Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion sorting/Archaeology

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This is a collection of discussions on the deletion of articles related to Archaeology. It is one of many deletion lists coordinated by WikiProject Deletion sorting. Anyone can help maintain the list on this page.

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Archaeology

List of oldest continuously inhabited cities

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This list has been a magnet for original research and edit warring for years. The basic problem is that we don't have good sources that treat the subject as a cohesive set, because while the "X is the oldest city in Y" is an attention-grabbing headline, it's not really a topic of serious scholarly interest. Instead, the list has been cobbled together from hundreds of sources that make claims about the age of individual cities. This is problematic because these sources don't have a consistent definition of—and rarely even discuss—what counts as a "city" or what it means to be "continuously inhabited". Non-academic sources also routinely repeat dubious dates without checking where they come from or confuse e.g. a prehistoric camp site being found within or adjacent to a village with that village being "10,000 years old", especially where there's a nationalistic angle (i.e. our oldest city is oldest than our neighbours).

I suggest deletion because I don't think this list is salvageable by changing the scope or sourcing requirements and in general we have moved on from these SYNTHy collections that were common in the early days. – Joe (talk) 10:26, 20 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: History and Archaeology. – Joe (talk) 10:26, 20 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions. Spiderone^{(Talk to Spider)} 10:37, 20 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
delete: nominator makes a good case, nothing much to add. ... sawyer * he/they * talk 12:49, 20 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Keep: I accept the nominator's points about the drawbacks of this list, but I do think a list of oldest cities is a reasonable thing for WP to provide. While people certainly do add OR to this article (constantly), that OR is removed when the additions cannot be sourced. Good academic sources exist on the history of all major settlements in the world today. The fact that bad sources also exist is no grounds for refusing to cover a topic. As for definitions of terms, "city" can't really be a problem, or we wouldn't have any lists of cities, while edge cases for "continuously inhabited" can be dealt with using the "notes" section of the list.

It certainly is a lot of work to maintain this list in the face of frequent additions of inappropriate content, but that isn't a justification for deletion. Furius (talk) 13:57, 20 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Good academic sources exist on the history of all major settlements in the world today – certainly, but these sources are not helpful, because of the consistency problems mentioned above. The definition of a city might not be an issue in lists of modern cities but in the past it is a lot hardy to define and the frequent subject of debate.[1] What we need are reliable sources that list and discuss "oldest cities" specifically per WP:LISTN. – Joe (talk) 14:34, 20 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Keep On the basis that an encyclopedia should contain this kind of information. AlessandroTiandelli333 (talk) 23:26, 20 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Keep per Furius, and I can't help but feel that many of the edit warring and original research problems would disappear if the content actually matched the title. At the moment the content is for List of oldest continuously inhabited cities by region. Why does this list contain 55 cities for North America? Clearly should be organised chronologically first. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 23:38, 20 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Keep Obviously this is a worthwhile topic for an encyclopedia. I agree with Airship about the layout of the page being problematic. CarlStrokes (talk) — Preceding undated comment added 04:48, 21 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

KEEP for, oddly enough, the very reason you think it should be deleted. Because you need to cobble together dozens and dozens of sources for any comparison, _any_ comparison has strong encyclopedic value, even if imperfect. Even if _deeply_ imperfect. Tigerhawkvok (talk) 18:22, 21 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Comment. We have five keep !votes but still not a single source that would count towards WP:LISTN. – Joe (talk) 19:19, 21 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Delete Without a consistent approach to (1) what is a city and (2) how continuously inhabited is defined I don't see how this is a viable list. What we are left with is a classic example of WP:SYNTH. I also wonder to what extent the list may be inherently problematic. It omits destroyed settlements and excludes groups which tend to not have permanent settlements, giving a rather colonised view of the world. Richard Nevell (talk) 17:43, 22 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per nom. In 2007 or 2008, I would’ve made a strong effort to save this, but this is a mess of synthesis. Bearian (talk) 02:09, 23 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Delete, per nomination, which I find convincing enough.--Ymblanter (talk) 20:22, 26 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Keep, this subject passes WP:NLIST since its members are discussed as a group in secondary, reliable sources -- namely National Geographic, ArchDaily, Conde Nast Traveler &c. Individual entries should be appropriately sourced, and I agree with the recommendations above for reorganizing chronologically rather than by continent, but WP:DELETIONISNOTCLEANUP. Dclemens1971 (talk) 05:10, 27 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Relisting comment: Consensus is split between keep and delete. Relisting for more input.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, The Herald (Benison) (talk) 11:11, 27 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. The encyclopedic value is obvious. Frankly, I don't see how this would be any more problematic than the List of tallest people. Sure, different lists may have different pieces of information, and that may change in the future, but that is just the nature of geographically and historically dispersed information. BD2412 T 19:36, 27 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Delete Many attempts have been made to make sense out of this article for the last few years but all of them have been unsuccessful. The criteria for this list is itself problematic. Nxcrypto Message 03:02, 28 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]