Talk:Bat Creek Stone/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Neutrality dispute

RedPenOfDoom evidently endorses Feder 2010. Which is great for him personally, but he feel so strognly he is right that he feels the article itself should endorse and promote Feder 2010 rather than stay neutral and attribute Feder's point of view to Feder. He feels the reason the article is allowed to endorse Feder as being correct dogma, is because he KNOWS FRINGE when he sees it. I think he is pushing his point of view and calling any source that says different from his conclusions "FRINGE" simply because he disagrees with them. Til Eulenspiegel /talk/ 22:30, 5 March 2013 (UTC)

yes, it is fairly easy to spot fringe theories when they are called out by experts on fringe theories who are reporting the work of others who have identified the fringe theories and published their debunking of the fringe theory in peer reviewed journals.

What is your basis for wanting to remove the descriptor of the of "inaccurate" to the 1821 claim that the inscriptions are "beyond question" Cherokee?

What is your basis for removing the statement that inscriptions were initially described as Cherokee, then later shown to be from a Freemason book and determined to be not authentic? -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 23:02, 5 March 2013 (UTC)

Because that is a Point of View, there are people who disagree with that point of view (not just editors but sources) and you know this but you are claiming some kind of magical precedence for the sources YOU like over the ones you don't, when the whole point is - please get it this time - NOTHING HAS BEEN CONCLUSIVELY PROVEN TO EVERYONE'S SATISFACTION. You seem incapable of telling both sides of the story and can only be happy as long as only the story YOU agree with is being favored and endorsed. Continued uncompromising thumping the appeal to authority that declares these to be fringe theories, fraud and hoax is endorsing a point of view, but that's all you've got, an appeal to authority, and the controversy isn't going anywhere just because you and your sources pretend like you've got all the answers sorted out according to your theory and it's all settled now, no more debate is permissible, go home now please (don't hold your breath) There will be a neutrality dispute until this article refrains from endorsing a POV, treats readers like adults, and allows them to make up their own minds without having it made up for them by your POV-pushing editing. Til Eulenspiegel /talk/ 00:14, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

it doesnt have to be proven to "everyone's" belief - just to the mainstream academic experts in the area. and it has. and yes, I am appealing to authority because that is how wikipedia determines how we value and interpret and present content. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 01:21, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

No, the "Macoy copy" POV has not been established, it is a very recent hypothesis (one of several) that has not been proven in the least and is not even bloody likely if you ask me. Just because it happens to be YOUR favorite hypothesis, doesn't give you the right to proclaim it correct, everything else wrong, force it down other wikipedians' throats, and hypocritically call that "neutrality". That is the very antithesis of "neutrality". You seem to enjoy making sure the article will get in the faces of readers who disagree or hold a different opinion, and you seem fearful to let both sides of the story be told without magisterially informing the reader whose view you deem "correct" and "acceptable", and whose view you deem "incorrect" and "unacceptable". I will not sit quietly as long as only half the story is allowed to be told from your biased point of view that is anything but "NPOV". Til Eulenspiegel /talk/ 01:42, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

for the last time , we most absolutely DO NOT present all views equally, we present them in the proportion that they are held by the mainstream academic experts and we call out wingnut fringe theories as wingnut fringe theories. THAT is how we apply NPOV. Read the fucking policies. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 01:48, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

And I say your attitude that NPOV doesn't apply to you here because you're so convinced your opinion is the only correct one, is completely out of place on wikipedia, and your redefinition of "neutrality" as "helping out one position to attack the others" is in fact orwellian, or at least complete hypocrisy. WP:NPOV is non negotiable, cornerstone policy and your totally skewed and biased misinterpretation of it notwithstanding, it will remain non-negotiable. Til Eulenspiegel /talk/ 03:09, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

RedPen: "What is your basis for wanting to remove the descriptor of the of 'inaccurate' to the 1821 claim that the inscriptions are 'beyond question' Cherokee?" RedPen continues to conflate Sequoyah (1821) with Cyrus Thomas (1894). Perhaps he or she should leave editing this page to those who are remotely familiar with the basic facts.

In any event, the new material RedPen has added to the lead is way too detailed for the lead. It already has a reference to archaeologists and others who think it's a fraud, but the details should go in the body, not in the lead.

BTW, how do we know what Conflicts of Interest (COI) the many pseudonymous editors have? We all know who Dougweller, MandelCook, and myself are, but who are all these other editors? Are they plugging their own work? Not necessarily wrong, but it would be nice to know who's adding and promoting the references. — Preceding unsigned comment added by HuMcCulloch (talk • contribs) 02:06, 6 March 2013 (UTC) HuMcCulloch (talk) 02:08, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

I can understand your concerns, but if you find out please do not mention it anywhere on Wikipedia. Unless an editor mentions his real life identity on Wikipedia, even suggestions about who the editor might be in real life violate WP:OUTING. And I have no reason at all to think any of them have a COI. It's really only you and MandelCook who have COIs as I haven't published anything on this subject. Dougweller (talk) 09:09, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

The content in the lead clearly presents a summary of the subject, the content i added is not weighed down by unnecessary specifics and is well within the parameters for recommended length for an article of this size. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 02:19, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

I have stopped editing because mine would be a COI. I would like to point out however, that my book was published by POL Publishing owned by WA Brock. I just do their websites and do freelance work with them. Not that that matters. Mandelcook (talk) 02:38, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

The idea that the inscription is "beyond question" Cherokee is clearly wrong, as Cyrus Gordon questioned it (and he should know). Not to mention McCarter and Cross, who are top experts. PiCo (talk) 02:59, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

Cyrus Gordon was a Semitic expert (with no ascertainable professional expertise in Cherokee), and many of his fellow Semitic experts felt that he went off the rails in his semi-infamous 1971 book. AnonMoos (talk) 03:33, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

Cyrus may have lost his grip a little in his later years, but he knew what Paleo-Hebrew looked like. Likewise McCarter and Cross - they can all recognise a waw when they see one. The only difference between Gordon and McCarter/Cross is that M/C say that though the letters look sort-of Hebrew, the inscription is a fake. On the other hand, there doesn't seem to be any line of experts forming to say it's Cherokee. PiCo (talk) 04:29, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

No, but believe it or not, the Cherokee hypothesis was the old "Official Doctrine" (and everything else a hoax or fringe - especially anyone suggesting the letters were Semitic!) as recently as 2009. Do you start to sense the frustration here, when all scoffers have to do is brush it out from under the carpet long enough to revise their official story, give no credit where due, sweep it back under and pretend they've been right all along? They have a VERY low bar of standard that they set for themselves (where else would different texts with different letters be considered a "match"?), while holding others to impossible standards of proof that they know they themselves could never meet. Til Eulenspiegel /talk/ 04:45, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

PiCo, the assertion that the letters "are beyond question letters of the Cherokee alphabet" is a direct quote from Thomas (1894). It may or may not be true (in my 1988 article I argued that it is not), but that is what he said in his authoritative Mound Explorations and hence is an important part of the history of this artifact. Of course, authorities are not always right, which is part of what makes this an interesting story. We don't have a direct statement from Cross, but as filtered through M&K (1991), he's merely saying that it is not Paleo-Hebrew. That of course does not preclude Cherokee, or any other writing system, and does not in itself make it fake. McCarter does say it clearly is an attempt to write Hebrew, but an incompetent one, and therefore most likely a fake. Personally, I don't see the logic of this -- while it's true that the scribes who write the manuscripts and monumental inscriptions that modern scholars study all got A's in penmanship, it doesn't follow that no one in antiquity ever flunked penmanship, yet went ahead and did their best to write anyway. Be that as it may, if it's any attempt to write Hebrew, it can't be Cherokee (unless Cherokee derives from Hebrew, but I don't think that works at all), so that McCarter, at least, may be placed in the non-Cherokee camp. But veteran hoax-buster Marshall McKusick (1989, 1994) insists that it really is Cherokee anyway, and his view must be recognized as an alternative (if not definitive) viewpoint. HuMcCulloch (talk) 04:50, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

The fact that you and many other have "questioned" whether or not the figures are Cherokee is flat out proof that the assertion that the letters "are beyond question letters of the Cherokee alphabet" is inaccurate. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 16:00, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

The statement that Cyrus Thomas's otherwise authoritative Mound Explorations report asserts that the symbols "are beyond question letters of the Cherokee alphabet" is 100% accurate, regardless of the accuracy of the assertion. Merely paraphrasing this crazy assertion would just raise issues of who could ever think such a thing. The article goes on to present other points of view (Hebrew, according to Gordon, M&K 2004, myself, not Hebrew according to Cross as filtered by M&K 1991), and to contest its authenticity (M&K 1991, 2004) . Sounds pretty balanced to me. You can add Feder's (2010) endorsement of M&K (2004) to the section on "Recent comments" if you like, but it's inappropriate for the lead section. I'll manually restore the status prior to your inclusion of this in the lead when I get a chance. (Automatic undo no longer works because of intervening edits) HuMcCulloch (talk) 16:48, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

Maybe the article should take a thematic approach instead of (or in addition to) a narrative one? Have a section on Provenance, another an Language/Script. Also, what I notice as being missing is a discussion of the background to why the mounds survey was undertaken - the mounds mystery (or whatever it was called) of the 19th century, in which learned opinion was divided between those who felt the Indians had built the mounds, and those who couldn't believe that such a primitive people could have been responsible and it must have been Egyptian, Sumerians, Jews or some other civilised immigrants. So the Smithsonian made the survey to settle the question. The Bat Creek stone seems to have been about the only artefact that suggested a non-Native American origin, but it only suggests that if it's in Hebrew; if it's Cherokee, then it fits in with all the rest that was found. This, I think, is what lies behind Thomas' categorical statement that it's Cherokee - Jews would have been too hard to explain. (There was also the possibility that someone had seeded the results, that would have been opening a real can of worms back in the 1890s, and to be charitable, the thought might never have crossed Thomas' mind). PiCo (talk) 05:09, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

Precisely -- the hypothesis that Thomas was supposed to be testing (are there pre-Columbian alphabetic inscriptions or other evidence of contact in the mounds?) never entered his mind. The one inscribed tablet he found, in the heart of Overhill Cherokee territory, therefore must have been modern Cherokee. The accompanying cupreous bracelets must have been [native] copper. That's where it stood until Gordon came along and claimed he could read Hebrew when he saw it. He was dismissed as a "wingnut fringe theorist" as RedPen puts it, and the stone ceased to be mentioned in polite society for 18 years. Stephen Williams' Fantastic Archaeology, and Schroedl and Chapman's reports on the 1970s UT/TVA salvage operation make absolutely no mention of the stone, despite the publicity surrounding Gordon's claim. I mentioned it in 1988, but then I wasn't considered to be very polite... HuMcCulloch (talk) 13:39, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

Til -- You added the POV-check tag to the article as a whole on 3/5 at 22:18. I think it would be helpful to instead tag specific claims for POV, to narrow the issue down to something manageable. I just removed Feder's opinions from the lead section per TALK, but invited RedPen to add them in the appropriate sections as quotes from Feder. So at the moment there may not even be a POV-check issue for the article as a whole. I'll leave it to you to remove it or pinpoint specific claims. HuMcCulloch (talk) 19:09, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

there is no consensus to remove the content which appropriately places the subject into the appropriate consensus view of current mainstream academics as is required by WP:UNDUE and clearly described in WP:LEAD. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 19:25, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

Conflict of interest discussion

The matter of conflict of interest impacting the NPOV of this article are being discussed Wikipedia:Conflict_of_interest/Noticeboard#Bat_Creek_inscription_and_User:HuMcCulloch. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 19:35, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

Hoax categories vs NPOV

This article is included in the Wikipedia categories Archaeological Forgeries, Hoaxes in the United States, and 19th Century Hoaxes. While the AVM Runestone, the Cardiff Giant, and the Piltdown Man are clear-cut hoaxes, the otherwise authoritative Mound Survey's Bat Creek Stone is at worst an alleged hoax. According to wp:Neutral Point of View, "Articles mustn't take sides." Furthermore, wp:Categories states that "Categories must maintain a NPOV". By including this article in these categories, Wikipedia's voice is used to endorse the position that this controversial artifact is a hoax. If there are no objections, I therefore plan to remove it from those categories.

A further issue is that none of these three categories explains the criteria for inclusion, as required at wp:Categories. A category of "Artifacts of disputed authenticity" would be fine, since Mainfort and Kwas, McCarter, and others indeed argue that it's some sort of fraud. HuMcCulloch (talk) 03:32, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

Raised at WP:FTN as a general issue relating to fringe articles and for this specific issue. Most American archaeological hoaxes are believed to be genuine by some people. For this one it seems to me as though current archaeological opinion says it is a hoax, and you are the main person saying it is not - and of course this is not in your field of expertise. Dougweller (talk) 14:20, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

Sorry Doug, there are too many dissenters for you to isolate all of them in this controversy. I agree with the OP that "hoax" is not neutral. The Bat Creek Inscriptions is a current School of Thought that can easily be found elsewhere, the question is will Wikipedia acknowledge it or like many other things does it exist only to "TELL" readers what the "correct" point-of-view and opinion about it must be? Til Eulenspiegel /talk/ 14:39, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

Basically we are an encyclopedia which represents mainstream thought, something I think you know. We have articles on notable fringe subjects and we include fringe opinions in some articles on mainstream subjects, and I think that is right. However, we are not neutral. You'd probably prefer us to support Creationism, but I think our articles on subjects such as that and evolution make it pretty clear to readers what scientific opinion is on these. Virtually every American archaeologist today disagrees with 'they all came to America before Columbus' and we need to be upfront about that. I expect you to disagree. Dougweller (talk) 15:46, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

"However, we are not neutral." I know; that pretty much says it all, don't it? That succinctly stated discrepancy from the cornerstone policy of WP:NPOV has been the biggest single black mark on Wikipedia. It's as if certain editors are afraid to let readers make up their own minds from the evidence, they need to be addressed as children and told what opinion is "correct". Til Eulenspiegel /talk/ 16:38, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

You'd prefer Conservapedia or a Creationist wiki? They aren't neutral. Nor is any paper encyclopedia I've ever seen. We at least allow dissenting opinions, unlike others. Dougweller (talk) 17:50, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

In any case, the main discussion is at WP:FTN right now, so the categories should stay until that discussion comes to a conclusion. I hope you will both read the discussion there and respond. Dougweller (talk) 21:56, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

Doug, there are numerous authorities who regard Bat Creek as authentic. First, there's Cyrus Thomas, who originally certified it as an authentic inscription from his Mound Survey. He's dead now, but certified hoax-busters like Ken Feder (1999) and Stephen Williams (Fantastic Archaeology, 1991) continue to praise his report as authoritative to this day. Then, there's Cyrus Gordon, Prof. of Hebrew and other ancient Middle Eastern languages at Brandeis and then NYU. Then, there's Robert Stieglitz, Prof. of Archaeology (with Hebrew emphasis) at Rutgers (letter to BAR, Nov./Dec. 1993). Then, there's prominent hoax-buster Marshall McKusick, who continued to support the stone as an authentic early-Cherokee inscription, even after McCarter (1993), in a letter to BAR, Jan/Feb 1994. Then, least of all, there's myself, with two articles in the professional archaeology journal Tennessee Anthropologist, and one invited article in the highly respected Biblical Archaeology Review. BAR is admittedly a popular magazine, but that shouldn't prevent McCarter's article there from being cited in this discussion. It's true that I'm just a lowly economist, but then the authoritative Cyrus Thomas was just an entomologist, and a self-trained one at that. The article should definitely make it clear that Mainfort and Kwas and McCarter regard it as a forgery, but Wikipedia's voice should remain neutral. (Feder 2010 brands it as a hoax, despite his 1999 enthusiasm for the Mound Survey, but as you well know, he claims that the C-14 date was performed on charcoal that had no reported relation to the grave goods.)

This seems like the most appropriate place to discuss the status of this specific page. HuMcCulloch (talk) 22:00, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

Actually it's not the place to discuss the use of categories. As has been pointed out at FTN, categories are navigation tools.

Your comment on Feder is a BLP violation, if you don't remove it I will.

Of course BAR published it - they love that sort of thing. As to who highly respects it, that's another issue.

And you are missing the point. It's the nature of fringe subjects that they get very little attention from the professionals in the relevant field of study. But if you took a survey of archaeologists who specialise in the archaeology of the Americas and asked them if any historical cultures (Celts, Jews, Egyptians, etc) visited the Americas before the Vikings - you know what the virtually unanimous conclusion would be. Almost all of them would agree that this is a hoax. Dougweller (talk) 08:09, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for keeping me civil, Doug. I've revised two of my sentences.

You're certainly welcome to add more authorities to the effect that it is a hoax.

Incidentally, your reference to BLP is a violation of WP:WTF. (An actual wiki-policy.) — Preceding unsigned comment added by HuMcCulloch (talk • contribs) 14:35, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

No, Hu, I was just assuming that like a lot of people you didn't realise that BLP applies to talk pages. Dougweller (talk) 17:08, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

(EC) Yeah but those guys haven't PROVED it is a hoax. At least they haven't convinced me, and apparently any number of people who have written books covering it either. So basically it is just their unsubstantiated opinion relying on authority rather than conclusive proof. Why is it so far fetched? Why is it a priori impossible that Phoenicians (Canaanites) and or Jews, (or Catholics from Portugal in the case of the Tucson crosses) or elsewhere could have ever made trips across the Atlantic that most people in Europe never knew about? Where's the proof this is a hoax? (I mean proof enough to convince everyone and settle the ongoing controversy among all the sources) Til Eulenspiegel /talk/ 14:38, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

No proof would ever be enough to convince everyone, Til. Partially because the desire to believe overcomes rational thought at times, more often probably because people just don't understand the issues. I doubt that any evidence would convince you that the Bible isn't literally true and that Creationism is wrong. Dougweller (talk) 17:08, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

When the best argument you've got this is a hoax is an appeal to authority, that usually doesn't make everyone else go away nicely and quietly. The Bible-Creationism thing is an argument by analogy, but not really parallel because there you've got one appeal to authority from scholars who insist on interpreting the Bible their way and say there is no other, and then you've got another appeal to the authority of priests who interpret it a different way. For many people, the authority of their own priests on the Bible is always going to be stronger than some faceless scholar or scribe who says "No, interpret the Bible MY way, not your priest's way!" Til Eulenspiegel /talk/ 17:48, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

No, you have scientists saying that evolution really takes place and there was no global flood that destroyed mankind - all of this with evidence, and others, you included, who deny this. It isn't all about interpretation of the Bible. To interpret the Bible literally you need to deny science. But you are right, scientific evidence won't change the minds of true believers. Dougweller (talk) 18:31, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

I've started a discussion of the issue at hand (Hoax categories vs NPOV, not creationism) over at WP:Neutral point of view/Noticeboard, mentioning Doug Weller. (BTW, NPOV stands for Neutral Point of View. And BTW for By the Way.) — Preceding unsigned comment added by HuMcCulloch (talk • contribs) 22:48, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

I've just added the following over at WP:Neutral point of view/Noticeboard: "It looks like this discussion is bogging down. I don't have any experience with WP disputes, but I gather from WP:Disputes that before requesting mediation, I should request a less formal third opinion from a disinterested volunteer editor. I'll wait a couple of days to see if anything else develops before proceding." HuMcCulloch (talk) 14:55, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

---

1) I don't think it's commonly accepted as being of ancient Hebrew origin by authorities on Biblical history or archaeology.
2) However, it should only be labelled as a "hoax" if there's evidence that somebody was trying to deceive some other person or persons, which seems to be lacking in this case... AnonMoos (talk) 03:12, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

It was pointed out at NPOVN that 3O doesn't apply as there has been more than 2 editors involved. Did you read the discussion there? Categories are navigation aids. To quote PaulB: "They are as has repeatedly been pointed out, navigational tools. They are not official declarations about the status of something. Many artcles have several contradictory captions, which is perfectly fine. Their purpose is to group articles on a topic. The same is true of Wikprojects and some infoboxes. I've experienced many disputes about all sorts of related issue. Should Hitler be in the category "vegetarians", since some veggie activists have tried to deny it? Should peson X be included in a the "Category:LGBT history", since it's disputed whether he/she was anything but dead straight. In my experience the answer is almost alweays "yes". It doesn't matter if I think, say, Shakepseare was 100% stright. If an article on him discusses disputed sexuality then it should be in the category, because their whole function is to help people find artivles on specific topics. Nothing more. They absolutely do not mean that the Wikpedian community have determined that somehing or someone is fake, gay, mentally ill or whatever. Paul B (talk) 9:16 pm, 1 March 2013, last Friday (1 day ago) (UTC+0)" Dougweller (talk • contribs) 06:16, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

Dougweller -- I really don't think that it's authentically ancient Hebrew, so there's no need to soften the blow for me in that way. However, the idea that the stone was produced with intent to deceive seems to be based upon hypothetical speculation unsupported by direct non-circumstantial evidence. If was intended as a hoax, it was a singularly unsuccesful one, since it was 90 years before anybody made a Hebrew connection... AnonMoos (talk) 08:33, 5 March 2013 (UTC)

But as I say below, modern day archaeologists call it a hoax - our opinions as to whether or not it's a hoax don't change that, so people looking for American hoaxes might expect to find this article. Dougweller (talk) 08:52, 5 March 2013 (UTC)

They know that it's a fake if intended to be understood as an authentic ancient Israelite artifact, so they speculate that it may have been a hoax. But I don't think that they know whether it's a hoax any better than anybody else does. Their academic archeological credentials don't help them too much there -- a historian of the nineteenth-century United States would actually be more reliable for that... AnonMoos (talk) 09:12, 5 March 2013 (UTC)

What exactly would be a situation where it is not a hoax? -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 15:46, 5 March 2013 (UTC)

If it helps, one of the articles by archaeologists Robert C. Mainfort, Jr., and Mary L. Kwas calls it a fraud and a hoax, although this isn't mentioned in the article but probably should be. You can see the article at [1]. Dougweller (talk) 06:25, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

"The highly respected Biblical Archaeology Review" indeed! BAR is in fact regarded with a high degree of contempt by professional academics. PiCo (talk) 13:43, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

Opinions are getting off topic. Myself I have nothing but admiration for BAR because they are nver afraid to tell people about things the professional academics don't want talked about, and lets be honest, by "professional" we mean salaried by the State of Israel, so it's no wonder these "professional" academics hold the opinion of BAR they are paid to hold. Til Eulenspiegel /talk/ 14:02, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

There's a long-standing feud between some at the Israel antiquities authority and Hershel Shanks, partly over the fact that the antiquities authority supports archaeologically destructive construction works by the temple mount waqf, partly over the long-drawn-out Oded Golan trial fiasco, etc. AnonMoos (talk) 08:42, 5 March 2013 (UTC)

Over on WP:Neutral point of view/Noticeboard, I've proposed a "Gunfight at the 3O Corral" between Dougweller and myself to settle this issue (at least as far as the two of us go). Please discuss this over there. HuMcCulloch (talk) 16:07, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

Over on WP:Neutral point of view/Noticeboard, Doug has declined my offer to resolve our dispute with Wikipedia's WP:Third Opinion process. Rather than start an unseemly edit war here, I've simply declared a moral victory, and announded my intention to let this issue rest. HuMcCulloch (talk) 16:23, 5 March 2013 (UTC)

2014

Can't resist putting in my 2 cents worth! Hi Doug, glad to see your posts. After much perusal of texts on archaeology of Americas, I am flummoxed by the sheer number of found artifacts/images/inscriptions/etc. in (particularly) North America which, upon any indication of a preColumbian eastern hemispheric connection, have been dismissed upon various grounds, very often as hoaxes. There have been at least 10's of thousands. I refer to Barry Fell's books "America BC" and "Saga America", Sorensen and Johanneson's "World Trade and Biological Exchanges Before 1492, Revised and Expanded Edition", Constance Irwin's "Fair Gods and Stone Faces", de Jonge and Wakefield's "Rocks and Rows" and "When the Sun God Came to America", Frank Joseph's "The Lost Worlds of Ancient America" and "The Lost Colonies of Ancient America". These alone should support the large number mentioned because there are often many extant examples of a particular kind of artifact/etc. ". The Bat Creek Stone is being held up as though it is a singular instance, but it is definitely not. Given this history of bias in the treatment of American artifacts (how many Clovis or Folsum points, atlatl weights or tipi rings are similarly disputed?) it seems that more of a neutral treatment is called for, in line with Wikipedia's policy of neutrality. Jwilsonjwilson (talk) 00:22, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

"They All Discovered America" by Boland is an early example that coined the term "NEBC Principle" (which I think ought to have an explanatory article). Yeah it is funny how hoaxers and forgers living near the Atlantic coast from Labrador to Tierra Del Fuego all picked the same archaic Phoenician alphabet to conduct their pseudo-archaeology in, isn't it? However I am aware that Doug has been one of the most active voices on the Internet pointing this out since at least ca. 1995. Til Eulenspiegel /talk/ 21:58, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

Tens of thousands? Hardly. And don't blame me if interpreting various scratches, inscriptions, whatever as Phoenician has been popular, I'd say it has more to do with their being famous as seafarers so a n obvious choice for anyone who wants to say there were ancient visitors. Jwilson, I don't think you understand NPOV yet. Have you read it thoroughly? Dougweller (talk) 22:15, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

Hi Doug. Guess I'll have to peruse NPOV more thoroughly. Evidently it has nuances which have escaped me. Thanks for your input. By the bye, many inscriptions (or scratches if you prefer) found in the eastern US, seem interpretable as samples of the Q Celtic script called Ogam, which to be sure does bear much resemblance to scratches (plow scrapings?). The particular type mentioned by Barry Fell is Hinge Ogam, script No. 3 as noted in the Irish Book of Ballymote. I am impressed that some of Fell's decipherings of Ogam-like scratches from Pennsylvania enabled European epigraphers to be able to read some previously unreadable inscriptions engraved on stones on the Iberian peninsula. Jwilsonjwilson (talk) 06:54, 11 March 2014 (UTC)

Ah! I see. Whether or not a piece of evidence is perhaps included in a class of things which are judged in a particular way is not itself an indicator of a lack of neutrality vis-a-vis pieces of evidence not so judged. Likewise there is the criteria of reliable sources, where-in my sources mentioned will be less likely to be given the current climate in American archaeology, et.al. Also they don't tend to concentrate on the Bat Creek stone, particularly. Oh well. Jwilsonjwilson (talk) 07:51, 11 March 2014 (UTC)

Jwilsonjwilson -- Unfortunately Barry Fell has absolutely zero credibility among mainstream professional scholars and archaeologists... AnonMoos (talk) 03:06, 21 March 2014 (UTC)

Certainly not! A star bellied sneech? Never! Til Eulenspiegel /talk/ 04:34, 21 March 2014 (UTC)