User:Nicolas Perrault III/Reliable sources for Palaeolithic articles
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The following is intended as a friendly note to Wikipedians that study the Lower and Middle Palaeolithic as a hobby and may not be aware of the nature of literature in this discipline. Secondary general-public sources such as newspaper articles, museum brochures and documentaries are as a soft rule considerably biased when discussing this discipline, especially with respect to the Neanderthal debate. They usually favour intelligent, creative, resourceful Neanderthals. This view is indeed advocated by a number of excellent researchers (e.g. Villa et al. 2014), and it is probably fair to say that it is gaining momentum. Yet it is still controversial.
This page was written in good faith to reduce bias, not to promote it. The page appears to be seen as more biased than the content it seeked to remove bias from, so I have moved it to my User Page. The following are nothing more than my own views and are definitely not Wikipedia policy. Nicolas Perrault (talk) 11:36, 7 March 2019 (UTC) |
This is an essay. It contains the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. This page is not an encyclopedia article, nor is it one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, as it has not been thoroughly vetted by the community. Some essays represent widespread norms; others only represent minority viewpoints. |
This page in a nutshell: If a source you're reading is written by a large number of authors and supports its statements with inline references to sources of its own, it's probably fairly reliable. Because very few things in human evolution are known with high confidence, scholarly consensus on important questions changes often and considerably faster than in other disciplines. It is hence less acceptable in this field to use sources that do not give inline references, even if the publishing body is respected and the author is an anthropologist making an honest attempt at being objective. Material from scientific articles, as well as reputable but not professionally anthropological sources, such as journalist interpretations of research findings, often show considerable bias. |
Very few debates of the many that existed concerning Neanderthals 100 years ago have been solved. Two that have were of a phylogenetic nature and regarded whether Europeans descend mostly from Neanderthals (no) and whether modern humans interbred with Neanderthals (yes). We now do know that Neanderthals were habitual hunters of large game. We also know that they often used fire, but it is still debated whether they could produce it (yes: Shimelmitz 2014; no: Sandgathe et al. 2011). No other major behavioural debate has been resolved. This includes deliberate burial, symbolic behaviour, and language.
One often reads that scholars today know better than their early-20th century predecessors. For example, the Australian museum wrote in 2010 that "[t]he unfortunate stereotype of [Neanderthals] as dim-witted and brutish cavemen still lingers in popular ideology but detailed scientific research has revealed a more accurate picture". As much as one, myself included, may have a hard time believing humans so close to us with brains larger than ours were dim-witted brutes, it is simply not possible to reject this century-old stereotype on current evidence. The appropriate idea to share with the public is not that they were brutes nor that they could have designed Apollo 11. It is that Neanderthals could have been one or could have done the other, we just don't know for sure. A primary source that argues for Apollo in a well-reasoned extensively-researched manner is sharing a point of view, a normal part of the scientific process, not showing bias. But a journalist or encyclopedia that takes it for cash is always biased.
Here is a subjective appreciation in decreasing order of usability on Wikipedia (objectivity and verifiability) of sources in the study of Neanderthals in particular, and the Lower and Middle Palaeolithic in general: