Talk:Human history/Archive 4

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Archive 4

Requested move 16 October 2022

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: not moved. per discussion consensus. This was a close one from the beginning, but the "no" votes eeked it out the back half. Especially as more and more editors naive to the discussion provided their input. New, but experienced participants are one of the best ways to get a sense of community consensus (e.g. WP:3O, WP:DR). The "no" votes also ended up having more persuasive policy-based arguments in WP:PRECISE and WP:ACCURATE (world history includes a lot more than humans, the academic term is too ambiguous) and WP:COMMONNAME in that the most staunch academic sources may use "world history" in a very technical way, but this is not what most of our readers will think of when they think of "world history." World history, as an imprecise term, is best left as a DAB page so that our readers aren't sent to unexpected places. Human history is best left here, given that this is the history of humans on the Earth. (closed by non-admin page mover) — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 15:51, 12 November 2022 (UTC)

---

• Human history → World history
• World history → World history (field)

– Per discussion above, human history is usually referred to evolution of humans while world history covers ancient, post-classical, and modern history in reliable sources. The field of world history is not the article most people search for when searching up on history. Interstellarity (talk) 00:53, 16 October 2022 (UTC) — Relisting. Interstellarity (talk) 12:49, 28 October 2022 (UTC) — Relisting. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 15:40, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

• Support the above proposal for title changes, which will benefit both of the articles concerned, as well as the articles' readers:

"World history" is the obvious title for the article currently titled "Human history".

The title change from the current "World history" to "World history (field)" will make superfluous the explanatory note that now appears at the top of the current "World history" article:

"This article is about the academic field. For a global overview of historical events, see Human history."

The proposed change from "World history" to "World history (field)" will prevent readers interested in world history from mistakenly arriving at the article that addresses the academic field of world history.

Thank you.

Nihil novi (talk) 04:03, 16 October 2022 (UTC)

• Support per nom. Shwcz (talk) 10:19, 16 October 2022 (UTC)
• Support per the above discussion and the nom. Iskandar323 (talk) 12:01, 16 October 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose. There aren't any definitive, unambiguous titles here but I think the status quo after the last RM is the best compromise. As I understand it, world history is commonly used in the US education system to refer to the complement of American history, but that won't be "obvious" to readers from the rest of the world. To me world history sounds like the history of, you know, the world, which is not what this article covers. Interstellarity's premise that "human history [usually refers to the] evolution of humans" doesn't match my experience, but since we don't have any sources either way that's a moot point. Wikipedia policy also prefers natural disambiguation to parentheses, so the proposed move to world history (field) would be a backward step. – Joe (talk) 09:01, 17 October 2022 (UTC)

  We definitely shouldn't be kowtowing to the US education system and what appears to be a ridiculously parochial convention in this instance (the world is clearly not just America). I also disagree that 'world history' ever really refers to the earth/geology and the like. For this we have History of Earth and Timeline of natural history. The existence of the current World History page carries with it the premise that 'World History' refers to the history of mankind at a global level; it is simply not currently about the subject itself, but a definition of the study of the subject. I agree that parenthetical disambiguation is not ideal, but this is primarily the case when better options are available, and I do not think maintaining a page at an otherwise sub-optimal title is a better option. Iskandar323 (talk) 09:21, 17 October 2022 (UTC)

  Well, World History is itself a field with a lot of weird Western-centric ideas baked into it, but that's another discussion. I guess what I'm missing here is, what is "sub-optimal" about the current title? The pros and cons of the various options were discussed at greater length in the last RM. – Joe (talk) 09:46, 17 October 2022 (UTC)

  That previous RM certainly introduces an element of irony into this discussion, but as an initial observation, if we look at the sources for this page, there is not a single one that has 'human history' in the title, whereas there are roughly a dozen sources that present themselves as this or that of 'world history'. It's a cursory point, but a stark one. Iskandar323 (talk) 10:12, 17 October 2022 (UTC)

• Oppose, per this ngram presented in the last RM. The page is about human history not the history of the planet Earth. Randy Kryn (talk) 12:30, 17 October 2022 (UTC)

  How does this ngram prove anything? How do we know the uses of these terms are being applied to global history and not human evolution, the earth's history etc. ? Aza24 (talk) 20:37, 17 October 2022 (UTC)

  Well, here's another n-gram which at a minimum shows that this page is not broken. Randy Kryn (talk) 20:45, 17 October 2022 (UTC)

  When you look at scholarly hits for "human history", perhaps half are for evolution, genomics or anthropology, making it ambiguous at best. Iskandar323 (talk) 03:09, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

  Those all seem a part of human history. Wanted to say I Support "World history (field)" and that the term 'World history' should redirect here no matter the result of the RM. Randy Kryn (talk) 04:17, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

  There's certainly some considerable overlap, but 'human history' tends me more in the direction of human evolution - but I'm coming around to the idea that 'human history' might actually be a sufficiently ambiguous term that it might be better off disambiguated, with redirects going to both 'World history' and 'human evolution'. Iskandar323 (talk) 04:21, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

  Why should 'human history' be limited to evolution? The page describes all of human history, its civilizations, etc. (cave man, yada yada yada, Trump), and the timeline of what humans as a species have accomplished with their command and/or misuse of nature. Randy Kryn (talk) 04:29, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

  Yes, when people talk about 'humans' it tends to be in the sense of analyzing us at the species level - hence the evolutionary bent, but that is not, in general, what this article is currently about. It has an exceptionally brief set of summaries about humanity's early development and then proceeds with world history from a normal world history perspective. I would expect a 'human history' article to be quite the opposite: the start being the millions of years of hominid evolution, the migration out of Africa, interactions with Neanderthals, 'World history', by comparison, is a mere speck in the timeline of a true 'human history'. That history would be brief: "In modern times, humanity..." Iskandar323 (talk) 05:30, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

  The current tendency of this article towards world history is why I would suggest only that term appears in the current sources. Iskandar323 (talk) 05:31, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

• Support — None of the above rationales on either side seem to present tangible evidence (and my disagreement with the ngram chart's relevance still stands). We should consider that not a single book source in the article is named "human history"? Then we might note than numerous sources in this article are called "World history": The entire seven volume The Cambridge World History, Central Asia in World History, Encyclopedia of World History, 21st-Century Narratives of World History, Timelines of World History, A World History. If we look at the Ancient history article we again find no semblance of "human history" in book titles but instead, World History: From the Ancient World to the Information Age, and similarly (but notably, not "Human history"!), The Penguin History of the World and Concise History of the World. If we go to the World history#Bibliography section we see not a single mention of "human history" but numerous mentions of either "World history" or "History of the World". As such, I find no current opposition rationales convincing. Aza24 (talk) 21:15, 17 October 2022 (UTC)

• Then where did all the n-grams come from? Randy Kryn (talk) 01:55, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

  This continues to be a moot point. The n-grams are unable to display what these terms are being used to specifically indicate (global history, human evolution history, written history, non-written history etc.), so just having raw data of term usage does not tell us anything. Aza24 (talk) 02:30, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

• You may or may not be right, but there sure are a lot of them. Randy Kryn (talk) 03:08, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

Important to bear in mind that policy states where competing names exist in secondary sources, tertiary sources may be used to establish due weight. Iskandar323 (talk) 03:15, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

World history should, at a minimum, redirect here, and the present article moved to [[World history (field}]]. I still questions why humans would encompass the term "world", as that topic would seem to cover the natural formation and development of the Earth and all of its life forms, and not just humans. Human history seems more defining of the actual topic. Randy Kryn (talk) 04:13, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

Well I think you can chalk that last part up to anthropocentrism - it's more impressive still that in the USA 'world history' covers just America. Iskandar323 (talk) 04:17, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

Odd that 'World history' directs to what should be, as nommed World history (field) or maybe World history (academic field). America? You must mean Texas. Randy Kryn (talk) 04:23, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

I think there's been a misunderstanding. In the US, it's common to study American history (the history of the US) and world history (the history of the rest of the world) in secondary school. I'm speculating that this might mean world history is an "obvious" title for this article (as suggested above) for American readers, but not for the rest of the English-speaking world, where it's all just called history. – Joe (talk) 06:11, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

Oh, yes! Wrong end of the stick. In any case, I think sources such as The Cambridge World History make plain that it is not just the US. Iskandar323 (talk) 06:15, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

Although ... the authorship in that work is very predominantly American - I'm suddenly wondering if the 'Cambridge' is just branding. Iskandar323 (talk) 06:17, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

I agree that ngrams can be misleading, but in this case it's quite stark: "human history" is used 50% more than "world history". Throw in the outdated synonym "history of man", and it's nearly double. It seems to me that the obvious explanation is that "world history" is more likely to show up in the title of works, perhaps to cater to the massive US textbook market (see above), but "human history" is more common in prose, e.g. in formulations like "the first X in human history". – Joe (talk) 06:19, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

It's more like 40%, and that isn't a huge margin in Ngrams: it can be due to all sorts of things, and really just leads one back to more detailed source analysis. My problem is that 'human history' is a rather nebulous term than can mean a great many things with a great many different nuances, whereas World History is an actual, defined field of study. Iskandar323 (talk) 06:35, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

It also look like the hits for 'world history' may be being split with the synonymous 'global history'. See this Ngram (most clear if you hit enter again). Iskandar323 (talk) 06:40, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

• Comment: Ironically, the only category for this is currently Category:World history, clearly making the confusion one that pervades more than just this page. Iskandar323 (talk) 06:47, 18 October 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose. The current title is clearly the best title for this article. While neither title would be incorrect, this proposed move would create unnecessary confusion with the current articles at World history and History of Earth. Also, per WP:COMMONNAME as "human history" is the most common name for this topic according to the Google Ngrams. And I don't want to be too futuristic about this, but "world history" isn't a great name for this topic when humans have already been to another world decades ago (aka the Moon) and could possibly be on another world (Mars) within another few decades. "Human history" is a much better term for encompassing all of that. Rreagan007 (talk) 18:40, 20 October 2022 (UTC)
• Support and propose triple move:
• Human history → History
• History → History (field)
• World history → World history (field)--Maxaxa (talk) 23:01, 23 October 2022 (UTC)

  @Maxaxax: Definitely coming around to this idea given all of the confusion that this move discussion is admirably demonstrating. Iskandar323 (talk) 04:17, 28 October 2022 (UTC)

• Support. This is an encyclopedia. Our article on the history of the world should be at world history, not some meta-article about world histories themselves or how a concept of world history came to be. Red Slash 17:16, 24 October 2022 (UTC)
• I've gone ahead and boldly moved the article about the field to world history (field) and turned world history into a disambiguation page, since there seems to be agreement here that the field is not the unambiguous primary topic for the phrase "world history". Obviously if there's a consensus here to move this article to that title, the disambig will have to be moved out of the way. – Joe (talk) 09:34, 25 October 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose leave world history where it is. "World history" frequently includes the portion of time before the existence of any humans. Such as dinosaurs, the Hadean, the Cambrian explosion, the Late Heavy Bombardment. Atlases frequently show it as world history. "world history" is a disambiguation page and should remain as such. The field is located at World history (field), while world history is a disambiguation page -- 65.92.244.114 (talk) 10:20, 25 October 2022 (UTC)

  NB: This comment reflects the changed destinations of some of these terms after @Joe Roe, as noted in the comment above, moved some of the pages. Iskandar323 (talk) 11:44, 25 October 2022 (UTC)

• Oppose per the comments made above by Rreagan007. "World history" is better off left as a disambiguation page that one can use to navigate to either Human history, or History of Earth. There are also a few pages, as well, that rely on the disambiguation page such as World history (field), or World History (album). BlueNoise (Désorienté? It's just purple) 21:21, 25 October 2022 (UTC)
• Strongly support. The expression "human history" will become acceptable once we discover alien species with their own histories. Until then, it's simply a bizzare term. The Google Ngram arguments collapse under the most basic scrutiny, and I wonder if its proponents understand what Ngram actually does. It shows the use of an expression across all printed books Google knows about. If an erotic fiction novel talks about someone being the "worst villain in human history", that counts in Ngram stats. Come on! It's very obvious that you cannot use Ngram for colloquial expressions; you're not measuring what the topic is called in reliable sources, you're just measuring how much a meaningless colloquial expression gets used. The descriptor that is universally used in English-speaking academia is "world history", save for Australians which use "global history". In most of English-speaking academia, "global history" is a subfield of world history that studies a specific approach, so using that term would be misleading. "World history" is the obvious term here. Aza24's arguments are also convincing. I'll note that I would equally support "History" and "World history", but I assume the latter would be more popular. DFlhb (talk) 12:04, 27 October 2022 (UTC)

  You've never heard of natural history, earth history, prehistory, etc., then? – Joe (talk) 13:57, 27 October 2022 (UTC)

  Don't these other terms rather make the point that "World history" is in fact not any of these things, and relates to the "history of civilization"? I quote from that page: "The study of world history, as distinct from national history, has existed in many world cultures." The term boils down to us living in a 'human' world, so there is no other 'world history'. Iskandar323 (talk) 14:44, 27 October 2022 (UTC)

  I was responding to DFlhb's (rather bizarre) argument that the concept of non-human histories is "bizarre". – Joe (talk) 14:52, 27 October 2022 (UTC)

  Well I do agree that 'human history' has an odd ring to it precisely because of this point. Up until our first encounter, there is no non-human history, so the emphasis on 'human' in relation to history is rather redundant - surely that's just "history", since we have no history of civilization other than that of our own. This again cycles back to the point that world history (or global history) is actually a defined field of study, versus 'human history', which is indeed a colloquialism used in trivial pop culture comparisons: [1][2][3] - a lot! Iskandar323 (talk) 15:40, 27 October 2022 (UTC)

• Strong Oppose Events such as the End-Permian Extinction are world history but not human history, moving this article to World history would exclude the vast majority of world history from this article. 2603:9000:CA02:CACC:8428:E690:50A9:9B83 (talk) 00:42, 28 October 2022 (UTC)

  World history (field) is defined as being just history from a global perspective and essentially synonymous with human history, just with less tautology. Neither cover the Permian extinction event and the like, which are matters of natural history and earth history, or for geological events, the geological history of earth. Though clearly thr confusions around this are legion. Iskandar323 (talk) 04:14, 28 October 2022 (UTC)

• oppose - Proposal would mean a reduction in WP:PRECISE, would be less WP:ACCURATE, would be a change in scope. BlueNoise has the right solution above. - UtherSRG (talk) 00:48, 28 October 2022 (UTC)

Support per nom. The Ngram arguments are very weak and inaccurate. Either world or human history will ignore a part of what they claim to represent but given human history is taken to represent human evolution I don't think it fits here. World history is an actual field and there is a general consensus that it does in fact represent the history of humanity. The arguments that world history ignores the Earth is also invalid given there are pages on the history of the Earth as well as the history of life. At the very least I suggest also turning human history into a disambiguation page and changing the article page title again, maybe to Iskandar's suggestion. Politicsman540 (talk) 19:02, 1 November 2022 (UTC)

• Oppose per WP:PRECISE. World History (or 'history of the world' or 'History of Earth') is a term that is used either in a chronological history of geological developments or could refer to human activities. On the other hand, human history (or history of humans or human civilization) is a much more concrete title to this article's scope. I do support the already moved World history becoming a disambiguation page and replacing it was World history (field). Yeoutie (talk) 02:40, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

• Comment: As is so often the case with a given word, the word "world" carries many meanings, depending on context.

Three of my English dictionaries each give between 13 and 25 discrete senses or examples of use of the word "world", including "the human race; mankind...".

Thus, when speaking of "world history", we are speaking of the same field that some prefer to call "human history".

However, that field is more commonly, conventionally, in fact called "world history".

It therefore seems to me we would best move the article in question from "Human history" to "World history".

Thank you.

Nihil novi (talk) 06:17, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

Quite. When we say world, we mean our world, as in the human world. Our 'world' is all that is around us. All of our history is human by default, but not all is worldly. Iskandar323 (talk) 09:17, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

Note: WikiProject History has been notified of this discussion. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 15:39, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

Note: WikiProject Archaeology has been notified of this discussion. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 15:39, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

Note: WikiProject Anthropology has been notified of this discussion. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 15:39, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

Relisting comment: still pretty deadlocked at second relist by my estimation with reasonable policy arguments on both sides. it edges slightly towards oppose given PRECISE and the many new and inexperienced accounts on the support side, but I want to see if we can garner input from the relevant wikiprojects. If we can't get a clearer consensus in a week then I'll close as nocon. But always better to avoid it. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 15:40, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

Looking over the discussion, this probably should have just been closed as no consensus rather than relisting for a second time. Rreagan007 (talk) 19:40, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

If you look over the history of the page, this has been proposed and closed and proposed and closed repeatedly back and forth over the past 16 years. I think it would be great if we could avoid having another discussion in 6 months or 6 days. However, I lay no claim of ownership here and my relist should not be seen as binding in any way. You Any uninvolved user can and should feel free to close it as youthey wish. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 20:43, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

Minor comment: I will just point out, Rreagan007 did participate above, so it would probably be better if someone not involved were to make an overriding determination (I personally think this relisting was appropriate and shouldn't be overridden). --Pinchme123 (talk) 21:02, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

ah thank you I did not see that, I will go ahead and strike that part of my comment. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 21:05, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

I would not have attempted to close this (or any other) RM discussion that I participated in. But I do think that there is a very clear "no consensus" here. In general, I think a second relisting should not be done unless it seems like the discussion appears to be leading towards a consensus, which is not the case here. Rreagan007 (talk) 21:36, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

• Oppose. "World history" is too vague. 𝕱𝖎𝖈𝖆𝖎𝖆 (talk) 02:32, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

  "Human history" is also vague and can be taken as the study of human evolution in addition to world history. In fact human history may be a much less clear term. Have you seen or heard anyone who uses the term "human history" to refer to world history or uses the term "world history" to refer to anything other than the history of humanity's past? Even if you know anyone who does you should refer to the ngrams. The only good explanation for why they are so much more common is that human history refers to more than just world history since none/few sources in the article use the term "human history". Hell "human history" could even be used for records such as "strongest human" or something else which can be seen if you read a few resources that use the term. Politicsman540 (talk) 19:26, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

Exactly! The point couldn't be made better.

Nihil novi (talk) 19:38, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

I think it can be improved on. There are other reasons for a change to world history that have already been mentioned here. Making that point is still very important and I don't think any oppose arguments have convinced me yet. Politicsman540 (talk) 18:23, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

• Oppose The implication that human history = world history is highly problematic. Per WP:PRIMARYTOPIC] given that neither human history or the history of Earth can be construed as the primary topic of 'world history' the current solution of disambiguation seems appropriate. Criticalus (talk) 16:13, 7 November 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose per above. There is more to world history than just human history, and the latter is what this article discusses.  — Amakuru (talk) 21:37, 9 November 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose. The world predates humans by at least hundreds of millions of years. JIP | Talk 00:23, 11 November 2022 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Why is it "exceptional" to say that Indigenous people influenced Western democracy?

A recent edit by @Antiok 1pie removed content about Indigenous influence on Western democracy, arguing that this is an "extraordinary claim." They cite a source which says this about the source I had cited:

Graeber and Wengrow devote many pages to this literature. Their survey, however, does little but repeat points that many scholars—Anthony Pagden, Tzvetan Todorov, Sankar Muthu, Michèle Duchet, David Allen Harvey and Antoine Lilti, to name just a few—have made before them. And while they are correct to say that this literature played a role in the genesis of Enlightenment thought, so did many other things

This only seems to establish that this is not an "extraordinary claim." The removed content wasn't claiming that Indigenous people were the only influence, just that they had some significant influence. This section is already fairly skewed toward white people, so it seems to me like this removal only adds to the bias. Freoh (talk) 16:53, 13 December 2022 (UTC) (edited)

I think it is ok to ask this question. But I think any answer is going to be complex and not one which we can pin to any academic consensus? One thing which is clear is that the "noble savage" concept was something which influenced 18th century Enlightenment. This concept was "connected" to the new contacts with more isolated cultures around the world but I suppose many authors would see this connection more as "inspiration". For example landing on the moon "inspired" stories about aliens, but can we say that aliens literally influenced those stories?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 18:24, 13 December 2022 (UTC)

Obviously the wording Inspired by Indigenous American political theory, the Age of Enlightenment also led to the spread of modern democracy in the late-18th century American and French Revolutions. implies that "Indigenous American political theory", played a disproportionately large part in influencing Enlightenment thinkers and, indeed, this is what the authors of the source claim. This is an extraordinary statement, sourced to a controversial book, which contrasts the opinions of historians such as David A. Bell, among others. Generally, The Dawn of Everything's arguments about the Age of Enlightenment (incl. its claims about Native Americans and their influence) have been criticized ([4] [5] [6] [7] [8]) so I'm against using this source, especially in wikivoice, for claims regarding that period and any related individual. Regarding the argument that Natives had some influence on Western democracy and on the Enlightenment would probably be undue to add, (with or without sources) considering the fact that countless other things were influential for both of them. See the Bell source (para. 10) for a few examples. Antiok 1pie (talk) 00:08, 14 December 2022 (UTC)

I would just add that unless the influence is beyond a doubt and a defining/central factor, it should not be included in this article, which is a very general overview with a scope far from the topic at hand. Aza24 (talk) 00:11, 14 December 2022 (UTC)

Agreed. Antiok 1pie (talk) 00:14, 14 December 2022 (UTC)

The Age of Enlightenment page notes in its lead that the French Revolution is the start of these developments, and the period is associated especially strongly with Europe, where there was little to no indigenous community or voice - so indigenous influence on trends in America can in no way be generalized to the entire Age of Enlightenment. Iskandar323 (talk) 05:42, 14 December 2022 (UTC)

I'd argue that that page should be changed as well. In any case, a self reference is not considered a reliable source. Freoh (talk) 16:31, 14 December 2022 (UTC)

And yet, it remains deeply unclear how indigenous American political theory is particularly pertinent to the Age of Enlightenment in general. Iskandar323 (talk) 18:04, 14 December 2022 (UTC)

I can work on making it clearer, but I expect most of the details are outside the scope of this article in particular. Freoh (talk) 18:20, 14 December 2022 (UTC)

Okay, you're right that the removed content was implying more than just some influence. I would say that it was implying significant influence. I feel like disproportionately large influence is not really something that can be objectively measured, but the fact that multiple experts have pointed to the significance of Indigenous influence seems to indicate due weight to me. Freoh (talk) 02:36, 14 December 2022 (UTC)

I think you are going to have to pin this relevance and the sources a lot more clearly. If you want to state something in WP voice you also need sourcing which proves there is a consensus.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 12:13, 14 December 2022 (UTC)

Fair enough, I think I need to do some more reading before proposing something we can all agree with. In the meantime, I'll try to clean up some of the other Eurocentric content on this page for which there isn't consensus. Freoh (talk) 16:33, 14 December 2022 (UTC)

Given that this content is kind of out-of-place in this section anyway, I think it's easier to just remove it. Freoh (talk) 23:53, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

Patriarchy

Recent edits by Cerebellum [9] and Iskandar323 [10] adds content to § Ancient history (c. 3000 BCE – c. 500 CE) which states that Most societies were also patriarchal, with men controlling more political and economic power than women. Here's what the cited source says:

Twentieth-century Russia provides a good example: whether under the czars or the Communists or the post-Soviet government, women still did the shopping and the housekeeping and most of the child care, adding an unpaid “second shift” to their jobs in the paid workforce; these tasks were necessary to keep society functioning, but left women no time for the things that were valued and rewarded, such as further education or political activities. This gender hierarchy has interlocked with other hierarchies based on qualities such as age, physical strength, wealth, family origin, and spiritual authority to create the most common form of human society: patriarchy, in which men have more power and access to resources than women, and some men have more power and access to resources than others.
— Merry E. Wiesner-Hanks

This doesn't seem to justify that most ancient societies were patriarchal, which is implied by the placement of this content. This seems like a somewhat controversial claim to state in wikivoice. Freoh (talk) 14:18, 5 January 2023 (UTC)

You are right! I will find a source more specific to antiquity. --Cerebellum (talk) 15:10, 5 January 2023 (UTC)

Looks like my claim was too simplistic, here's what another source says:

This includes rejecting grand narratives that ascribe public political and economic agency in this period primarily (or exclusively) to men, with women confined to the household. The economic, social, religious, and political forms whose emergence and interaction characterise this period are of too great a variety to allow for simple conclusions about how these developments changed gender relations in the domestic, political, and spiritual arenas.
— Scott Wells and Ping Yao

Thank you for catching that Freoh, I have removed the sentence I added yesterday. I still think our article is lacking in coverage of women's history but I'm not sure how to fix it. --Cerebellum (talk) 10:41, 6 January 2023 (UTC)

Yeah, I totally agree about the gender imbalance, I just think that text was a bit oversimplified. This content might be worth mentioning in § Rise of agriculture:

Seen this way, the 'origins of farming' start to look less like an economic transition and more like a media revolution, which was also a social revolution, encompassing everything from horticulture to architecture, mathematics to thermodynamics, and from religion to the remodelling of gender roles. And while we can’t know exactly who was doing what in this brave new world, it's abundantly clear that women's work and knowledge were central to its creation; that the whole process was a fairly leisurely, even playful one, not forced by any environmental catastrophe or demographic tipping point and unmarked by major violent conflict. What’s more, it was all carried out in ways that made radical inequality an extremely unlikely outcome.

Freoh (talk) 13:12, 6 January 2023 (UTC)

As above, I don't think Graeber & Wengrow are a great source for this article. We don't have space to cover all but the most mainstream of mainstream views, and their book is explicitly a reinterpretation of the mainstream narrative. Also worth noting that in that section they, like the Marler paper you linked above, are talking about gender in prehistory, which is typically doesn't include ancient history/classical antiquity. – Joe (talk) 13:58, 6 January 2023 (UTC)

I was pointing to § Rise of agriculture, which is in § Prehistory (c. 3.3 million years ago – c. 3000 BCE), not § Ancient history (c. 3000 BCE – c. 500 CE). I thought that the earlier controversy was over their presentation of the Enlightenment. Is the role of women in the prehistoric rise of agriculture also controversial? Freoh (talk) 14:44, 6 January 2023 (UTC)

Not so much controversial as novel. – Joe (talk) 15:06, 6 January 2023 (UTC)

That doesn't seem like a bad thing to me, and others were making similar arguments in 2007. Freoh (talk) 15:54, 6 January 2023 (UTC)

References

Social

Collect pictures of ancient people and prepar on album 223.187.62.7 (talk) 01:02, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

You need to be more specific.      — Freoh 01:06, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

Lacking citations

What's with the lack of citations in the article's introduction? Is there an intentional reason for having so many claims go unsourced? If the answer is that the sources for these claims come when the claims are repeated later in the article, my question then becomes, why not move the citations to the first instances of claims like is typically done? 128.54.68.243 (talk) 22:16, 30 August 2023 (UTC)

This is a Wikipedia-wide style so it is not really a topic for this talk page, but yes, in WP articles the introduction works a bit like an abstract and is supposed to summarize the body, which is where the sourcing should be. You will often see footnotes in articles where the opening remarks are likely to cause a lot of controversy but this is not considered ideal.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 06:27, 31 August 2023 (UTC)

Theory of Evolution

I noticed the article treats the concept of human evolution as fact instead of theory. For example, the very first statement of the Prehistory section is "Humans evolved in Africa from other primates." Full stop. No if's and's or buts. With how controversial the concept of human evolution has been, I recommend changing the wording to something along the lines of "In theory, humans evolved in Africa from other primates". It is neither wrong nor dogmatic and doesn't step on as many toes. My 2 cents. --Artimaeus Creed (talk) 15:03, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

 Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. M.Bitton (talk) 15:12, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

The view that humans evolved in Africa is widely accepted by the scientific consensus, so there is no need to treat the claim as controversial. Helioz9 (talk) 22:53, 10 May 2023 (UTC)

It’s also important to note that theory, in the realm of science, is evidence-based fact, as opposed to in the literary sense, which is how you’re using the word here. 96.86.71.225 (talk) 19:26, 12 October 2023 (UTC)