes: North Queensland, Australia

I note that a rewriting of current Wikipedia article on 'cultural landscapes' as been suggested .. and it is currently my intention to have a crack at this .. probably starting with the understanding of cultural landscapes that has emerged at the international level around the World Heritage Convention ..

That exercise aside, however, to date I've started working through geological and biological features within the landscapes of north-east Queensland, see for instance Ngarrabullgan and Ngimun .. alerting searchers/article readers to the indigenous names of these places plus some of their cultural landscape values. It is my hope and my intention to flag each of these artciles as falling within the scope of the WikiAnthropology project, and, as such, place the projects template within each of their talk pages: I hope this might be considered proper and appropritate? Bruceanthro 13:26, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Evolution and the origin of religion

We have an ongoing dispute about a number of theories proposed by evolutionary scientists regarding human evolution and the origins of religious behavior. The article,Evolutionary theories on the origin of religion is very much in its infancy and has attracted considerable controversy. I would welcome any expert input on this controversial subject. Muntuwandi (talk) 23:24, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

I most defintely do NOT have any expertise in this subject (other than as part of my general physical anthropology/ archaeology subjects).

What I DO note is Muntuwandi (talk) believes religion and/or religious beliefs first appear in this world, somewhere in Africa at a time prior to our ancestral hominids first dispersing outwards from that continent to populate the rest of the world.

Muntuwandi (talk has sought to report what he believes to be true and verifiable in articles such as 'Origins of Religion', applying Wikipedia verfication principles. Having had past efforts to report this belief questioned, challenged, and/or deleted, it would seem he would like independent, reliable confirmation that there is indeed some consensus within anthropology for the belief/assertion 'religion' finds its earliest orgins in Africa.

Myself, I feel it is a commendable and worthy object for an Wikipedia editor to seek to create and/or published archaeological research findings and conclusions regarding religions/evidence of religions found around the world.

Perhaps:

i. rather than seeing Muntuwandi (talk efforts closed down, an article of the kind he has been initiating should be supported, and supplemented with balanced reporting on full range of speculation and theories in this field including evidence and speculation countering Muntuwandi (talk beliefs (in classic Karl Popper style!)

Or, in the alternative,

ii. it be suggested to Muntuwandi (talk that a different article be initiated entitled 'earliest evidence of religion' .. whithin which fair, balanced, impartial reporting will self-reveal where the earliest evidence and/or the most of the world's earliest evidence actually occurs .. it may just turn out to be Africa, conclusions from which can be self-drawn by readers.

Just some thoughts Bruceanthro (talk) 04:10, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

If you have no expertise in this area, why in the world are you making assumtions on the user's intent? If you don't have the answers why prejudice anyone that may have some "expertise" in this area? I'll share my thoughts; I think you should delete what you wrote if you do not have the answers or any expertise in this area. Let someone else comment, without your "thoughts" on the user rather than the question. Thanks. Do the right thing. - Jeeny ^(talk) 09:54, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Indeed, comment on the edits, not the editor. Thats Civility 101. Jeffpw (talk) 10:01, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

The irony here being that both of you, as I am doing now, have only commented on the behavior of another editor and not contributed at all to the substantive debate. Please lets here some thoughts on this subject.PelleSmith (talk) 18:01, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Modern "headhunters" in war

I was thinking of categorizing this article American Mutilation of Japanese War Dead in the Anthropology group, but then thought perhaps I should ask for some expert opinions first. It is quite fascinating how parts of a normal society indoctrinated with the right dose of racism and wartime propaganda, coupled with a strong hunting tradition, can revert to something resembling ancient headhunters, and then after the war society quickly revert back to "civilized" behavior again. Does it belong tagged in the anthropology category?--Stor stark7 ^Talk 01:28, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Since you've asked for an opinion, I wish, in response, to note four things, and so make four points-

1. the article referred to may sound 'exotic' (and therefore' anthropological), but it does not sound like something I would normally choose to work on, or read about - even when confronted by some of the more macabre colonial histories of Australia described by the otherwise 'civilised' English gentlefolk who participated!

2. within sociology and social psychology however, (as opposed to anthropology), there have been experiments and studies into the way individuals in groups behave, adopting situational 'scripts' and readily playing out imagined 'roles', carrying out extreme actions, and responsible for unexpected real life behaviour otherwise uncharacteristic of those individuals in other situations .. see especially Stanford prison experiment

3. such studies seeking to come to terms with some of the more extreme or bizarre United States group and other 'western' social behaviours are more usually the province of sociology and psychology, than they are of contemporary anthropology

4. any 'theory', or 'thesis' that people are somehow reverting back to some assumed, more 'primitive' state; and/or that 'headhunting' as a valued role or script that may be deeply embedded within the ethos of war/ being a soldier/warrior etc, still being played out within contemporary warfare ... may be a bit of a stretch to draw from the article reffered to, and would most definitely be coming close to speculation and original research rather than verifiable, encyclopaedic reporting within Wikipedia's standards ?! Bruceanthro (talk) 03:20, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

On a similar topic, the most recent issue of Comparative Studies in Society and History has an article by Simon Harrison which discusses how Victorian British soldiers, motivated in part by Victorian ideas of scientific collection, collected the skulls of war enemies as trophies. He writes: "The collection of enemy skulls can evoke images of primitive ‘headhunting,’ a longstanding icon of savagery in the Western imagination.But I argue that the emergence of such practices among nineteenth-century British soldiers in Africa was connected with developments in Victorian science, in which the collection, measurement, and classification of skulls became central to scientific understandings of human difference". Interesting stuff, which I think, properly discussed, could be included in the article on headhunting. Robotforaday (talk) 14:51, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

FWIW: New article on The Chrysanthemum and the Sword

I created this article and found sources for it that show that it's certainly an important subject for Japan and seemingly for Anthropology, but I haven't read the book, don't know much about the subject and I think the article is inadequate. (Nevertheless, I think it's an improvement on what we had before -- an unreferenced section in the article on the author, Ruth Benedict). Perhaps some people involved with this project would have an interest in it and in improving it. (I've left essentially the same note at WikiProject Japan.) Please, if you're interested, have at it. Noroton (talk) 02:55, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

The state of Anthropology on Wikipedia

I've just been going through the articles in the main Anthropology category in order to tag them as part of this wikiproject. It was pretty sobering. There's a huge amount of work to be done to get even the most essential articles up to scratch - or, putting a positive spin on it, there are loads and loads of opportunities for anthropologists looking for things to do here! I started making a list to post here of articles which require serious work, but it effectively included all of the articles in the category except for a small handful. Nevertheless, if I was to pick a couple of things that really need to be sorted, the following will do for starters:

• Should there really be an article for kinship as well as an article for kinship and descent?
• Legal anthropology consists of nothing but a misleading definition.
• Why are Patriarchy and Patriarchy (anthropology) two seperate articles?
• Political anthropology has pretty much nothing in it.

Robotforaday (talk) 03:21, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Hmmm .. from your comments and links above, it truly does seem that anthropolog/ies are not comprehensively or systematically represented within Wikipedia. I also agree that it clearly falls within the objects and province of this project to see that anthropolog/ies are better represented!

Perhaps Robotforaday (talk), given the searches, tagging, and lists you've been preparing .. you might initiate a scheduled series of proposed 'core' anthropology project collaborations .. to start seeing anthropology more systematically, more comprehensively, and better represented within Wikipedia?

I would not be willing nor able to tackle the 'core' of anthroplog/ies myself .. but would be glad to participate and contribute where I can ... perhaps starting with the core article/subject 'kinship'?! (And talking to this last article/subject, I note that within anthropology - 'kinship' is a much, larger and broader subject/concept than the narrower concept of 'descent' (the latter having more strictly biological connotations) .. the two are different concepts and, being different concepts should NOT, in my opinion, be necessarily linked to each other (as in kinship and descent, but, rather, each have its own extended/extensive article??

Soo .. perhaps a series of 'core' anthropology project collaborations to start working on ?? To see the discipline/s (anthropology) better represented???! Bruceanthro (talk) 14:27, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Hello. In line with your suggestion, here is a list of what I would consider 'core' articles in need of work, although this just reflects my own opinions, feel free to add to it or whatever. (I have deliberately excluded articles about specific anthropologists for now, because I haven't looked through or tagged articles in the "anthropologist" categories yet.)

Fields of anthropology:

• Cultural anthropology Needs expansion and references.
• Social anthropology Needs expansion and references.
• Biological anthropology Currently little more than a stub.

(Comparatively, Archaeology is not in a bad state, and those interested (in conjunction with wikiproject archaeology) could probably work on it to get to GA or FA standard. Linguistic anthropology is of a decent length, although some parts are not too clear.)

Subdisciplines:

• Political anthropology Currently a stub.
• Anthropology of art Currently a stub.
• Legal anthropology Currently a misleading stub.
• Anthropology of religion Needs organising and expanding, as important perspectives are not yet covered.
• Economic anthropology is of a good length, but needs to be turned into a proper overview of the topic rather than just an account of the different schools of thought.

Key concepts:

• Ancestor could do with some anthropological perspective
• Consumption; it is unclear where an anthropological perspective on consumption would even go on wikipedia; the closest relevant article is Consumption (economics)
• Divination is in need of expansion and ethnographic insight.
• Emic and etic is little more than a stub.
• Ethnic group is a decent start, and somebody with expertise in that area could make something good of it. Could certainly do with a section placing the concept of ethnicity in historical perspective.
• Ethnography says very little about what it actually is - seems to primarily define ethnography as a genre rather than a method, when in fact it is both.
• Exchange takes you to a disambiguation page, which is fair enough - but exchange is a key concept in anthropology, and I think we need an article providing some kind of overview of exchange relationships among humans.
• Fieldwork is currently a stub, obviously a full article would need to take account of the perspectives of all the sciences who carry out fieldwork, however, it is a particularly important topic for anthropology.
• Gift economy is too much of a selection of examples and doesn't really make it clear why gifts are significant.
• Human migration is a disordered collection of information and bulletpoints which requires some serious work.
• Hunter-gatherer is another decent start, although it would benefit from someone with expertise in the area taking a look, and it certainly include more about relevant archaeological scholarship (perhaps something to flag up at that wikiproject).
• Incest is little more than a miscellany of legal and religious views, and aside from an unreferenced section on endogamy and exogamy, has very little from an anthropological perspective.
• Kinship and Kinship and descent; could be two articles, one for kinship and one for descent, but the current set up needs to be resolved. Expansion needed anyway. More ethnographic examples and some kinship diagrams would be useful.
• Oral tradition needs an anthropological perspective.
• Magic; the most relevant article is probably Magic (paranormal), which is another miscellany and does nothing to help anybody to understand the role of magic in human society. The article title isn't that hot either.
• Market is in desperate need of an anthropological perspective.
• Marriage is very ethnocentric in its current state; however, it is good in parts, and could be worked on to reach GA or FA standards with effort.
• Production has no overview from an anthropological point of view, as far as I can see.
• Property needs an anthropological perspective.
• Race (classification of human beings) is a former featured article which is currently far too long and strikes me as a bit disorganised.
• Ritual only draws on anthropology in the most cursory fashion.
• Religion needs broadening in its perspective.
• Rite of passage consists mainly of a bulletpointed list of 'rites' (some of which do not seem to merit the label).
• Sacrifice needs a broader cross-cultural approach.
• Social inequality is really just a couple of quotations.
• Society is in need of an anthropological perspective and more references.
• Taboo is too much of a miscellany of examples.
• War has a section discussing "anthropology theories", but this section could be much better.
• Witchcraft is very vague in its discussion of non-European witchcraft and could include more on anthropological theories about witchcraft accusations.

(In addition to these key concepts in need of work, it's also worth mentioning that Culture has good article status already, and Mythology is not in a bad state and perhaps, with some attention from someone in this wikiproject, could be fleshed out for GA or FA status.)

Robotforaday (talk) 19:45, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for that review and list!! I've nominated Ethnography AND Kinship and Kinship and descent to be first of a possible series of monthly collaborations to see anthropology better represented on Wikipedia .. and, to that end, have posted invite seeking WikiProject Anthropology members' participation in the necessary effort to upgrade core anthropology articles etc Bruceanthro (talk) 15:13, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Hello, I think kinship and ethnography are good topics to start on, and I have added my support in particular for the kinship collaboration at Wikipedia:WikiProject Anthropology/Collaboration of the month and I hope other people will follow suit with their own ideas. This list is really just a set of my own impressions, so people should feel free to disagree, etc., but I do think the identification and improvement of core topics should be a massive priority for this group. Robotforaday (talk) 17:43, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Not sure who else out there is 'watching' the WikiProject's talk page .. but from recent survey of project members, it seems there are at least three others who've expressed interest in upgrading core anthropology articles/seeing anthropology better represented on Wikipedia!! Seems sufficient potential assistance to get started on that kinship article .. though may need to wait for further comment/ confirmation of support to actually tag as monthly collaboration?! See you on the kinship artcile/talk page!! Bruceanthro (talk) 14:43, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

P.S. I am a social anthropologist, and so this list may not do justice to the biological anthropology side of things; I would encourage someone with more of a specialism in that direction to take a look and to see what other core articles there may be in need of improvement. Robotforaday (talk) 18:34, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

If nobody has any objections, I don't see why we shouldn't kickstart things by putting the collaboration of the month template on kinship - the only problem would be which article to put it on, kinship or kinship and descent (given that the probable outcome will be two articles, kinship and descent... Robotforaday (talk) 01:40, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Yes please put the collaboration of the month template on kinship (and announce on the project page .. It would seem time sufficient has passed for this to occurr!!

I suggest putting it on the kinship article, as this will give WikiProject Anthropology contributors a relatively free run to build up a relatively comprehensive article on this subject .. upon the near completion of which we should be in a better position to show what a free standing "kinship" article will look like, what such an article will (and will not) cover .. possibly launching a proposal to edit, move, rename and transform the current kinship and descent article into a freestanding article on descent?! What do other's reckon?!

Finally, for those who have expressed interest in assisting with the above .. I have started having a go, as best as I know how, compiling on Talk:Kinship citations and info/annotations upon which I think/hope a desired, more complete, more comprehensive core concept article on "kinship" might be built?! It is interesting to note, to date, that many/most of the earliest anthropologists who did most to develop, promote and apply the concept .. each have Wikipedia articles/links!! Bruceanthro (talk) 12:48, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Well, I've stuck the COTM tag on Kinship, for what it's worth. Robotforaday (talk) 15:39, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Biocultural Evolution

There is a page for Biocultural anthropology but none for Biocultural Evolution. I'm wondering if one should be created or if the Biocultural anthropology article should be broadened to include things like a discussion of theory and whatnot. Especially the whatnot. Personally I think that it could use its own page but the Biocultural anthropology page needs some work as well.--Woland37 (talk) 18:17, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

I would agree that Biocultural evolution should have its own article. Robotforaday (talk) 22:02, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

I started a very very basic article and added it to new project articles. Woland37 (talk) 23:32, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

While I am not a physical nor biological anthropologist, I do have a recent, particular interest in matter's 'biocultural' - more particularly biocultural diversity and biocultural landscapes ... so, to this end, I've taken the time and opportunity to start expanding the newly created Biocultural evolution article, by first identifying references upon which I may wish to rely. I note, at some point, it may be useful to disambiguate 'biocultural' in the sense of human evolution, and 'biocultural' in the sence of the interrelationship/ and/or coincidence (?) of biological and cultural diversity?!! Bruceanthro (talk) 16:06, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

article of concern

would people who watch this page please review the article, Early infanticidal childrearing, which makes many claims about anthropology and about non-Western societies? I was once involved in a flame-war with another editor, and it would be inappropriate for me to do a speedy delete or nominate the page for deletion. More important, I think others need to comment on it. I engaged in a detailed exchange recently with one other editor here, on the talk page; you may wish to review the discussion but it is getting involuted and I ask that you comment separately. Thanks, Slrubenstein | Talk 13:23, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Category:Tribal societies that have practiced headhunting

Hello. I have proposed renaming Category:Tribal societies that have practiced headhunting as Category:Societies that have practiced headhunting, on the grounds that "tribe" has specific connotations and a particular meaning within anthropology, and Not all of the societies included in this category can or should be described as "tribal". Anybody who wishes to take part in the discussion about the move can do so here. Thanks. Robotforaday (talk) 16:43, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

In case anyone's unaware, the cfd discussion has now taken an interesting turn with a couple of users calling to delete the category outright. Don't know what other people here think about that, so I just thought I'd flag it for your attention. Robotforaday (talk) 15:11, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

Relisted here - now four people calling for outright deletion of the category. Robotforaday (talk) 10:46, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

And was deleted. Robotforaday (talk) 01:23, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

Template:Anthropology

There was an existing Template:Anthropology, which I have expanded so that we can add it to anthro articles. Please improve the template or comment on possible issues. Two potential issues that I see despite authoring the changes: 1) It's somewhat a US-centric document with the four-field material and 2) the inclusion of "subfields" might become unwieldy if every single area of interest were to be listed. --Newsroom hierarchies (talk) 17:05, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

One problem right now is that pretty much every article linked to from that template is in a woeful state (see above). I really think we have to spend the time working to get the articles up to scratch before we even think of sticking navigation templates on things. Robotforaday (talk) 00:55, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

That is a point I considered. On the other hand, it's possible that the linkage of all these key articles under one umbrella may encourage editors to take that step of improvement. The editing and improvement of anthro articles on Wikipedia appears to happen very slowly and only sporadically, when otherwise busy people get a sudden urge to improve an article (I say this with more than three years of watching anthropology articles here). Adding an easily accessible list of anthro articles might help to encourage anthropologically-minded visitors to various pages to do some of this cleanup as they encounter articles in terrible shape. (I also noticed that the issue of overall article quality hasn't seemed to stop the journalism people from linking up their articles--not that that's necessarily a good argument for us doing it.)

It may be that it's common practice to wait until articles are at an acceptable level of quality before adding a nav template--I have no idea as I hardly ever participate in the backstage processes of Wikipedia. But given the looseness of collaboration that has been the norm in anthro editing in the past, adding it now may be a good option here.

Either way though, you're right of course, that the biggest priority is improving those articles.--Newsroom hierarchies (talk) 01:51, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Haven't had a chance, yet, to properly look at the template (hope to do so later tonight) .. but also wish to bring attention to the recent creation of Portal:Anthropology .. which it might be useful to look at together with Template:Anthropology??

Otherwise .. having been one of those few most recently involved (along with RobotforaDay) in most recent "sporatic"(?) effort to see core anthropological articles upgraded (see above discussion, plus re-invigorated monthly collaboration?) .. I'm very glad of ANY interest and ANY approach which will see some of the key/core anthropoloigcal findings/insights/concepts better represented on Wikipedia! Bruceanthro (talk) 08:08, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. I hope my earlier post didn't sound disparaging of your efforts in that regard because I think this collaboration is great and hugely necessary. (I also confess to being one of those busy people who has only substantially edited anthro articles in rare moments.)

As for portals, these are supposed to be something like the public face of the WikiProject and "should promote content and encourage contribution." They can be used to highlight good anthro articles and promote to do lists and other cleanup tasks, which I think could be productive. --Newsroom hierarchies (talk) 15:34, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Oh, don't worry, I didn't think you were being disparaging at all, or anything like that, and I hope in turn you didn't think I was shooting down your development of the template, which I think is a sound idea in essence. It's just that I personally fear that pointing people to articles in their current state could be frustrating - but this is an issue to be revisited soon (I hope) when a handful of these core articles have been developed. Robotforaday (talk) 12:20, 8 February 2008 (UTC)