Talk:Ancient Celtic women

Lifespans of Celtic women

User:Phuein has repeatedly removed the following text from the article: Skeletal finds in graves provide the following age statistics for the ancient Celts: The average age at death was 35 years old, the average age for men was 38 and for women it was 31 years old.<ref>Sievers/Urban/Ramsl: ''Lexikon zur Keltischen Archäologie. A–K und L–Z'', pp. 339.</ref> − {{Quote|The average lifespan of the men was 35 to 40 years, that of women was only 30 to 35. The frequent battles of the men amongst one another were thus less dangerous than childbirth!|author=Ingeborg Clarus|source=''Keltische Mythen. Der Mensch und seine Anderswelt.'' p. 18.}} They comment, "There is no actual link or access to the source material. It is not in English or translated to English. A single excavation does not represent the entire culture" and then "WP:NOTRELIABLE WP:PAYWALL WP:ONUS Where is the translation of the original German text from? Have these sources been peer reviewed? Do not restore before consensus, per the rules."

The translation of the article is from the German wiki article on this topic - as is visible above. The sources have been peer-reviewed; they are the product of academic presses. There is no requirement for Wikipedia to draw only on English language sources, nor is there a ban on sources that are not online (this is explicitly sated by WP:PAYWALL). WP:NOTRELIABLE is not relevant, since both the sources here were published by respected academic presses by established scholars. WP:ONUS says that an article should exclude information that might be better presented elsewhere. But it is clearly important to present what archaeological evidence there is for the lifespan of Celtic women in an article on Celtic women. If sources with better information on this matter exist, they should be cited and used to improve the article. But so far, no relevant argument for deleting this text has been presented. Furius (talk) 09:32, 21 June 2019 (UTC)

I've gone ahead and reverted the user. Their edits are clearly against policy and their objections are entirely baseless, as you have laid out above.--Ermenrich (talk) 13:30, 21 June 2019 (UTC)

I don't mind it being in, but the previous phrasing was hopeless - "Skeletal finds in graves provide the following age statistics for the ancient Celts". No! It needs to be made crystal clear that this is a small count from a single German site (was there a date?). Johnbod (talk) 14:28, 21 June 2019 (UTC)

I second that.--Ermenrich (talk)

I don't have the book to hand; where is the claim that the graves belong to a single site coming from? If we can clarify, that would certainly be best. Furius (talk) 15:29, 21 June 2019 (UTC)

I haven't see the source, but such claims, with that precision, always are. Estimating the age and even the gender of remains that old is a highly complicated business, riven with technical controversies, and archaeologists are rightly highly reluctant to aggregate results that probably use different methods. It is not uncommon for the % of remains in a cemetery whose sex cannot be confirmed to be over 50%. They often vary greatly between sites, even from the Anglo-Saxon period. Paleodemography is our very stubby article on the subject. Johnbod (talk) 16:57, 21 June 2019 (UTC)

I don't think it was necessary to call for a consensus, as this user was clearly being disruptive. T8612 (talk) 17:17, 21 June 2019 (UTC)

Apart from the translation & access issues, his objections included "A single excavation does not represent the entire culture" which is certainly true. Perhaps he has actually read the source! Johnbod (talk) 17:27, 21 June 2019 (UTC)

He could have simply edited the article then, instead of aggressively removing content/reverting. T8612 (talk) 18:33, 21 June 2019 (UTC)

Given his other objections (source is inaccessible and in a foreign language) and his concern whether the sources are peer-reviewed, I would be shocked if Phuein has read it. His objection to it only being about one dig seems to just be meant to discredit the edit.--Ermenrich (talk)

It seems likely to be correct to me, per above. But really, we need to pin that down. The figures from these two Balkan Celtic sites do show similar figures, which they account for the same way. Same here, apparently 2 sites given. Johnbod (talk) 20:42, 21 June 2019 (UTC)

I came because of Furius's request at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Classical Greece and Rome.

The encyclopaedia edited by Sievers, Urban and Ramsl is heavily used on the German page from which ours was originally translated (our references still rely a lot on this and other German and Austrian academic sources). From the blurb it's a thoroughly academic and international work, but the editors of the German wiki article didn't cite it properly, so we don't know who wrote the specific article being used here, what exactly it says, or what evidence was drawn on. User:Phuein is right to be sceptical. Can anyone get access to it? That issue could then be resolved. If necessary other evidence could be cited, agreeing or not agreeing with the claim that's being made [see the links already given by Johnbod above].

de:Ingeborg Clarus was not an academic, nor a specialist in Celtic studies, but a Jungian depth psychologist, whatever that is. She wrote about myths. That's not to say her generalisation (accurately translated in our text!) is wrong, but since User:Phuein questions her reliability as a source on this issue, let's admit the problem and delete her. If we want, we could probably find a better quotation to replace this. Andrew Dalby 13:48, 22 June 2019 (UTC)

Wikipedia rules clearly that no content should be added or restored before it is entirely cleared and gains consensus. I will, however, not remove it again - as I don't appear to have enough popularity here. I ask someone else to please remove it, until all doubt is cleared, for any part of it. I note that some users have clarified their agreement with my removal of the content and made clear arguments that are inline with the Wikipedia rules, as well. I also note, to my dismay, that User:Furius does not actually have the book (or books) and is unable to cite the source material, for this matter. I doubt the translation is within context and reliable. This should be enough of a Red Flag to keep the discussion going without restoring the content. Phuein (talk) 20:39, 26 June 2019 (UTC)

Perhaps you could clear up whether you actually know the source in question? You appear to have misunderstood the consensus that is developing here. There has been some discussion about whether to replace the source given with another (we've already found several) until we can check whether your claim that it is "one or two digs" is valid.--Ermenrich (talk) 14:10, 27 June 2019 (UTC)

[Edit conflict:] The whole article was translated from German originally, by Furius, and I think it was done well. The German original was already a "good article" at that time. In general the silver star was well earned, and it was a good sign, and translating good articles is one of the ways the Wikipedias grow. So, here the English article is. It's perfectly OK that sources in other languages are cited. However, if an assertion or a source is questioned, we have to be able to justify it.

As to the direct quote from Clarus, that author would surely fail to qualify as a reliable source. I am therefore removing the quotation. I hope no one objects. I looked for a better one to replace it but I haven't (yet) found one.

As to the assertion in the text on women's age at death, the encyclopedia cited is potentially a reliable source but it needs to be verified. The claim seems (note the links given by Johnbod) to be within the bounds of probability, but likely to be generalized from limited evidence. I think it's more reasonable to wait to see if someone can check the source, improve the citation, and say clearly on what range of evidence the claim is made. Ermenrich's question is reasonable: does Phuein have access to the source? Anyway, I'm against removing that sentence just yet. Andrew Dalby 14:26, 27 June 2019 (UTC)

No objections here. I'm ordering the lexicon via interlibrary loan. It could take a long time though, so, if anyone can get a hold of it quicker, please feel free.--Ermenrich (talk) 14:35, 27 June 2019 (UTC)

The Lexikon zur keltischen Archäologie has just arrived - I just nearly broke my back schlepping it back home from the library. The article in question is "Chirurgie" (surgery) in vol. 1, pp. 339-340 by de:Ernst Künzl, who appears to be a thoroughly respected person on the subject of ancient medicine and archaeology. The text in question is:

Eine Lebensalterstatik nach den Skelettfunden ergibt folgendes Bild: Erwachsene Kelten starben mit einem Durchschnittsalter von 35 Jahren; Frauen mit 31, Männer mit 38 Jahren (viele Frauen starben bei Schwangerschaft und Geburt)."

A statistic for lifespan according to skeletal finds produces the following picture: adult Celts died at an average age of 35 years old; women at 31, men at 38 (many women died during pregnancy and birth)."

The article does not say which finds its referring to or how many, but it lists the following titles as sources on ancient Celtic surgery:

• J.M. de Navarro, A Doctor's Grave of the Middle La Tène Period from Bavaria, Preceedings of the Prehistoric Society for 1955, 21, 1955, 231ff.
• E. Künzl, Medizin der Kelten. Ein archäologischer Forschungsbericht, in R. Bedon, P.M. Martin, Mélanges Raymond Chevalier "Festschrift Chevallier" Vol. 2 Histoire et archéologie Tome 2, Caesarodunum 29, Tours 1995, 221ff.
• E. Künzl, Medizin in der Antike. Aus einer Welt ohne Narkose und Aspirin, Stuttgart 2002.
• H. Nortmann, Keltische Frauen, Funde und Ausgrabungen im Bezirk Trier 32, 2000, 17ff.
• K. Sudhoff, Chirurgische Instrumente aus Ungarn, Prähistorische Zeitschrift 5, 1913, 595ff.

My own feeling is that this encyclopedia should be more than enough to establish the reliability of the statement in the article. Phuein's arguments (to quote them "WP:NOTRELIABLE WP:PAYWALL WP:ONUS Where is the translation of the original German text from? Have these sources been peer reviewed? Do not restore before consensus, per the rules" and "There is no actual link or access to the source material. It is not in English or translated to English. A single excavation does not represent the entire culture") are mostly nonstarters and misapplied policies. The lexicon is published by the Austrian Academy of Sciences. It easily passes WP:RS.

Now having said all that, I can understand if we want to nuance the statement somewhat. We could, for instance, attribute Künzl (though it seems likely his ultimate source for the information is Nortmann). We could quote him directly in translation. We could even use different sources that mention specific digs, which I think would actually be my preferred solution.--Ermenrich (talk) 21:55, 3 July 2019 (UTC) @Johnbod:, @T8612:, @Andrew Dalby:, @Furius:, @Phuein:, what do you think?--Ermenrich (talk) 00:07, 16 July 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for the ping and thanks for your hard work. Academic encyclopedias are heavy, I know that well! My personal opinion of Phuein's comments was that they did indeed consist largely of unnecessary appeals to inapplicable rules but they pointed to a couple of real problems, and it was the problems, not the rules, that we needed to focus on. (Forgive me, Phuein. Let's admit, reading Wikipedia talk pages, people can get the impression that appealing to rules is the way to hack it.)

The problem with the encyclopedia citation Ermenrich has now solved. We didn't know who said this or how close the topic was to this author's expertise and the main focus of his article. Citing him as author (ideally with the link Ernst Künzl, though I know there are people who deprecate such links), giving the title of the article, and giving some paraphrase of the German sentence that Ermenrich quotes, solves it. Citations of substantial articles in encyclopedias should always be done that way: the reliability of the general editors and the publisher don't guarantee every detail of the contents. I'm still a bit shocked that "Keltische Frauen" in its original German Wikipedia form reached "good article" status while depending on many of these inadequate citations of the same encyclopedia. I have tended to rely on de:wiki as a fairly reliable guide in some similar contexts, and I'll be a bit more careful about that now.

Yes, I agree with Ermenrich that our article will be significantly better if we can add, as examples, specific sites for which statistical analyses exist, citing sources for these. Andrew Dalby 09:18, 16 July 2019 (UTC)

I'm still not very happy with "Skeletal finds in graves ...", since we don't seem to know how many graves, from where & when, & how many burials couln't be sexed or aged reliably. The topic here covers most of Western Europe over many centuries - so a similar range to say "Early Modern western Europe" & I don't think we would be happy with such a broad statement resting on uncertain sourcing in that case. I'm actually more relaxed about the difference being due to the risks of childbearing, since this seems pretty standard in ancient cultures. Johnbod (talk) 00:10, 23 July 2019 (UTC)

I can dig up (ha ha) Nortmann and Künzl 1995, I think that more specific information will be there. I may not get to it for a little while though.--Ermenrich (talk) 00:55, 23 July 2019 (UTC)