Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Archaeology

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Article names

There are lots of articles titled 'Archeology of "Country name", which is grammatically wrong - it should be Archeology in "Country name". Who wants to do a widespread name change? Roger 8 Roger (talk) 12:58, 7 March 2026 (UTC)

They have different connotations, but both are grammatically correct. -- Avocado (talk) 13:10, 7 March 2026 (UTC)

They have different meanings, not connertations, which dictates their use in a sentence, which makes the current title grammatically wrong. Roger 8 Roger (talk) 13:27, 7 March 2026 (UTC)

To be obnoxiously pedantic in ways that I admit are not meaningfully relevant to what was probably your intention in opening this conversation: while there's an argument to be made that in some cases they are semantically incorrect representations of the article contents, those titles are legitimate syntactical constructions and thus grammatically correct. "Colorless green ideas sleep furiously" is also grammatically correct. -- Avocado (talk) 15:57, 7 March 2026 (UTC)

Doesn't that depend on the topic of the article? Looking at my bookshelf, I have Archaeology of Precolumbian Florida, Archaeology of the Everglades, Archaeology of North Florida, and Archaeology of the Florida Gulf Coast. If the topic of the article is about what archaeologists have found in a given territory, then I would say that "of" is appropriate. If the article is about the development and practice of the discipline of archaeology in a given territory, then I would say "in" is appropriate. Donald Albury 15:25, 7 March 2026 (UTC)

This discussion has also been taking place on the Talk:Archaeology of New Zealand, but I suggested it move here as it affects more than one article. All the "Archaeology of…" regional articles seem to be a summary of the history of archaeological investigations in that country over the last century or two, and a list of notable artifacts and sites excavated, arranged chronologically: e.g. Archaeology of Qatar. Are there any regional articles that the community considers exemplars of this structure, that could perhaps go in the project showcase? —Giantflightlessbirds (talk) 07:08, 17 March 2026 (UTC)

I first noticed this issue on the NZ article so I raised it there first, before realising it affected many other articles, which led me to mentioning it here too. I think Donald Albury is correct in that the different usage, of 'in or of', can depend on what the writer has in mind when writing. They have different meanings depending on the context. My reading of all these articles is that archeology refers to the subject in a broad sense, not to individual sites/digs. The examples given here where 'archeology of COUNTRY NAME' is used in publications is about various sites within the country, making it possibly correct. I put an AI answer on the NZ archeology article, repeated here, which sums it up neatly I think. "The phrase "archeology of something" typically refers to the study or examination of a specific subject or culture, while "archaeology in something" usually indicates the practice or application of archaeological methods within a particular context or location." My understanding is that all the wikipedia articles refer to the subject of archeology in all its uses, within a country, making 'archeology in' a better choice. The question to be addressed then is what exactly are all these wikipedia articles meant to be aboutabout? An analogy makes it clearer. Change archeology for history - 'History of Canada' and 'History in Canada' are more obviously about different things. Roger 8 Roger (talk) 08:08, 17 March 2026 (UTC)

New Archaeology of Aotearoa New Zealand project

Kia ora all,

I'm currently funded a day a week for the next few months by Wikimedia Aotearoa New Zealand (announcement here) to work with a local historical archaeology company in Christchurch and improve the coverage of New Zealand archaeology a little. The treatment of New Zealand archaeologists and archaeology in Wikipedia is pretty average, and there's almost nothing about historical archaeology for example. I have access to the expertise, publications, and library of this team of archaeologists until July, and will be giving a presentation on Wikipedia and how they can get involved at their national conference. If anyone's interested in helping create or improve articles around New Zealand archaeological topics, please feel free to add yourself to the list of participants and lend a hand. There are lists of people that need articles and better Wikidata, and articles on particular sites and finds that need creating. The Journal of Pacific Archaeology is now open-access and we're hoping to work with the editors to get papers published in there better-cited in Wikipedia. Any help is appreciated! Giantflightlessbirds (talk) 22:26, 16 March 2026 (UTC)

That's exciting news. As of writing, the journal is mentioned on 38 English Wikipedia articles, which get an average readership of 10,500 per day. Nearly half of those lacked DOIs so I've added those (ideally this search should have zero results).

There's a lot of scope for improving Wikipedia from those sources. Are there plans to add images from the journals to Commons since they're now under an open licence (leaving images where there's a third-party copyright of course)? Richard Nevell (talk) 22:35, 17 March 2026 (UTC)

The images are not as simple as we might hope: the actual copyright owner is almost always a mystery, and so we can't credit them as required by the licence. And despite the open licence, it's unlear that people supplying images in every case realise they'd be released under CC-BY. Many of the maps and diagrams are based on copyrighted originals, which may or may not have been adapted with permission. I've approached the current and former editor of the journal, who may be able to help with approaching authors and securing reasonable-resolution images from them. This of course takes a quite a bit of time and emailing. I'm concentrating on some image collections of objects uncovered in post-earthquake excavations in Christchurch we may be able to get an open licence for. — Giantflightlessbirds (talk) 00:53, 18 March 2026 (UTC)

• I, on and off, have been making lists of Heritage New Zealand-listed sites by territorial authority. There's a lot of archaeological sites on these lists (for instance, dozens of middens and many earth ovens in List of historic places in Clutha District; but there's often literally no information available about these beyond an entry in the NZHL. Is there a database somewhere that might have reports on these individual sites? Generalissima (talk) (it/she) 06:36, 18 March 2026 (UTC)

Help Needed!

Greetings!

I am working on a new article about the Roman city of Hebdomon.

The city, also known as Septimium in Latin, was an important administrative and military center adjacent to Constantinople during late antiquity and the Middle Ages of the Roman and Eastern Roman Empires.

I know that the history of Hebdomon is included in the history section of Bakırköy, but I find it insufficient. There is a great deal of information that could be added specifically about Hebdomon in its own article. Many Roman emperors were proclaimed there, and several monuments and other notable places were erected on the site. Short excavation campaigns, notably the French work in 1922 and further investigations by the Turkish Republic in the 1950s, uncovered inscription fragments, cisterns, and structural remains; any photos, maps, or reports on these digs would be welcome.

I am a fairly new editor, so I may have made mistakes here and there. That is why I need your help to improve this article. I welcome critique, advice, or any information you can provide.

Also note: this article is a work in progress and may be incomplete. Contributions and reliable sources are welcome to improve it.

Many Thanks! WikiArtax (talk) 13:43, 27 March 2026 (UTC)

This is really solid work for a first article! You've got the essentials down w.r.t. markup, structure, citations, etc. Someone who's a bit more knowledgeable about the field and familiar with the details of how we structure archaeology articles in particular can probably offer more specific feedback. To a generalist editor like me, a couple things jumped out upon a first skim:

• Hebdomon experienced its best period in the age of Justinianus. -- This sentence currently stands alone, and it begs for further explication. What was so great about this period? What happened after to cause a decline?
• The table of emperors proclaimed there feels overemphasized relative to the rest of the article. That sort of formatting would be appropriate for a standalone list or perhaps even for a section in an article much longer than this one; but as it is, it overwhelms the rest of the article. I might suggest omitting the images or even converting the table to a bulleted list. (This is a subjective reaction, fwiw -- not a rule or convention.)

Those are nitpicks, though. Keep up the good work! -- Avocado (talk) 11:21, 31 March 2026 (UTC)

Giovanni Battista de Rossi

Hello, I have opened a move request in Talk:Giovanni Battista de Rossi, and I would appreciate your input. ~2026-19871-57 (talk) 09:08, 31 March 2026 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:National Etruscan Museum#Requested move 16 March 2026

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:National Etruscan Museum#Requested move 16 March 2026 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. TarnishedPath^talk 09:27, 31 March 2026 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Bir el Qutt inscriptions#Requested move 21 March 2026

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Bir el Qutt inscriptions#Requested move 21 March 2026 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. TarnishedPath^talk 05:19, 4 April 2026 (UTC)

Wikidata for settlements with "Founded" and "Abandoned" dates

Hello everyone, I am new to editing Wikipedia and this project :)

I am interested in creating an interactive map that visualises the founding and abondonement of settlements over time (particularly settlements founded ca. 15000 BCE to 1000 ca. BCE). Perhaps such a thing could be useful for this community too?

I already have a small working prototype using data from a bodged SPARQL query for Wikidata, but unless I missed something, it seems to be rather rare for archaelogical settlement sites to have relevant Wikidata properties like inception, start time, dissolution, end time, etc.

I have also noticed that even if the Wikidata is present, it is rarely used in the corresponding Wikipedia page for the "Founded" and "Abondened" dates in the infobox. I was wondering if this is for a reason? I edited Qatna as an example.

If the data are simply missing, and it is considered a good idea by this community to add them, then I would be happy to add the relevant Wikidata entries and update infoboxes to use them on my serendipitous journey of discovery of this time period. I would be inclined to use the properties inception and dissolutiondissolution.

I could also add things like the estimated population for certain points in time, when a reasonable source exists. Chivalrous Breadfruit (talk) 20:45, 15 April 2026 (UTC)

Farmingdale Statue

I would appreciate members of this project to take a look at Farmingdale Statue, a newly created article for an African statue dated 40 years ago to the 1600s that was dug up in the United States in the 1960s. I am skeptical of the article as none of the citations are recent. Thriley (talk) 00:16, 22 April 2026 (UTC)

A Google Scholar search was a bust. While it appears that the statue originated in southeast Africa in the 17th century, the proposed explanations in the article for how and when it reached Long Island, although supported by the cited sources, are pure speculation. Without reliable sources criticizing or contradicting the existing cited sources, I don't see much that can be done with the content of the article (the formatting can certainly be improved). Donald Albury 15:15, 22 April 2026 (UTC)

The "custodian" of the statue just started a thread at Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Humanities#April_22. Johnbod (talk) 15:17, 22 April 2026 (UTC)

Nomination of Relict hominid for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Relict hominid is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article is being discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Relict hominid until a consensus is reached, and anyone, including you, is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the AfD notice from the article until the discussion is closed.

—Myceteae‍🍄‍🟫 (talk) 16:43, 29 April 2026 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Taíno archaeology#Requested move 11 April 2026

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Taíno archaeology#Requested move 11 April 2026 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. TarnishedPath^talk 10:17, 2 May 2026 (UTC)

Rena hoard

Came across this in the news and was interested. Historic find, apparently. Remains under investigation by the regional archaeologists. Once scholarly work becomes available after the investigation is done, could use some attention from an expert! AleatoryPonderings (talk) 12:53, 3 May 2026 (UTC)

Good article reassessment for Cyrus Cylinder

Cyrus Cylinder has been nominated for a good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. Z1720 (talk) 02:28, 5 May 2026 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Corinth#Requested move 29 April 2026

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Corinth#Requested move 29 April 2026 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. TarnishedPath^talk 09:43, 7 May 2026 (UTC)

Gamzigrad, archaeological site or village?

Hi, it seems to me that this article seems to only cover the Roman archaelogical site which exists in the village, but the village itself seems to still be populated and has a long post-Roman history, would it maybe make sense to split these two subjects? One article named Gamzigrad for the village, and Felix Romuliana for the archaeological site? ★Trekker (talk) 14:14, 8 May 2026 (UTC)

The article describes the Gamzigrad site as being in the city of Zaječar. Is the Gamzigrad village a subsection of Zaječar or is that incorrect? Simonm223 (talk) 14:18, 8 May 2026 (UTC)

The article for Zaječar and the Serbian language article for Gamzigrad states that Gamzigrad is near the city, but I'm not sure how city limits really work.★Trekker (talk) 19:44, 8 May 2026 (UTC)

June 2026 GAN Backlog Drive

Good article nominations | June 2026 Backlog Drive
June 2026 Backlog Drive: Do you want to become more experienced in the GA process? On 1 June, a one-month backlog drive for good article nominations will begin. Barnstars will be awarded based on the number of articles reviewed. Mentors are available, and new reviewers (<6 reviews) get bonus points! Interested in taking part? You can sign up here.
Other ways to participate: Join the conversations on our talk page.
You're receiving this message because you have participated in a good article review this year or participated in the previous backlog drive.

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 21:59, 25 May 2026 (UTC)

Help on Caucasus-Lower Volga

I just did a touch-up on this newly created article, but feel that it could use a look-over by someone with more knowledge than me. Any takers? Botterweg (talk) 18:44, 5 June 2026 (UTC)