Talk:The Neanderthals Rediscovered

The Neanderthals Rediscovered has been listed as one of the Social sciences and society good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it.
Review: October 20, 2023. (Reviewed version).

A fact from The Neanderthals Rediscovered appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 19 November 2023 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that the authors of The Neanderthals Rediscovered learned that their book proposal had been accepted on the same day they took their twin sons home from hospital?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2023/November. The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/The Neanderthals Rediscovered.

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Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by PrimalMustelid talk 10:13, 8 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

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Comment or view
Article history

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... that the authors of The Neanderthals Rediscovered learned they were accepted to write it on the same day they took their twin sons home from hospital? Source: Nocella, Michael (24 September 2013). "Neanderthals Rediscovered By Armonk Couple". Armonk Daily Voice. Retrieved 17 October 2023.; Papagianni, Dimitria; Morse, Michael A (2013). "Preface". The Neanderthals Rediscovered: How Modern Science is Rewriting Their Story. New York, New York: Thames & Hudson. p. 6. ISBN 978-0-500-05177-1.
- ALT0a: that the authors of The Neanderthals Rediscovered learned their book proposal was accepted on the same day they took their twin sons home from hospital?
- Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/Philosophy
- Comment: Primary source here is just backing up "sons", as the news piece doesn't specify.

Moved to mainspace by Vaticidalprophet (talk). Self-nominated at 12:48, 17 October 2023 (UTC). Post-promotion hook changes for this nom will be logged at Template talk:Did you know nominations/The Neanderthals Rediscovered; consider watching this nomination, if it is successful, until the hook appears on the Main Page. [reply]

Comment: ALT0, "they were accepted to write it" is a bit clunky, "hired to writed it", "learned their offer to write it was accepted", "learned they would be the writers" ... -Bogger (talk) 16:56, 26 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
- Terminology is a little tricky here, on account of the vagaries of the nonfiction publishing world. "Hired to write it" would be a work-for-hire, which is a very different thing, and "learned they would be the writers" at least gestures in a similar direction -- something for which the premise was decided by a third party. I'm not sure "learned their offer to write it was accepted" is less clunky. Vaticidalprophet 00:43, 28 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
New enough (and quick GA too), long enough, well written and well sourced, no copyvio concern, QPQ present. AGF on synopsis. Interesting hook is really all primary sourced (quotation from news story) but still reliably sourced, and again AGF on the book source. Added slightly variation of ALT0a, just a more direct rephrasing from the article. Hameltion (talk | contribs) 15:23, 4 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

GA Review

Passed. Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:06, 20 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion 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.

This review is transcluded from Talk:The Neanderthals Rediscovered/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Chiswick Chap (talk · contribs) 19:45, 18 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

This is about as close to an instant pass as any article I can remember, as it's properly constructed, illustrated, and cited, and very nicely written too. For the sake of decency I'll mention a couple of very minor points.

"Background and publication" seems to cover two, or perhaps three, very different topics: what Neanderthals were; who the authors are; and the publication history of the book. Since these events are separated by some 40,000 years, it seems a bit odd to lump 'em together. I suppose the first two could be called "Context", but that section really shouldn't contain book details.
- I mulled over how to best handle this one for a while, but here split it as "Context" for the first two and "Publication" (further down) for the second two. How do you feel about this? Vaticidalprophet 10:51, 19 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
77 illustrations: are all those photographs, or are there maps and diagrams too? I'd certainly hope there were maps, and if I was reading up about suitable books, I'd want to select one that gave me a proper geographic overview as well as the history.
- I've clarified this in the synopsis, including that there were maps. Vaticidalprophet 10:51, 19 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
"if Neanderthals and anatomically modern humans cohabited in Europe": perhaps the verb "cohabited" isn't ideal, as it could mean they slept together rather than coexisted in the same region. Actually there is evidence of interbreeding too, but that's another story.
- Good point. I've rendered it as "lived in Europe at the same time", given "coexisted" is used again just after. Vaticidalprophet 10:51, 19 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
"they took their twin sons home from the hospital they were born in". Maybe the two instances of "they" need a little work.
- I've recast this sentence, hopefully in a clearer way? Vaticidalprophet 10:51, 19 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
"covers the contemporary understanding of Neanderthals": actually on re-reading this I don't know quite what "contemporary" means here: that the book is out-of-date already, as is slightly implied by the Reception section? or that it is nicely up-to-date, having taken in the advances made between 2007 and 2013? Perhaps this could be expanded and clarified slightly.
- hm. It's not so much out-of-date as "no longer right on the cutting edge", but I've reworded somewhat. Vaticidalprophet 10:51, 19 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I always stumble over "predated" (... predation) and perhaps other readers do too. After all, both groups ate meat, and cannibalism is mentioned ...
- Have placed a hyphen :) Vaticidalprophet 10:51, 19 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
"Both authors had published books previously; Papagianni was an editor of the 2008 archaeological compilation Time and Change: Archaeological and Anthropological Perspectives on the Long-Term in Hunter-Gatherer Societies[10] and Morse the author of How the Celts Came to Britain, published in 2005 by Tempus Publishing, which was selected as one of The Times Literary Supplement's Books of the Year.[11][12]" ... is rather a long sentence. Maybe split it?
- Split, though I'm not entirely happy with either the original sentence or this version (it was certainly very long, but feels a little choppy now). I think it's passable, though. Vaticidalprophet 10:51, 19 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe wikilink Native Americans (there is quite a choice of articles to link here, actually).
- Given the context of a lot of that literature I think Native Americans in the United States is the closest target, so I've linked that one. I was a little surprised to find, while checking, there's no real standalone coverage outside the noble savage article itself about Native American portrayals in literature (rather than Native American literature itself) -- except Native Americans in German popular culture. Vaticidalprophet 10:51, 19 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The images are both suitably licensed.

Ref [29] needs its newspaper parameter.
- Have fixed that detail now. Vaticidalprophet 10:51, 19 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Summary

This is a fine article and I hope to award it a GA shortly. Chiswick Chap (talk) 20:07, 18 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks so much for the prompt review and commentary! I believe these are all addressed. Vaticidalprophet 10:51, 19 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

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.