Talk:Chetro Ketl/Archive 1

Archive 1

Toltec

Toltec means a number of different things, but in archeology it means having relation to Tula, Hidalgo. Toltecatl, the source of the word Toltec, is a Nahuatl word that means inhabitant of Tollan, which was a name given to several different large cities including Tula and Cholula. In Nahuatl Toltecatl simply means "artesan" or "highly cultured person", as opposed to hunter gatherers with simple material cultures. Tula is the hispanicized version of the Nahuatl Tollan. In ethnohistory the word Tollan and Toltec is used to refer to a semi-mythical city and its people from which the earliest Nahua migrants into the Basin of Mexico allegedly came. Most consider that this place was likely Tula, Hidalgo. Used as an archeological term, Toltec refers specifically to the material signs of influence from the polity of Tula, Hidalgo. When someone says there is "Toltec features" at site X, or Toltec pottery in site Y etc, it means that it shows similarities with things found originally at Tula, Hidalgo. It really is crustal clear that when someone finds a colonnade to be a sign of possible Toltec influence that is only because there is a famous colonnade at Tula. The observed similarities between Chetro Ketl and Tula (apparently only the colonnade) is the only possible explanation why anyone would be discussing possible Toltec influence.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 21:46, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

OK, but Ferdon was also taking about a tri-wall structure and a tower kiva, not just the colonnade. Anyways, do you think the topic is adequately addressed now, or do you think it needs more detail ([1])? RO^(talk) 22:02, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

Trash mound

Trash mound? Don't we mean midden? - Sitush (talk) 20:22, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

The terms are interchangeable, but I'll link to midden. RO^(talk) 20:31, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

OK, and forgive my pedantry: it is a nice article. - Sitush (talk) 20:45, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

No worries! Thanks for taking a look! RO^(talk) 20:46, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

@Sitush: You're most welcome to conduct a formal review of it at Wikipedia:Peer review/Chetro Ketl/archive1, might be better than starting several sections here. Your input looks good, and I'm sure is appreciated by RO who is looking to improve it to as high a standard as possible.♦ Dr. Blofeld 21:19, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

Definitely! I would be very grateful for a full peer review, should Sitush be willing. RO^(talk) 21:25, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

As I said in the preceding section, I think this needs someone with a certain expertise. I wouldn't be comfortable doing this but I wouldn't challenge the credentials of anyone who does take it on. I've just got this gut feeling that it would be handy if they had knowledge of the general subject area. Would it be worth enquiring of the archaeology or architecture projects, just to see if anyone is interested in taking it on? The first thing they'll probably say is "it should be circumference, not perimeter ..." ;) And the only reason I know of middens is because I live in one (according to my mother, on the rare occasion she risks her health by visiting!) Sitush (talk) 21:37, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

I might have missed it, but I don't think we have an archeology project ([2]). RO^(talk) 21:42, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject_Archaeology - Sitush (talk) 21:46, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, Sitush! I'm not sure how I missed that. Where was it in the directory? RO^(talk) 21:48, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

I didn't look in the directory. I just started typing WP:ARCH in the search box. The talk page looks fairly moribund, as in queries but few responses. Still, it is worth a go. - Sitush (talk) 21:57, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

Great house

Sitush, per your edit summary ([3]), I'm pretty certain that great house should be lower-cased, but I have seen it capped. I've also seen it hyphenated. I believe the style used in the article now is the most common in the archeology sources that I used to write the article, but I'm open to changing it if I am in error. RO^(talk) 16:59, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

I not concerned about the casing. I am concerned whether the thing is a technical term, in which case we probably have an article that deals with it and we can link, or whether it is merely an adjectival description, in which case it can probably be binned without losing anything that matters. If you're not sure then I guess the options are either to seek advice from someone who should know (Dougweller may do, for example) or to turn it into an attributed quotation of the source. - Sitush (talk) 19:19, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

If your question is whether great house is the right technical term, it definitely is, and they aren't called anything else as far as I can tell. It's not necessary to put "great house" in quotes if that's what you were wondering. RO^(talk) 19:21, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

We need to do something with it. The very fact that I am confused, despite a fair degree of intelligence, is evidence that it is not working in its current form. If we don't have something that we can link then we need to quote or to explain. As it is, the phrase is highly ambiguous and those who take the wrong meaning might quibble with the subjective opinion that it is "great". - Sitush (talk) 19:26, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

I'll make a stub for it later today. RO^(talk) 19:29, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

Actually, there is already an article at Great house, but it doesn't include any pueblos. Do you think I should still link to it, or make a stub called Great house (pueblo), or something? RO^(talk) 19:52, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

I have no idea whether the two terms are synonymous, although I think it unlikely. I really think you need to find someone who has some expertise in the terminology, or else an academic glossary. I think we might have an archeology project somewhere. - Sitush (talk) 20:01, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

I created a stub and linked to it ([4]). RO^(talk) 20:30, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

Thanks. I'd say lower case 'great house' is found more in scholarly sources, except of course when used in the title of an article and at times when used as part of the name of a particular great house. Several of our articles use upper case, and we should go through articles mentioning a great house and link to the stub, changing to lower case. Dougweller (talk) 16:16, 14 May 2015 (UTC)

Dimensions

which is approximately 450 by 280 feet (137 by 85 m) and 1,540 feet (470 m) in circumference makes no sense. Are we saying that it is 1540 ft in circumference? If so, to what do the 450 and 200 ft measurements appertain? Height? Width? Length? To extend this thought process, can something that is both roughly circular (circumference) have any other dimension than height, and if not then why are we showing two different heights? The entire thing needs reworking. - Sitush (talk) 19:16, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

The longest wall is 450 feet, and the side walls are 280 feet. The distance around the entire structure is 1,540 feet. This is how Lekson describes it, so I'm not sure of a better way. What do you suggest? RO^(talk) 19:18, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

Ah, it is not circular. In that case, you probably mean perimeter rather than circumference. I'm pretty sure that, while potentially interchangeable, the latter is usually considered to be specific to a circle in geometry. - Sitush (talk) 19:23, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

Fagan 2005 (Oxford University Press) uses circumference. Is he wrong to do so? RO^(talk) 19:50, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

In my opinion, and assuming both that there isn't a technical exception and that the thing is indeed more of a rectangle than a circle, then yes Fagan is wrong. Just refer to a dictionary and consider the common usage. I guess this is one of the problems that can arise when someone writes an article about a discipline with which they are not familiar: they tend to copy the source for fear of getting it wrong. - Sitush (talk) 19:58, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

Well, Lekson is arguably the world's leading expert on Chacoan architecture, and he uses circumference in the same way that Fagan uses it ([5]). RO^(talk) 20:09, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

Just goes to show that even experts can't always write well. Lekson makes even less sense: the circumference of the rear wall, not the circumference of the entire structure. Trust me, use perimeter. - Sitush (talk) 20:11, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

OK. Done ([6]). RO^(talk) 20:16, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

Thanks. I've just been doing some maths and, assuming the walls are of equal length, the perimeter would be 444 m. Obviously, there is something not quite right here but it certainly doesn't look to be a circle. I suspect any peer-review really needs someone with expertise in archaeology and/or architecture (see also my new section below re: "trash mound"). - Sitush (talk) 20:25, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

Presumably the extra comes from the curve of the "D" ? - Sitush (talk) 20:27, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

Yes, I think that's accurate. RO^(talk) 20:31, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

OK, maybe the entire thing needs a rephrase. Something along the lines of "Constructed in a D-shape, the longest wall is X feet, the width is Y feet, and the perimeter is Z." Done that way, people have a picture of the "D" in their head, although I'd bet some people (those who read left-to-right and know the letter D) would think that the straight wall is the longest when logically it must be the curved one. Lekson hasn't made this easy for us. - Sitush (talk) 21:45, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

Done ([7]), but you make a good point that the longest wall would actually be the curved one at the front. RO^(talk) 16:24, 14 May 2015 (UTC)

I think this might be the best way ([8]). What do you think? RO^(talk) 17:02, 14 May 2015 (UTC)

Seems ok to me, speaking as someone who is better at building walls than at digging them up. - Sitush (talk) 18:02, 14 May 2015 (UTC)

Just for reference, Lekson’s an extremely accomplished writer. But he adopts a distinctively informal style in which. at times, can lead to ambiguities when you need careful parsing. Also remember that Lekson assume that students will have ready access to a ground plan of Chetro Ketl, while any of his colleagues will simply know the approximate plan; it's a very, very well-known site. If you look at the plan [http://www.ratical.org/southwest/images/siteGuides/ck95path.jpg}, Chetro Ketl seems more like a square with some rounded parts, but between the rounded front wall and the concave cliff wall behind Chetro Ketl, it feels roundish. MarkBernstein (talk) 18:06, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

I assume you mean Lekson, not Lesson. I'm not aware of any sources that describe Chetro Ketl as round. The prevailing majority describe it as D-shaped, so that's what I've included here. RO^(talk) 19:58, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

Curse that spellchecker. Yes, D shaped is best; I was trying to rationalize the use of "circumference". MarkBernstein (talk) 20:02, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

Oh, I see. Well, Lekson is not alone in his use of that term, and I suspect it carries a slightly different meaning to archeologists than it does when used in geometry and such. No matter, we now say perimeter, as Sitush suggested. RO^(talk) 20:07, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

Cañon vs. Caänon

There is actually a scan of the front cover of Hawley's book at Commons; see File:Hawley Chetro Ketl book front pages.jpg. You can see there that she uses the spelling cañon not "caänon" (which would make no sense at all). —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 15:08, 22 September 2015 (UTC)

Okay. Sorry about that. I should have double checked before reverting you, but I thought I had already checked that. You have my sincere apologies. RO^(talk) 15:10, 22 September 2015 (UTC)

A major discrepancy in work estimates

This statement appears twice in the article, once in the intro and once in the section Phases:

"Chetro Ketl required an estimated 50 million sandstone blocks and more than 500,000 man-hours to complete."

At this rate, the masons were quarying, transporting, shaping, and laying 100 sandstone blocks per hour, to say nothing of mixing all that mortar. Obviously, something is wrong here.

The line refers us to Citation 54, which in turn references two different sources:

Metcalf 2003, p. 77: 500,000 man-hours; Fagan 2005, p. 9: 50 million sandstone blocks.

Apparently these workers used different methods of estimating, or were estimating different parts of the whole, or something. Whatever the case, these numbers shouldn't simply be tossed into the article with a comment on the discrepancy.

24.24.5.73 (talk) 17:03, 23 September 2015 (UTC)Martin Meiss

But that would be your WP:OR. What's stated is what's verifiable to reliable sources. Keep in mind that most of these blocks are about the size of your hand, so it's not like the pyramids or anything, where the stones were too heavy for one person to lift. I will say that Stephen H. Lekson vetted the piece via google docs, and he took no issue with these estimates. Metcalf is highly respected, and the 50,000,000 figure was first proposed by Hewett during the 1930s. I would think that, if this is as obviously unreasonable as you say, another respected archeologist would have refuted this claim during the intervening 70 years before Fagan included it in his Oxford University Press publication in 2005. RO^(talk) 17:45, 23 September 2015 (UTC)

A lot of progress has been made in archeology in recent years by archeologists actually attempting to exercise the crafts needed to produce the artifacts they are investigating. They do things like knapping flint into knives and then actually butchering an animal with the knife. This gives them insight into the kind of cut-marks flint knives make on bone, for instance, and lots of other things that help illuminate the activities of the past. I have not read the original articles cited, but I wonder if the authors actually laid any stone Chaco-style.

There are modern masons that can surpass the hundred-per-hour rate in competitions () but that is with bricks or blocks that are of standard weight, size, and shape. The block does not have to quarried and transported since they are right at hand during the competition, and the masons don't have to mix their own mortar. Additionally, they only have to maintain the pace for the duration of the contest; it's not likely that they could keep working at that rate. Would some discussion of these factors be out of place in an article that emphasises the scale of the work? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.24.5.73 (talk) 17:33, 24 September 2015 (UTC)

An example of how many stones are needed per square foot in a Type IV masonry wall at Chetro Ketl

I don't see any of that as needed here. In fact I see it as totally irrelevant, since it's not Chaco-style masonry; it's cinder blocks, and I can't imagine anything less similar to Chaco-style. If you have a specific suggestion please make it, but this article was highly vetted by peers and experts alike, and I don't see anything in your comments that leads me to think we've missed something important. I don't think it's necessary or even possible to determine the exact work-rate with any certainly. Theses figures are presented as estimates, and that's all they are. Having said that, 100 blocks per hour during 16-hour days would mean the building was completed in roughly 85 years, which is precisely the current academic consensus. Keep in mind too that the people who shaped and placed the stones did not mix their own mortar. Others brought pre-mixed mortar to the site. RO^(talk) 17:43, 24 September 2015 (UTC)