Talk:Yarmukian culture

Unconnected language in lead

Arminden, the Yarmukian culture is unconnected to the Hebrew language, so there is no reason for the Hebrew name to be in the lead. --Supreme Deliciousness (talk) 23:58, 24 March 2021 (UTC)

Arminden, what do you mean by "Stekelis first introduced the term in Hebrew (that alone should suffice)" ? Stekeli did not invent the name "Yarmukian" and its not a Hebrew word. It does not matter if the type site is located in todays Israel as the culture has nothing to do with the modern state of Israel or with the Hebrew language. Similar cultures in Arab countries do not have the Arabic names because they do not have a connection to arabic, see: Halaf culture and Hassuna culture. By adding hebrew in the lead we would be creating an artificial connection between the Hebrew language and Yarmukian culture, something that does not exist in its archeology or history. --Supreme Deliciousness (talk) 12:29, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

@Supreme Deliciousness: hi. Moshe Stekelis was indeed the one who invented or introduced the term: see here for instance, or here. Ha-tarbut ha-yarmukhit, the Yarmukian culture. Very much in Hebrew. The archaeologists first found Yarmukian remains at Megiddo/Tell el-Mutesellim in the 30s, but didn't identify the culture as such. It was Stekelis and his team who excavated at Sha'ar HaGolan soon after the 48 war and defined the culture. They gave the Neolithical settlement the nickname "Kfar Yarmukh", kfar is village + the Hebrew name of the Yarm(o)uk River, which flows next to the site, and called the culture after it when they published their findings.

To be honest, I would almost have removed the Hebrew myself, but the fact that certain editors (and, to be honest, you more than others) go around articles even remotely connected to the Golan (the type site by the way is outside the Golan, the name means "gate of/towards the Golan") and, as a matter of principle and without knowing much about or looking into the topic, remove anything looking in any way Israeli, made me feel that I have to counter it. As it shows, here too you didn't know anything about the excavation history and the origin of the name. Sorry, I didn't mean to make it sound personal, but knee-jerk reflexes that go against anything in particular (it can be against anything Palestinian, Proto-Bulgarian or Hutu), without doing some research and allowing for some flexibility, are a red rag for me.

Where Western archaeologists introduced a name that stuck, they are the godfathers and that's that. Here it was an Israeli, who first published it in Hebrew. Besides, the Halaf culture is named after Tell Halaf in Syria. Arabic name. They didn't call it Oppenheim culture, after the man who discovered it, Max von Oppenheim, which is perfectly normal and fine with me. Hassuna culture is named after Tell Hassuna in Iraq, also in Arabic, and rightfully so. If anything, one can start asking why the Yarmukian culture isn't called Horvat Yarmukh culture, which would be the Hebrew name for "Yarmuk ruins". But nobody went crazy over such stuff back then, and I'm grateful for that. But now let's leave things as they are, OK? Thank you, and enjoy the springtime! Arminden (talk) 15:52, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

PS: This seems to be the first publication in English (Stekelis excavated in 1949-1952). I couldn't find it online. Moshe Stekelis, A New Neolithic Industry: The Yarmukian of Palestine, Israel Exploration Journal, Vol. 1, 1951 , pp. 1–19. With 'Yarmukian' and 'Palestine', all in nice and user-friendly British style. Arminden (talk) 16:41, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

"Yarmukian" and "culture" are two words that pre dates Moshe Stekelis, So he did not invent the name. The culture has nothing to do with the hebrew language. You also say: "To be honest, I would almost have removed the Hebrew myself, but the fact that certain editors (and, to be honest, you more than others) go around articles even remotely connected to the Golan (the type site by the way is outside the Golan, the name means "gate of/towards the Golan") and, as a matter of principle and without knowing much about or looking into the topic, remove anything looking in any way Israeli, made me feel that I have to counter it."... this is proof that you are not editing here for the benefit of the article, but of personal spite. I showed you above that Halaf and Hassouna cultures in Syria and Iraq does not have Arabic translations, so there is no reason to have Hebrew here in a non-hebrew culture that is also scattered across multiple Arabic countries. --Supreme Deliciousness (talk) 07:34, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

The Hebrew name in the lead is misleading. Obviously the name Yarmouk is not Hebrew, and the name here is just an adjective for the area. This inclusion of the Hebrew name would imply this was a Hebrew culture or something connected to that, which is clearly not. If you do insist on including that, then we should be including the Aramean and Arabic names as well, to say the least. It's good that you say: I would almost have removed the Hebrew myself, .... You seem to be inclined to do the right thing and should not feel like you are bowing to pressure. Thanks, Amr ibn Kulthoumعمرو بن كلثوم (talk) 16:23, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

@عمرو بن كلثوم: hi. Did you read my arguments, or just the apparently convenient bit? Yarmuk (English name) is a river. Yarmouk is French. In Hebrew it's called Yarmukh. The culture is far older than any of these languages. Nobody knows how the "Yarmukians" called the river, or themselves. The same goes fo the people who created the Halaf and Hassuna cultures: they didn't use the names Halaf or Hassuna. They didn't speak Arabic or any of its Semitic precursors. We don't know what kind of language they spoke. That's why it's called "prehistory": history starts with script. Those who can't yet write, can't leave us information about their language either. But these cultures predate all Semitic languages by thousands of years.

Who names the cultures? The excavators. They usually adopt the name of the type site. The type site names are adopted from the local population. The type site here is Sha'ar HaGolan, and its local population, at least by the time of the exploration, was made up of Hebrew-speakers, as was the team of archaeologists led by Stekelis. The archaeologists called the site: Kfar Yarmukh, Hebrew for Yarmuk Village. Why not Sha'ar HaGolan? I don't know, maybe because the site is slightly outside the kibbutz grounds, maybe because the proximity to the Yarmuk River and the importance of the river to the Yarmukians was obvious, maybe because Yarmuk(h) is shorter, or maybe because Stekelis thought of his Western colleagues who'd have a hard time pronouncing Sha'ar HaGolan, while everybody knows about the Yarmuk at least in connection to the Battle of the Yarmuk. Whatever the reason, he made the call.

Stekelis, being a European-educated archaeologist and working at the site in 1943 (survey, maybe first digs) and 1949-52 (excavation), apparently kept the British standards he was used to and applied the English term when writing in English: Yarmuk. He could as well have used an Arabic name, if there was any (I didn't come across it yet), or the Hebrew name, Yarmukh. But he chose the name, wrote his local reports in Hebrew, and published the findings in Hebrew and English. His publications on the site usually quoted are: one preliminary article in English (1951) and a book in Hebrew (1966). In English he uses 'Yarmukian (industry)', in Hebrew 'ha-tarbut ha-yarmukh', lit. 'Yarmukian culture'. So the archaeologist who excavated, named, and published the site worked in two languages: Hebrew for the Israeli academia, and English for the rest of the world. He had studied in Odessa and had made his PhD in Paris, but he didn't choose Russian or French. So yes, these are the two relevant academic languages for the Yarmukian culture.

Nobody in his right mind ever tried or expected to create any connection between the Yarmukians and Hebrew language or the State of Israel, not any more (I hope!) than the Syrians see a direct connection between themselves and the prehistorical Tell Halaf inhabitants, or the Russians between the Denisovans and Slavic peoples and cultures.

Second, yes, I didn't go deeply into it until our colleague went ahead and removed the Hebrew name without checking why it is there. Precisely because I don't like people to approach such topics based on nationalistic or ideological reasons, I thought the Hebrew might be too much for the introduction, but now I can see better than ever that it is justified and required. The knee-jerk reflex of trying to remove anything Israel-related from anywhere where it can possibly be done, without a good justification, is as unacademic and unencyclopedic as the tendency of overzealous Zionist editors, who are ignoring or removing by the same knee-jerk reflex, anything Arabic.

To sum up: the Hebrew name preceded the English one, is used in the first complete publication of the type site, and is as such relevant. Also, there is no justification in going around and removing anything Hebrew- or Israel-related from articles where Hebrew and Israel are relevant, as practiced by some out of a misunderstood sense of national or political mission. There you go. Have a great, lovely springtime! Arminden (talk) 21:38, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

Map

@Joe Roe: hi. I can't figure it out: the map is shown as created by you in 2019, but I see it introduced it by Jytdog here already on 4 October 2017. Did you rework an older map? Is it someone else's? I'm asking because we need the author, unless you want to take over editing it also from now on. Such maps should be introduced at least with an edit summary and an indication on what they're based on. Every word in the article gets fought over, but such an important element as the map gets dumped on the page, "take it or leave it".

I have many questions regarding the map. I am relying on an admittedly old map, but a reliable one:

• Garfinkel, Yosef (1993). "The Yarmukian Culture in Israel". Paléorient. 19 (1). Paris: CNRS Éditions: 115-134 [116]. Retrieved 26 May 2021.

For Giv'at Haparsa I used

• Stern, Ephraim (1984). "Excavations at Tel Mevorakh (1973-1976): Part Two: The Bronze Age" (PDF). Qedem. 18. Institute of Archaeology, Hebrew University of Jerusalem: I-XIV, 1-168 (65). Retrieved 26 May 2021.

So:

• What is it based on?
• Far less strident colours must be chosen. Things are so unclear and preliminary for archaeologists that these strong, contrasting colours are totally misleading.
• Less sharp boundaries would be better, for the same reason. Also, see Lodian sites in Yarmukian "territory" and vice-versa. Also, see how a few sites are construed into defining large "territories" surrounding them on all sides - for no good reason. Pale colours or a discrete set of hatchings/shadings would make this less striking too, if fading out colours towards the margins is technically not feasible.
• The coloured patch should end immediately next to the sites. See Garfield (1933), Lodian ends right east of the 'Ain Rahub - Jebel Abu Thawwab - 'Ain Ghazal line. Apart from the fact that expanding an area beyond the known sites is never justified: further east of that line the climate is more arid, no certainty of settlement or at least of Yarmukian culture reaching further east.
• If 'Ayn Ghazal and Wadi Shu'eib are Yarmukian sites, why are they included in the Lodian area with no Lodian site anywhere around? Garfinkel places 'Ayn Ghazal at the SE extremity of the Yarmukian area.
• Beisamoun (why not 'Ain Mallaha?): Why is it under Yarmukian, who & when did find anything Yarmukian there? This drags the "Yarmukian territory" massively northwards, based on one site which is known for another, earlier period altogether (Natufian, "Final Old Stone Age").
• Bab edh-Dhra is too far east. Giv'at Haparsa too, it's right on/next to the beach.
• I didn't check all sites, just a few which struck me as a bit off, so they all should be checked carefully on a good map. Arminden (talk) 16:50, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

A few more:

• Horbat 'Uza, not Horvat Uza, that one's in the Negev and already taken; see here.
• Jebel Abu Thawwab (Jebel, Th-), not Abu Tawwab
• Wadi Qana Cave, not Maarat Nahal Qana
• Habashan Street, not just Habashan. HaBashan = the Bashan
• Giv'at Haparsa with apostrophe
• Telulyot Batashi with y is more common
• "Wadi Murabba'at caves" name closer to the star indicating its location Arminden (talk) 20:21, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

@Arminden: I didn't create the map, I just translated it from the French version, which was in turn derived from a Hebrew original. So I can't vouch for its accuracy. The reason I added to this article was simply that it was already on Lodian culture (added by me) and Nizzanim culture (added by Bolter21) and this page didn't have one. I wrote the article on the Lodian quickly and, were I doing a more thorough job, I wouldn't include an image map like this, I'd use {{Location map+}} so the labels are clickable and coordinates can be easily edited by others, like I have at Vinča culture#Geography and demographics or Göbekli Tepe#Background. In the mean time I think a not-perfect map is better than no map, but feel free to remove it if you disagree. – Joe (talk) 08:15, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

Although, just on a couple of your specific points:

• I totally agree that inferring sharp-bordered 'territories' from cultures if fundamentally misleading. And any attempt to interpolate them that isn't based precisely on an existing source would be original research. As I said my preferred solution is to have a {{Location map+}}-based point map, but in the interim a quick fix could just be to remove the shaded areas from this map, and colour the dots instead.
• Wadi Shu'eib has both Lodian and Yarmukian material. Not sure about 'Ain Ghazal but it could well be the same story. Another inherent difficulty of synthetic maps like these.
• Beisamoun is a different site to 'Ain Mallaha and is PPNB not Natufian, see [1]
• Bab edh-Dhra is Bronze Age... possibly the original map-maker confused it with Zahrat adh-Dhraʻ 2 or Dhra', which are Neolithic and in the same-ish region.

– Joe (talk) 08:55, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

​ Hi Joe, and thanks. So we basically agree on everything, and you have discovered a WP mistake: a redirect equates 'Ain Mallaha with Beisamoun. I'm not an archaeologist, so my interest is the same as a user's, in getting information. The problem is, I've never even started to learn about creating maps on WP. Your suggestion sounds brilliant. I know that he owner of BibleWalks is making her own clickable maps since her high school years, so I guess it can't be rocket science, but still, I'd need days to learn it, the way I know myself. I can't remember having seen clickable maps on WP anywhere, so are you sure you can do it? Then it would be a great thing to introduce at least one in the Israel-Palestine-Jordan area, as an example and incentive, and get others going. I've looked at your Vinča culture map and it's hugely practical.

For now, if you don't have the time to deal with it, a modest start would be to get to the French author and see if (s)he/'s still active and ask them to do some fixes. Maybe (s)he does have at least some answers to my questions, and probably has the advantage of being quick with using the map-making tools for minor things.

Is there a way of offering an easy way for an editor to see the complete "edit history" of a map, from the one who created it to the last one who's amended it? I would have went directly to the first name on such a list. Now I'm truly happy that you're involved, since you seem to have all the skills needed to deal with every single wrong aspect of the map. I'll do what is within the reach of my limited skills (online research and a systematic approach) and figure out the 'Ain Mallaha - Beisamoun confusion.

I don't know if the map is based on data more recent than the one Garfinkel had in 1993 (see above for his Paléorient article with map). That was my immediate thought yesterday, and I was disappointed that I cannot make out the author to ask him/her directly. If the answer is no, I'd be in favour of just using that map, with whatever adaptations are required by copyright rules. What do you say? Anyway, in this case I fully agree with you that for now we're better off with this map than with none at all and have no intention to remove it, but it must be fixed. A start would be placing both (or all 3 symbols if that's the case) next to sites like Wadi Shu'eib. Thanks, Arminden (talk) 12:34, 27 May 2021 (UTC)