Talk:Prehistoric Asia

The problem with "Asia"

"Asia"

Indo-Europeans

It's very difficult to improve this article with its current structure divided into large regions and then by countries. Thinking by countries keeps us from grasping the major historical (well...) currents that flowed throughout Asia, like the emergence of agriculture and permanent settlements, Bronze Age technology, the domestication of the horse, and the Proto-Indo-Europeans's expansion to the Middle East, the Indian peninsula, and Central Asia with their war chariots (see map). These large-scale interactions of peoples took place across the arbitrary Asia–Europe divide that this title is asking us to respect. Actually, the Eurasian steppe didn't stop at the Ural Mountains: it spanned from Hungary in the west to Manchuria in the east. The cradle of the Indo-European people in the middle of that steppe (just north of the Caucasus) falls outside the green area of our map! How do we discuss the most important people of all prehistoric Asia when their homeland is outside "Asia"?
I have no idea how to get around the "Asia" problem, but I suggest we restructure the article so it looks more like Prehistoric Europe, with its progression from Paleolithic to Neolithic, Chalcolithic (Copper Age), Bronze Age, and Iron Age, with a major discussion of the Indo-Europeans under Chalcolithic and Bronze Age. That way, it will be easier to bring out the broader dynamics of prehistoric Asia as a whole. What do you all think? Madalibi (talk) 16:06, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

Until 3 March 2014 this was a sort of disambiguation page – though not one in line with the usual style for disambiguation. Recasting it as a broad concept article can help encyclopedia users searching for "Asian prehistory" or the like. Often such users are not quite sure how to name what they are looking for, and an article like this one can direct them to more appropriate articles. In other words, the aim of the article may be not so much to explain the "major historical currents" as it is to guide readers to other articles that give more specific information. That said, it may be good to include some context and links relating to Eurasia generally. Cnilep (talk) 00:26, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

Good point! It's true that "prehistoric Asia" is not a concept you often find in reliable sources, so making this into a broad concept DAB page makes sense and is certainly simpler than building a whole new page from scratch. Now it would be great if we could add basic information on earliest human settlements (Homo erectus georgicus, Java Man, Peking Man), Homo sapiens migrations to all corners of Eurasia, the "Neolithic revolution", the emergence of agriculture and domestication of animals in various centers, etc., to contextualize the country-by-country links that follow. This is a daunting task, especially if we want good references, but this slide show on "Prehistoric Asia" is something we could work from for structure. Madalibi (talk) 00:53, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

Just to let everybody know: I've created the template {{Prehistoric Asia}} with as many relevant elements as possible without overburdening it, and I have added it to a number of other wikis. Besides increasing traffic on our page, the template might make some readers think of all these other topics within the broader context of "Asia". I'm now preparing to expand this page with broader info on the arrival of Homo erectus in Asia, so that we can have at least some information that is not divided by subregions. This is fun! Cheers! Madalibi (talk) 12:42, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

End of prehistoric period

I've been grappling with what is the ending point for the prehistoric period in Asia. Since it seems that written language appears in the Bronze Age:

Would the Bronze age be considered the end of the Prehistoric period in Asia? Would that include all regions?

Thanks!--CaroleHenson (talk) 23:40, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

Hi Carole! First, thank you for your spectacular expansion of the article! It looks completely different (and much, much better) than it was just a week ago.

As for your question, I'd say it depends on what we aim for, as the whole region didn't go by a single clock. If we strive for accuracy, "prehistory" will end at different times in different places depending on when they adopted writing. Each section will have to be written accordingly. For example, prehistoric Central Asia would have to end more than 3,000 years after prehistoric Mesopotamia does. If on the other hand we're trying to develop a single narrative for all of Asia, the Bronze Age itself might be a good end point, though of course it also didn't start at the same time everywhere, some regions of Asia that had bronze didn't have writing, and some regions were not really touched by bronze until very late (e.g., Japan, Indonesia, etc.). A third option would be to adopt an arbitrary stopping date, maybe 2000 BC.

Personally I don't think we should sacrifice accuracy for the sake of convenience. Since the article is divided into regionally specific sections, the most accurate and informative approach would be to end "prehistory" at different times depending on the dynamics of each region, and to note this issue in the lede. This approach would also respect the content of the articles that are linked to in each section. What do you think?

Thanks again for your great work on this article! Madalibi (talk) 01:37, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

Hi! Thanks for the feedback!

Your points make a lot of sense. I am guessing that even within a region there should be variances upon when written language was initiated. It might help to put together a table of the dates written Asian languages were adopted based upon List of languages by first written accounts using a format like:

Date	Writing system	Attestation	Location	Region
c. 2600–2500 BC	Sumerian	Cuneiform texts from Shuruppak and Abu Salabikh (Fara period)	Mesopotamia	Near East
c. 2400 BC	Akkadian	A few dozen pre-Sargonic texts from Mari and other sites in northern Babylonia	Syria	Near East

What do you think?--CaroleHenson (talk) 02:02, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

@CaroleHenson: Yes, this table sounds like an excellent idea! It would be great if it could be classifiable by both time and large region so that interested readers can see at one glance all written languages from, say, South Asia. And you're right about intra-regional variations. For East Asia, the region I know best, a mature writing system existed in China by 1200 BC, but Korea, Vietnam, Tibet, etc., had to wait for more than a millennium to get one. I guess we will have to decide how fine-grained we want to be. Madalibi (talk) 02:45, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

Madalibi, I know you envisioned the article with a chronological narrative as opposed to region-based per your sandbox draft at User:Madalibi/Prehistoric Asia. If this is the preferred way of writing these sorts of articles, then perhaps the information should be rearranged to match the article skeleton you constructed.--Coin945 (talk) 02:53, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

Hi Coin945! I don't know if there's a preferred way of writing such articles, because I've never worked on one before! "Prehistoric Asia" is such a huge topic that I don't think it's possible to present it purely chronologically. It gets too complicated by the Middle Pleistocene, not to mention the Neolithic. What I had in mind, actually, was to keep a broad regional approach in the core of the article, and then present a more general narrative in the lede that would outline all the big themes and landmark events. Going for the big picture right away is very hard, as you have to master info from all regions at the same time (takes tons of reading!) or rely on very broad sources that may not be very reliable nor reflect the complexities of each field. We're already facing this problem in the section on Homo erectus. I'm getting very busy off-Wiki, which is why I stopped working on this, but I've bought several books on this topic that I keep reading in my free time. I'll try to add some of my findings in the not-too-distant future. In the meantime, feel free to draw from my sandbox to keep improving the page. Cheers! Madalibi (talk) 03:11, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

[edit conflict]

@Madalibi: Cool. I'm working on something at the moment, but I'll get back to this article and work on the table... I think that will help me then backfill the prehistoric info.--CaroleHenson (talk) 02:55, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

@CaroleHenson: Great! Looking forward to reading more of your work! Madalibi (talk) 03:11, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

References

Zhoukoudian is in Hebei province

In the section China under "Prehistory by region", it is said that "Peking Man were found in a limestone cave in Yunnan province at Zhoukoudian." In fact, Zhoukoudian is 56 kilometers from Beijing, both in Hebei province. Peking is Beijing. The different spellings are due to different transliteration systems.無聲 (talk) 15:33, 20 July 2019 (UTC)