Category talk:Archaeological sites in the United States

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Archaeology

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earlier comments

I've fleshed this out, but feel free to make any subcats that are needed. psch e mp | talk 07:37, 2 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Natural features are not archaeological

Contradict me if anyone cares to offer a different definition, but I always thought that Archaeology (and I'm pretty sure on this) is the study of man-made historical features and civilisation, thus I would question the presence of the Grand Canyon and other natural/geological features being listed in this category. I would say that the Grand Canyon is primarily a Geological feature, and most certainly not an archaeological feature. Any archaeology to do with the Grand Canyon is merely secondary surely. Superbfc 21:49, 21 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Depends on your point of view. There are archaeological sites there, and if you are mostly interested in archaeology, then it wouldn't be secondary to you. The category is not named Category:Sites that are primarily archaeological. I see categories as an aid to reserach, and as such, I think everything with a site should be listed so that people can search for them. Nothing in this category doesn't have a site in its borders. As wikipedia has no paper limits, I feel it is a good thing to draw attention to whatever features a place may have, and there is no reason to limit accessability to knowledge. psch e mp | talk 22:10, 21 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Archaeology is indeed the study of cultural (i.e. man-made) remains, and has absolutely nothing to do with dinosaurs and/or fossils (this is the realm of the palaeontologist). It is a fairly common misconception that archaeology is about "everything that is really, really old" and therefore it is common to find for instance dinosaur sites and bronze age sites classed under the same category. This is mainly an American phenomenon, as archaeology here is closer to the natural sciences than it is in for instance Europe. As an archaeologist I have to say that grouping "everything really old" under the same category is wrong, and I believe most palaeontologists would agree with me.--Grumpy444grumpy 10:01, 22 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]