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This species was named by Dart in the 1940s. But since then most scientists have lumped it with Australopithecus africanus and indeed Australopithecus prometheus redirects to the A. africanus article. Ronald Clarke is proposing that Little Foot is A. prometheus and should be recognized as a distinct species. When Clarke finally publishes the full Little Foot skeleton it will undoubtedly will attract huge press attention as the most complete such skeleton ever. If that happened today, people will find the articles here in Wikipedia a bit confusing. To clarify the situation, at a very minimum a subsection in the A. africanus article should address the alleged species. I don't think an actual new article would be needed until it becomes clear that the majority of relevant scientists agree with Clarke and thus making a need for a separate A. prometheus article. 68.97.5.247 ( talk) 23:50, 16 March 2014 (UTC)
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Reviewer: Vaticidalprophet ( talk · contribs) 02:37, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
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This is excellent work, and well on the path to GA and even FA. Most of the issues I have with the article's current state have to do with prose, but permit me to reiterate -- especially considering how long this review sat for -- that they're not in the least insurmountable issues. This is great work, and I'm sorry you got stuck at the end of the backlog.
Without further adieu:
My understanding is the specimen in question is generally referred to as "the Taung child", rather than just "Taung child".
This is a somewhat unwieldy sentence. "The specimen "Little Foot" is the most completely preserved early hominin, with 90% of the skeleton intact, and the oldest South African australopith. However, it is controversially suggested that it and similar specimens be split off into "A. prometheus"." reads better to me.
"Though was" seems to be too many words for the amount of information -- just "though" (or "albeit") works.
Couple distinct things being discussed here, which impedes readability. My rewrite would be: "A. africanus also had several upper body traits in common with arboreal non-human apes. This is alternately interpreted as evidence of a partially or fully arboreal lifestyle, or as a non-functional vestige from a more apelike ancestor".
The former sentence has a lot packed into it, even moreso than where I previously called that out. It also seems obsolete next to the second sentence. Suggested rewrite: "A. africanus had a highly variable diet, making it a generalist. Unlike most other primates, it seemed to have eaten C4 foods such as grasses, seeds, and rhizomes, in addition to creatures higher on the food chain".
See previous note on "the Taung child". (Assume this applies to all future mentions of "Taung child" alone, including in captions.)
Awkward sentence. Suggested rewrite: "In 1933, the South African palaeoanthropologist Robert Broom suggested moving A. africanus into Hominidae, which at the time contained only humans and their ancestors".
Should be "the then-popular model".
This is long and unwieldy. I don't have a quick suggested rewrite of it, but I do feel I need to call it out -- it scans as multiple sentences for sure.
My understanding of the Piltdown Man is that it was exposed conclusively in 1953, making the part about 1955 irrelevant.
Run-on sentence. Should have a comma after 'grade taxon'. (Possibly also one after 'physiology'? Not sure.)
Hominin timeline should link Ardipithecus kadabba, if possible. (Not a prose issue per se, but slots most neatly into the chronological prose discussion.)
Putting a comma after 'fast' improves the readability/scannability of this sentence, lest 'fast ape-like' blend into each other and seem as though it's describing a particularly fast subset of apes.
Should be 'stabilising'.
Two sentences. Suggested rewrite: "StW 573 had a narrow thoracic inlet, unlike A. afarensis and [specify 'anatomically modern'?] humans. However, the clavicle is proportionately quite long, with a similar absolute length to that of modern humans".
Run-on sentence -- put a comma after 'anatomy'.
Confusing sentence. Not really sure how to rewrite this.
The wording on both clauses here, especially the latter, seems suboptimal. "Often did consume" seems like it could just be "frequently consumed".
Two sentences. "...which indicates this individual was regularly biting into acidic foods, such as citrus. However, tubers could have caused the same damage..."
'Barium' should not be capitalized except at the beginning of a sentence (this also applies to lithium and strontium).
Run-on sentence, which should have a comma after 'mouth'.
Considerations aside from prose:
I mentioned the citations issue in the table; I'm not really sure what's up with that. It's a drop in the ocean relative to the other citing. It looks like it could just be a false alarm, but it may be a predatory journal -- I'd recommend looking more into it.
Captioning: This is, honestly, a nitpick, so feel free to tell me to drop it, but it concerned me. The very first image -- the skull in the infobox -- has a caption on Commons which includes a red link to an article that isn't on Commons. I'd fix it myself, but I'm unclear whether the correct solution is to redirect it to a category, or to remove the link entirely. You likely know better than me.
This is, overall, an article clearly on the GA path. With these issues fixed, it'll easily be a high GA with a view towards future FA status. Excellent work. I'm putting it on hold until the issues are fixed, and hoping to give it full GA status soon after what must have been a frustrating wait. Vaticidalprophet ( talk) 06:23, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
Changes all look good. Bringing this to GA. Vaticidalprophet ( talk) 02:47, 28 January 2021 (UTC)
This is the
talk page for discussing improvements to the
Australopithecus africanus article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject. |
Article policies
|
Find sources: Google ( books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL |
Archives: 1Auto-archiving period: 90 days |
This
level-5 vital article is rated GA-class on Wikipedia's
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|
Australopithecus africanus has been listed as one of the
Natural sciences good articles under the
good article criteria. If you can improve it further,
please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can
reassess it. Review: January 28, 2021. ( Reviewed version). |
This article is written in South African English, which has its own spelling conventions (colour, realise, analyse) and some terms that are used in it may be different or absent from other varieties of English. According to the relevant style guide, this should not be changed without broad consensus. |
This article was reviewed by
Nature (journal) on December 14, 2005. Comments: It was found to have 1 errors. For more information about external reviews of Wikipedia articles and about this review in particular, see this page. |
This species was named by Dart in the 1940s. But since then most scientists have lumped it with Australopithecus africanus and indeed Australopithecus prometheus redirects to the A. africanus article. Ronald Clarke is proposing that Little Foot is A. prometheus and should be recognized as a distinct species. When Clarke finally publishes the full Little Foot skeleton it will undoubtedly will attract huge press attention as the most complete such skeleton ever. If that happened today, people will find the articles here in Wikipedia a bit confusing. To clarify the situation, at a very minimum a subsection in the A. africanus article should address the alleged species. I don't think an actual new article would be needed until it becomes clear that the majority of relevant scientists agree with Clarke and thus making a need for a separate A. prometheus article. 68.97.5.247 ( talk) 23:50, 16 March 2014 (UTC)
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Reviewing |
Reviewer: Vaticidalprophet ( talk · contribs) 02:37, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
GA review (see here for what the criteria are, and here for what they are not) |
---|
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· · · |
This is excellent work, and well on the path to GA and even FA. Most of the issues I have with the article's current state have to do with prose, but permit me to reiterate -- especially considering how long this review sat for -- that they're not in the least insurmountable issues. This is great work, and I'm sorry you got stuck at the end of the backlog.
Without further adieu:
My understanding is the specimen in question is generally referred to as "the Taung child", rather than just "Taung child".
This is a somewhat unwieldy sentence. "The specimen "Little Foot" is the most completely preserved early hominin, with 90% of the skeleton intact, and the oldest South African australopith. However, it is controversially suggested that it and similar specimens be split off into "A. prometheus"." reads better to me.
"Though was" seems to be too many words for the amount of information -- just "though" (or "albeit") works.
Couple distinct things being discussed here, which impedes readability. My rewrite would be: "A. africanus also had several upper body traits in common with arboreal non-human apes. This is alternately interpreted as evidence of a partially or fully arboreal lifestyle, or as a non-functional vestige from a more apelike ancestor".
The former sentence has a lot packed into it, even moreso than where I previously called that out. It also seems obsolete next to the second sentence. Suggested rewrite: "A. africanus had a highly variable diet, making it a generalist. Unlike most other primates, it seemed to have eaten C4 foods such as grasses, seeds, and rhizomes, in addition to creatures higher on the food chain".
See previous note on "the Taung child". (Assume this applies to all future mentions of "Taung child" alone, including in captions.)
Awkward sentence. Suggested rewrite: "In 1933, the South African palaeoanthropologist Robert Broom suggested moving A. africanus into Hominidae, which at the time contained only humans and their ancestors".
Should be "the then-popular model".
This is long and unwieldy. I don't have a quick suggested rewrite of it, but I do feel I need to call it out -- it scans as multiple sentences for sure.
My understanding of the Piltdown Man is that it was exposed conclusively in 1953, making the part about 1955 irrelevant.
Run-on sentence. Should have a comma after 'grade taxon'. (Possibly also one after 'physiology'? Not sure.)
Hominin timeline should link Ardipithecus kadabba, if possible. (Not a prose issue per se, but slots most neatly into the chronological prose discussion.)
Putting a comma after 'fast' improves the readability/scannability of this sentence, lest 'fast ape-like' blend into each other and seem as though it's describing a particularly fast subset of apes.
Should be 'stabilising'.
Two sentences. Suggested rewrite: "StW 573 had a narrow thoracic inlet, unlike A. afarensis and [specify 'anatomically modern'?] humans. However, the clavicle is proportionately quite long, with a similar absolute length to that of modern humans".
Run-on sentence -- put a comma after 'anatomy'.
Confusing sentence. Not really sure how to rewrite this.
The wording on both clauses here, especially the latter, seems suboptimal. "Often did consume" seems like it could just be "frequently consumed".
Two sentences. "...which indicates this individual was regularly biting into acidic foods, such as citrus. However, tubers could have caused the same damage..."
'Barium' should not be capitalized except at the beginning of a sentence (this also applies to lithium and strontium).
Run-on sentence, which should have a comma after 'mouth'.
Considerations aside from prose:
I mentioned the citations issue in the table; I'm not really sure what's up with that. It's a drop in the ocean relative to the other citing. It looks like it could just be a false alarm, but it may be a predatory journal -- I'd recommend looking more into it.
Captioning: This is, honestly, a nitpick, so feel free to tell me to drop it, but it concerned me. The very first image -- the skull in the infobox -- has a caption on Commons which includes a red link to an article that isn't on Commons. I'd fix it myself, but I'm unclear whether the correct solution is to redirect it to a category, or to remove the link entirely. You likely know better than me.
This is, overall, an article clearly on the GA path. With these issues fixed, it'll easily be a high GA with a view towards future FA status. Excellent work. I'm putting it on hold until the issues are fixed, and hoping to give it full GA status soon after what must have been a frustrating wait. Vaticidalprophet ( talk) 06:23, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
Changes all look good. Bringing this to GA. Vaticidalprophet ( talk) 02:47, 28 January 2021 (UTC)