Talk:Buya, Eritrea

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: rejected by reviewer, closed by BorgQueen talk 13:58, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

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Skull of Madam Buya

• ... that Madam Buya (pictured) is the oldest fossil with human features? Source: Schuster, Angela (1998). "New Skull from Eritrea". archive.archaeology.org. Archived from the original on August 20, 2023. Retrieved 2023-10-21.
  • Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/Harlem Park Three

Created by Graearms (talk). Self-nominated at 16:34, 22 October 2023 (UTC). Post-promotion hook changes for this nom will be logged at Template talk:Did you know nominations/Buya, Eritrea; consider watching this nomination, if it is successful, until the hook appears on the Main Page.

• New enough, long enough, and no evidence of copyvio. The things it says are cited, and the references look credible. I am not 100% on saying it's the oldest fossil with human features, since the source supporting that is from 1998; has anything older been found since? Otherwise I am happy with this. jp×g 01:54, 24 October 2023 (UTC)

  @JPxG and Graearms: As well as the age of the source, it doesn't actually support the claim that this is the oldest fossil with human features – it says with comparatively modern human traits, which has a particular meaning in palaeoanthropology. Both claims are anyway so ambiguous as to be impossible to properly verify, and I don't think we can put either on the main page on the basis of a 25 year-old "news brief" in the AIA's outreach magazine. This needs a new hook at the minimum, but I'm also seeing some problems with close paraphrasing of this source:

  • Source: Until this discovery the earliest known fossils bearing comparatively modern human traits were those of a 600,000-year-old H. heidelbergensis from Bodo, Ethiopia

  Article: Prior to this discovery, the earliest known fossil with human traits was a 600,000 year old Homo heidelbergensis skeleton from Bodo, Ethiopia

  • Source: Excavated between 1995 and 1997 by Ernesto Abbate of the Università di Firenze (Florence, Italy) and an international team of paleoanthropologists, the nearly complete cranium of an adult, along with two pelvic fragments and two incisors, was recovered from ancient lake and river sediments deposited within the primarily volcanic Northern Danakil Formation.

  Article: Buya was excavated between 1995 and 1997 by archaeologist Ernesto Abbate working for the University of Florence alongside a team of Eritrean and Italian paleontologists from the National Museum of Eritrea, the Pigorini Museum, and the University of Florence. They unearthed fragments of the skeleton of the Homo erectus fossil Madam Buya. They were found inside ancient river and lake sediments located within the Danakil Depression.

  • Source: According to Abbate and his team, the skull's long ovoid braincase, wide cheekbones, and massive browridge resemble African H. erectus and H. ergaster.

  Article: It has a oval neurocranium, massive brow ridge, and wide cheekbones. These traits are all characteristics of a Homo erectus fossil.

  I think the article needs a more thorough check for copyvio and sourcing issues. – Joe (talk) 07:23, 27 October 2023 (UTC)

Oh jeez. Some of these are indeed concerning. I'm going to put this on hold until I have the chance to go through all of the sources personally. jp×g 07:45, 27 October 2023 (UTC)

@Joe Roe:@JPxG: I have made some edits to the article in the last few hours. Hopefully, this will fix any close paraphrasing issue. I checked the article with Earwig, and I edited as many things as I could. Earwig now claims that the article has a 2.9% similarity to the text closest to it. Prior to these edits, Earwig detected a 5.7% similarity between the article and the closest source. I have also made changes to the statements cited as examples of close paraphrasing in the article. Some are still relatively similar to the the original sentences from the article, but they should be noticeably different from the original source. Also, I have clarified that they meant modern human features not just hominid features at a few points in the article. Graearms (talk) 16:40, 27 October 2023 (UTC)

@Graearms: I still don't think you have the sourcing to support this "earliest modern human" claim. I can't find it repeated in any scientific literature (recent or not), which suggests probably the original claim in Archaeology magazine didn't stand up to scrutiny. Wikipedia:Identifying_reliable_sources_(science)#Basic_advice has some good advice. – Joe (talk) 06:26, 30 October 2023 (UTC)

@Joe Roe:@JPxG: I have made significant edits to the article. I have removed the claim that it is the earliest known example of such a fossil, however kept notes about it containing both archaic and modern features. I propose a few new hooks.

• ALT1:... that the Buya Lady is a million year old Homo Erectus fossil?Source: Schuster, Angela (1998). "New Skull from Eritrea". archive.archaeology.org. Archived from the original on August 20, 2023. Retrieved 2023-10-21.
• ALT2:... that the site of Buya became known as the "Sanctuary of the Amygdales" for its large quantity of important archaeological sites? "Danakil, an Italian team discovered the 'Shrine of the Amygdales'". 9Colonne (in Italian). Archived from the original on November 9, 2023. Retrieved 2023-11-09.
• ALT3:... that archaeologists may have discovered an ancient species of bull at the site of Buya?Martínez-Navarro, Bienvenido; Rook, Lorenzo; Papini, Mauro; Libsekal, Yosief (2010-02-01). "A new species of bull from the Early Pleistocene paleoanthropological site of Buia (Eritrea): Parallelism on the dispersal of the genus Bos and the Acheulian culture". Quaternary International. Quaternary Changes of Mammalian Communities Across and Between Continents. 212 (2): 169–175. doi:10.1016/j.quaint.2009.09.003. ISSN 1040-6182.
• ALT4:... that the site of Buya may contain trace fossils of a previously unknown species of invertebrate?Abbate, Ernesto; Bruni, Piero; Landucci, Francesco; Pellicanò, Giannantonio (2012). "Unusual Ichnofossils in Homo Erectus-Bearing Beds of the Pleistocene Lake Deposits in Central-Eastern Eritrea, East Africa". PALAIOS. 27 (1/2): 97–104. ISSN 0883-1351.Graearms (talk) 02:32, 10 November 2023 (UTC)

I don't know what this is doing at WP:DYKNA, but marking as not approved yet. theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 23:08, 15 November 2023 (UTC)

@JPxG: Have the concerns been addressed? Z1720 (talk) 03:12, 9 December 2023 (UTC)

Unfortuantely, there appear to be persistent issues. Among them is the discrepancy between "Sanctuary" in ALT2 and "Shrine" in the article. Another is the use of numerals for totals fewer than 12—is this an attempt to paraphrase? A final, less worrisome concern exists in the somewhat less-than-eye-catching ALT3 and ALT4 hooks: unfortunately, possible discoveries are less fascinating than confirmed ones. The decade+ age on these possible discoveries also lessens my confidence that new species were discovered. Offering Graearms an opportunity to make the relevant changes in the next 48 hours before formally rejecting this nom. Best, ~ Pbritti (talk) 04:31, 20 December 2023 (UTC)

Reject due to repeated issues and staleness. ~ Pbritti (talk) 03:49, 23 December 2023 (UTC)