Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Synoptic table of the principal old world prehistoric cultures

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was delete. J04n(talk page) 14:41, 20 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Synoptic table of the principal old world prehistoric cultures

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In short: this article is original research by synthesis and I do not believe it can be brought into line with our core content policies.

There's a decades worth of more specific shortcomings pointed out on the talk page. Doug Weller summed it up well in 2009: a "slightly mad table of inaccurate and seemingly randomly chosen historical events". There are no sources that support the selection of items or the format they are presented in here. It might seem uncontroversial to simply compile the dates of archaeological cultures/periods in different regions, but it isn't for several reasons. For one, its format invokes a theory of (pre)history (i.e. it is a sequence of discrete 'cultures') that is decidedly fringe in current scholarship. Additionally, neither the definition of archaeological cultures, nor their periodisation, nor assigning them dates, are straightforward facts. They are all subject to scholarly debate and revision as new research is conducted, yet this table cuts through all of that and presents these details unambiguously, which is not consistent with a neutral point of view. Finally, the sheer ambition inherent in the title (a "synoptic" table representing millions of years of history across half the globe) makes verifying each element of the table a huge task; in its current form almost none of them are referenced, and it is full of factual errors.

I do think this is an interesting exercise in "big history", but Wikipedia is not the place for it. – Joe (talk) 14:34, 13 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of History-related deletion discussions. – Joe (talk) 14:35, 13 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Archaeology-related deletion discussions. – Joe (talk) 14:35, 13 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Delete Joe puts this very well. There are some subjects that simply can't be covered this way and this violates a number of polices, not least NPOV. There are many disputes in this area and even more uncertainties and this ignores them all. Doug Weller talk 14:53, 13 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Delete I would agree with all comments above. As an archaeologist this table makes me cringe, and I don't see how incremental fixes/additions are going to solve the major issues raised by Joe Roe. Ninafundisha (talk) 15:18, 13 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Delete, I could see how creating a list with a clear ordering criteria (e.g. by mean start date of given culture) could fly. Sampling at a random 1000 year (10,000, 100k, etc) point and making a determination for a given region at that date - is questionable.Icewhiz (talk) 15:35, 13 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Delete The selection of info for this article is completely indiscriminate. Or, in short, 'huh?' !dave 10:06, 14 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Delete A horrible mix of original research and synthesis that is too reliant on subjective curation. Fraenir (talk) 15:24, 14 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. Violations of WP:NOR and WP:SYNTH

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.