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Cyclone Hudhud

• Nominated by Bongwarrior (talk · give credit)
• Updated by Strike Eagle (talk · give credit) and Rsrikanth05 (talk · give credit)

• Support It should be on ITN, given that it ahs been classified as Very Severe. I do believe the death till may have gone up by now. --Rsrikanth05 (talk) 15:16, 15 October 2014 (UTC)
• Strong Support Considering the deaths are significant and damages in excess of 1 billion(upper estimates put it at 11 billion) ƬheStrikeΣagle 15:18, 15 October 2014 (UTC)
• Updated Please feel free to fix the alt blurb...article is pretty updated..... ƬheStrikeΣagle 18:12, 15 October 2014 (UTC)

Cave paintings in Asia found to predate those in Europe

• Nominated by Masem (talk · give credit)
• Updated by Kecressman (talk · give credit) and Johnbod (talk · give credit)

• Oppose Blurb given sea-level changes since 40kya, what cave art does still exist and is accessible is a crapshoot by locality. There's no meaningful competition, and these hand signatures are certainly not unique, while the known big game paintings (which happen to be occidental) show much more skill and informative value. Let's have a more neutral, "oldest yet found identified in sulawesi" type blurb. μηδείς (talk) 17:52, 12 October 2014 (UTC)
  • While it is a hand outline that is ~40k, there is also "a pig that has a minimum age of 35,400 years old", which would outdate the big game ones in Europe too. And yes, while a crapshot, it's not so much who had the oldest but the fact that we've got two very different geological regions with paintings in (human terms at the time) roughly near the same time frame, give or take a few thousand years, which is interesting from a human intelligence development standpoint. --MASEM (t) 18:04, 12 October 2014 (UTC)
    • Predate, not outdate, unless pigs are out of fashion? :) My gerenal point is not one of Gallic pride, but let's image in we get ground sloths or Megalania prisca? Would the date or location matter so much as the discovery? Comparing this to Europe disparages but Europe and the find, as if it were a soccer competition. Implicit in my iVote is a support, I just figured the nominator could off an altblurb. μηδείς (talk) 18:22, 12 October 2014 (UTC)
      • I've provided an alt blurb to take out the comparison, however, I still feel that noting this wasn't the European caves is what is more interesting about the discovery, not so much the age beyond being "about" the same time. --MASEM (t) 19:30, 12 October 2014 (UTC)
• Support. Important scientific and historical news. Gamaliel (talk) 18:13, 12 October 2014 (UTC)
• Support. Didn't we have "earliest abstract art" quite recently? I think the geographical separation which makes this story fascinating. Martinevans123 (talk) 18:19, 12 October 2014 (UTC)
• Support missed seeing them by a few years, bugger it. The Rambling Man (talk) 18:27, 12 October 2014 (UTC)
• Support the alternative blurb is better I think. Mattsnow81 (Talk) 19:58, 12 October 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose and suggest closing: I have one simple request: show me a source that makes these claims. Without that this simply can't go up. The sources given do not make the claims given here: the BBC state this is among the earliest art found. The Nature abstract states this finding is the earliest dated hand stencil - that's a very specific category and not synonymous with "art", before we even consider the distinction between "dated" (claimed by the sources) and "known" (claimed by the blurb). I suggest closing this discussion now since it's always difficult to unravel editor's intent when a blurb gets carried away with hyperbole like this. MonumentallyIncompetent (talk) 20:26, 12 October 2014 (UTC)
  • What else is a hand stencil if not art? Martinevans123 (talk) 20:28, 12 October 2014 (UTC)
    • Sudoku? But seriously, if the phrasing of the blurb is a problem, suggest a new blurb MI. Otherwise, we're suggesting that we run a story that reports what Nature and the BBC are reporting. Is there a real issue here? The Rambling Man (talk) 20:30, 12 October 2014 (UTC)
    • It's a particular art method - one of countless. The fact that it is the earliest dated artwork to use that method does not make it the earliest artwork. Where is the source for the headline claim made in this proposal, i.e. not that it is the first hand stencil but the first artwork of any form? And no, TRM, this is not modified blurb time at least without a lot more discussion, since correcting this makes for a fundamentally different story with a different level of notability: "first artwork" is an altogether more important story than "first hand stencil". I suspect you would have to explain to the average person what is meant by the second term. MonumentallyIncompetent (talk) 20:34, 12 October 2014 (UTC)
      • So, when do you think "art" began exactly? Martinevans123 (talk) 20:44, 12 October 2014 (UTC)
      • And I guess you're suggesting (claiming) that Nature and the BBC have got it all wrong? The Rambling Man (talk) 20:45, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

What I think is an irrelevance: instead I look to the experts and published sources and see what they say. Yes, I am paying attention to what those sources claim. Here I see that they say it is of a broadly comparable period to the previous earliest dated artworks and is the earliest example of a particular method being used. I do not then go on to embroider, adding on details that those experts do not claim to be the case in order to falsely bolster its supposed notability. MonumentallyIncompetent (talk) 20:50, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

Still intrigued to see your answer to my (very simple) question. Martinevans123 (talk) 21:03, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

I've given you my answer, now answer mine, if you don't want to do that then follow the project's norms which amount to the same thing. This discussion is predicated on claims scientists have said something. I asked right in my opening sentence where they had said that. If you answer that this objection falls away naturally. If you are unable then this has to be assumed not to be true. MonumentallyIncompetent (talk) 21:11, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

Sorry, where was your answer? Martinevans123 (talk) 21:14, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

I refuse to play games with you: I assume you have a reasonable level of English comprehension. Where is your source? MonumentallyIncompetent (talk) 21:23, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

Just tell us when do you think "art" began? Not a game, a question. Martinevans123 (talk) 21:30, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

I do not claim special expertise, so I beleive the experts - if they say around 40,000 years ago I believe them. I do not start arguing with them and I certainly do not start claiming they have said things they have not. Once again, where's the source? This should have been supplied at the time of nomination. One sentence will keep me happy so where is it? Or do you in fact not have one? MonumentallyIncompetent (talk) 21:44, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

I fully agree with the reasoning MI is presenting, but feel it only applies to the ALTblurb. The source does not state that this is the earliest art found (given there are musical instruments found from that period, I'm certain that there is far earlier visual art forms discovered already). Support blurb and oppose alt blurb. - Floydian  _¢ 22:25, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

• Support blurb but oppose alt blurb. This is ITN-worthy news, but we need to reflect what the sources say with some care. They describe the works as "at least compatible in age with the oldest European art"; as "the oldest known hand stencil"; as "among the earliest dated figurative depictions"; as "some of the earliest cave paintings produced by humans"; as "transform ideas about how humans first developed the ability to produce art". The sources do not say they are "the earliest known examples of human art", and nor should we. Ghmyrtle (talk) 20:47, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

  Indeed, so a decent blurb is required, not an "oppose and suggest closing" then. As I noted, let's work on a blurb that matches the reality. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:51, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

• Comment, this hit the news a few days ago, so if posted it should be in the Oct 9th position. Abductive (reasoning) 22:08, 12 October 2014 (UTC)
• Comment. As far as the blurb goes, it seems clear that the discovery is not the oldest. What it means is that all cave art must stem from an even earlier culture and time, probably in East/South Africa and probably dating to the advent of anatomically modern humans about 100 kya. Abductive (reasoning) 22:08, 12 October 2014 (UTC)
  • Ah, so that's what "it means". Any source for that? Martinevans123 (talk) 22:20, 12 October 2014 (UTC)
  • I am pretty sure that its clear that there could logically be older cave paintings in the world, either yet to be discovered or lost to us due to geologic factors, but that of those found and dated, this is the oldest set. --MASEM (t) 22:28, 12 October 2014 (UTC)
    • That's what the scientists mean when they say the discovery "pushes back the date" for cave art. They don't mean the particular Indonesian example is the oldest, what they mean is cave art arose with the common ancestor of the people in Europe and Indonesia. Put another way, do you think it is plausible that people in Sulawesi invented cave art and then walked the idea all the way back to Europe? No, it stretches credulity. Check this NYT article which gives my 100 kya date; In African Cave, Signs of an Ancient Paint Factory. Abductive (reasoning) 22:35, 12 October 2014 (UTC)
      • Chronologically, art in general is almost certainly older than the oldest examples we happen to have found. It doesn't necessarily follow though that a particular type of artistic expression, such as cave art, must have a single cultural origin. It is entirely plausible that two widely separated groups of humans independently invented the concept of drawing on cave walls. The Nature paper explicitly says that we don't know if cave art has some older single origin (perhaps in Africa) or if the practice was independently adopted at multiple locations. Dragons flight (talk) 22:37, 12 October 2014 (UTC)
        • You should look at the photos in the sources given above. Abductive (reasoning) 22:43, 12 October 2014 (UTC)
          • Because of course my interpretation of the photos will be better than what the Nature paper explicitly says? Dragons flight (talk) 22:55, 12 October 2014 (UTC)
            • Nowhere does it say, "cave art developed in Asia". It says, "Among the implications, it can now be demonstrated that humans were producing rock art by ~40 kyr ago at opposite ends of the Pleistocene Eurasian world." I interpret this use of the word "world" to mean, "unified culture". We known that the whole of Eurasia, from Ireland to to India to Korea, had dolmen (albeit at a much later date). Abductive (reasoning) 23:28, 12 October 2014 (UTC)
              • I never said cave art developed in Asia. I said we don't know if the practice of painting on cave walls arose independently in two different populations or if it the practice was carried to both locations by an ancestral population of cave painters. The Nature article explicitly mentions both scenarios: "It is possible that rock art emerged independently at around the same time and at roughly both ends of the spatial distribution of early modern humans. An alternative scenario, however, is that cave painting was widely practised by the first H. sapiens to leave Africa tens of thousands of years earlier...". We don't know, and frankly, I don't see how it is particularly relevant to this ITN discussion either way, except that we need to avoid constructing a blurb that assumes one or the other scenario is correct. Dragons flight (talk) 23:40, 12 October 2014 (UTC)
                • As far as I am concerned, they do know that it all starts in Africa. One has to learn to parse scientist-speak, which is all CYA. Abductive (reasoning) 04:55, 13 October 2014 (UTC)
      • At least the way I read the BBC article, the discovery of the works in Asia means this alters the theory of art evolution as commonly accepted, in that it could be either "two different cultures developed independently" or "point to a older, common source". Which one it is, it doesn't matter too much to ITN here, only that this is considered a significant, verified find. If we have to adjust the blurb to reflect this better, that's fine. --MASEM (t) 22:49, 12 October 2014 (UTC)
        • That's why the blurb should just say, "pushing back the date". Abductive (reasoning) 23:28, 12 October 2014 (UTC)
• Suggestion Why not just Cave paintings on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi are dated to be at least 39,900 years old, removing the contentious points? If someone wants to know details of why it's significant, they can go to the article - that's one of the purposes of ITN, after all. GoldenRing (talk) 23:34, 12 October 2014 (UTC)
  • Without any context of the importance of this, this is just "look, more cave paintings" when presented on the front page. We should try to provide enough context to make sure why something is ITN is clear. I'm all for the least contentious aspect to set context, of course, but to post without any isn't helpful. --MASEM (t) 23:42, 12 October 2014 (UTC)
    • Nat Geo: Cave Art Older, More Widespread Than Thought, Archaeologist Says. Abductive (reasoning) 01:49, 13 October 2014 (UTC)
      • Just using that title, a altblrb Archeologists determine the practice of Paleolithic cave painting may be widespread than thought after the discovery of 39,900 year old works on the Idonesian island of Sulawesi. --MASEM (t) 05:05, 13 October 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose Good catch there by MonumentallyIncompetent -the sources do not support the claims made and since no alternative has been offered we have to conclude that the claims are not true - if anyone wants to dispute that the burden of proof is with them to come up with a source asserting the claims made. So what we are left with essentially has two strands - the first is that these painting are roughly the same age (but not older) as other paintings already found. I don't see that warrants a post - it would be akin to some athlete almost breaking a world record. The second is the earliest known hand stencil and put simply I see that as too esoteric for an ITN listing - just how many users are going to be frantically looking around for additional material regarding that? 3142 (talk) 03:54, 13 October 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose as nominated. The reporting from the scientific publications is much more reserved than what's in the blurbs right now. Nature's commentary says that these painting are 2000 years older than the minimum age of their oldest counterparts elsewhere, which practically means that uncertainties in the dating method rule out a definitive answer as to which is older. I'm all for posting this, and I would support the suggestion by GoldenRing above, but I can't support any of the blurbs as they are now.128.214.53.18 (talk) 04:52, 13 October 2014 (UTC)

comment there was one found in mcedonia (north Greece) that could be combined with this. What with all the controversy b/w the 2 it can be more pertinent.Lihaas (talk) 00:52, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

October 11