Talk:Verteba Cave

Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Hilst talk 12:28, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

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• Comment or view
• Article history

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• ... that during the Holocaust, 28 Jews hid in Verteba Cave for almost six months? Greenboim Rich, Viktoria (22 July 2023). "How Caves That Have Sheltered People for 6,000 Years Saved Jews From the Holocaust". Haaretz. Retrieved 22 March 2024.
  • ALT1: ... that several human skulls found in Verteba Cave display signs of having been intentionally and violently killed, scalping, and brain removal after death? Source: Madden, G.D.; Karsten, J.H.; Ledogar, S.H.; Schmidt, R.; Sokhatsky, M.P. (2018). "Violence at Verteba Cave, Ukraine: New insights into the Late Neolithic intergroup conflict". International Journal of Osteoarchaeology. 28 (1): 44–53. doi:10.1002/oa.2633. Retrieved 15 March 2024 – via Wiley Online Library.
  • Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/Rosenheim Mansion
  • Comment: I highly recommend the reviewer have access to The Wikipedia Library as multiple academic sources are subscription-based.

Moved to mainspace by TCMemoire (talk).

Number of QPQs required: 1. Nominator has 9 past nominations.

Post-promotion hook changes will be logged on the talk page; consider watching the nomination until the hook appears on the Main Page.

– TCMemoire 12:26, 22 March 2024 (UTC).

General: Article is new enough and long enough
New enough: Long enough:

Policy compliance:

• Adequate sourcing: - Overall great sourcing, but I do spot two issues, both with the Haaretz source:

1. There's no disputing that that says hashomer and that Hashomer was a defense organization in Mandatory Palestine, but hashomer is also a common noun in Hebrew: 'the protector'. Since Haaretz is a non-expert source, I'm a bit skeptical of its interpretation here as referring to an organization in a different country, rather than to, say the cave itself. Are there any academic sources that mirror Haaretz' reading? Or any statements from people who were in the cave confirming it?
2. The source doesn't actually say that No Place on Earth was based on Nicola's book, only that it came about as a result of it. Our article on the film, meanwhile, says it was based on Stermer's memoir, but cites no source for that. Reading this NPR article, it might be most accurate to not say it was based on either, but that it was a result of both Stermer and Nicola's work.

• Neutral:
• Free of copyright violations, plagiarism, and close paraphrasing:

Hook eligibility:

• Cited: - ALT1 doesn't fully verify in the provided source, but I assume you just forgot to also mention [1] here, which is cited in the article and does verify.
• Interesting:

QPQ: Done.

Overall: @TCMemoire: Wow, what a great article. You should definitely put this up for GAN. Few sourcing issues above but nothing major. Both hooks work. If ALT1 is used, for style/grammar reasons I would recommend

ALT1a: ... that several human skulls found in Verteba Cave display signs of intentional killings, scalpings, and posthumous brain removal?

But personally I prefer ALT0. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (they|xe) 20:51, 30 March 2024 (UTC)

@Tamzin: Thank you for the review. Yes, I definitely forgot to include that second source for ALT0, my bad! RE: "hashemer", I have removed the wikilink. It also seemed a bit of a dubious connection to me. The book itself makes no mention of the inscription in Verteba, only the names they etched in Priest's Grotto. I just watched the documentary itself and the very first end slide says it was based on Stermer's memoir, but as I cannot for the life of me find a copy of that book, and to avoid original research of saying "well, the documentary closely follows Nicola's book but leaves out most of the cave exploration etc.", I will change the wording. – TCMemoire 01:46, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

Looks good to me now! I threw in a gloss and a link to wikt:שומר, since that's noncontroversial per Wikipedia:No original research § Translations and transcriptions. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (they|xe) 03:07, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Verteba Cave/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Nominator: TCMemoire (talk · contribs) 18:01, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

Reviewer: Esculenta (talk · contribs) 18:26, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

Looks interesting! Will have comments up here within a few days. Please let me know if you are intending to take this article to FAC; if so, I could prove more thorough commentary (if you want). Otherwise I'll stick to assessing the GA criteria. Esculenta (talk) 18:26, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

@Esculenta: Although this my first GAN (despite being here for 10 years!) and I've not even considered it could go to FA, I love picky feedback so the more you want to give the merrier. No pressure though! – TCMemoire 19:52, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

Ok, I've had my first readthrough. My impressions are ... it's quite informative and well-written! Here are some suggestions and nitpicks for your perusal:

Lead

• The MoS suggests that we avoid linking consecutive words together (MOS:SEAOFBLUE), but's there's a triple in the lead sentence ("a karstic gypsum cave "). How about instead "a karstic cave formed in gypsum," and either unlink the common word "cave" or save the link for the following sentence.
• link prehistoric, artefact
• "have been found with injuries consistent with being intentionally killed" suggest tweak "have been found bearing injuries consistent with being intentionally killed" (avoid duplicate & close "with")
• the lead seems a bit short on details relative to the length of the article. How about mentioning the unique geological formation of the cave, and its status as a habitat for endangered bat species?

Description

• link tributary, Transnistria

History

• links: excavations; maybe History of the Jews in Ukraine might be a better targeted link than the current unspecific one?
• are there any more words that could be said about who Jan Khmeletsky was, and if anything interesting notable between 1822 and 1876?

Geology

• link sedimentary rock; Stratigraphically; deposits; prehistory
• it should be made more clear that the given length of 8km is "the combined length of all passageways inside the cave"
• Because Eastern European Platform and the Carpathian Foredeep are redlinks, perhaps the text could give a short gloss or explanation as to what these are.
• maybe a short gloss of "transverse artesian flow", e.g. "(when water under pressure moves sideways through permeable rock layers, potentially carving out underground channels")
• how about putting the mya parenthetically to save some clicks for readers like me who haven't memorized the timescale of the epochs?
• does Clastic rock need to be capitalised?

Archaeology

• links: ceramics; anthropomorphic; zoomorphic; stone tool; dugout; hearth; sherd; artefact; Neolithic Europe; Isotopic analysis; ritualistic; medieval
• "Kraków Archaeological Museum of Archaeology" -> Archaeological Museum of Kraków
• "Several different groups from the Cucuteni–Trypillian culture occupied the cave at different times. These periods of occupation fall within three distinct cultural horizons within this culture:" 3x "culture/al" is a bit too much
• I notice that both the CI and CII cultural horizons, and the Koshylovetska and Kasperivska ceramic typologies overlap; is this intentional?
• who are the Branzeni?
• "The Kasperivska material displays Funnelbeaker and Baden cultural influence, and cord impressions and distinct rim cuts tie the Verteba Cave ceramics into a widely distributed pattern of Anatolian and Balkan influence stretching as far as modern-day Poland." this sentence is dense in archaeological terminology. Might I suggest tweaking the prose for a more straightforward presentation, viz. "The Kasperivska artifacts show influences from the Funnelbeaker and Baden cultures, evident in the unique patterns and shapes cut into the rims of the ceramics. These styles, along with designs pressed into the clay with cords, link the pottery found in Verteba Cave to similar styles seen across a large area that includes Anatolia, the Balkans, and reaches as far as modern-day Poland."
• "…occupied the cave for a period of about 803 years…" the estimate seem unusually precise for an archaeological context, especially considering that carbon dating has a standard error ranging from ±25 years to several centuries.
• "BCE displays ties to the Yamnaya and Corded Ware cultures, displaying a more" displays …displaying

Extra thoughts

• How about including the floor area & capacity of the cave? (Kadrow & Potkutta p.1)
• I found it interesting that human teeth recovered from the Verteba Cave have been used to assess the oral health impacts of the transition to agriculture on the Tripolye culture, demonstrating that this shift was associated with a significant increase in dental caries compared to earlier hunter-fisher-gatherer groups in the region. source Worthy of inclusion?

• I read the Ukrainian version (Ukr) of the same article to compare the information presentation in the two language versions. Some takeaways:

• Historical and Archaeological Importance:

• Ukr specifically designates Verteba Cave as a geological and archaeological site of national significance, highlighting its formal status.
• Ukr contains detailed historical narratives about the discovery and subsequent archaeological explorations not fully covered in the English version. This includes stories about the initial exploration and significant findings from different archaeological periods.

• Length of the Cave: Ukr provides a specific length for the cave's underground passages (9021 meters), which differs slightly from the English version (8555 meters). It also mentions variability in the reported lengths.
• Cultural and Historical Details:

• Ukr mentions the cave being declared a part of the natural reserve by the Council of Ministers of the Ukrainian SSR in 1971 and by the Cabinet Ministers of Ukraine in 1992, which emphasizes the cave's conservation history.
• Ukr mentions that in 2018, an ancient oven-bed (a combination of an oven and a sleeping platform, common in many ancient and traditional dwellings across Eastern Europe) was discovered. This finding, according to Mikhailo Sokhatsky, indicated that the Trypillian people may have stayed in the cave not temporarily, as many scholars previously thought, but for extended periods, suggesting suggests a more permanent and complex use of the cave than what might have been understood from earlier research.

• Conservation and Modern Use: Ukr talks about the conservation efforts and how the cave is currently part of the national natural park "Dniester Canyon." There's also mention of a sport speleological route for well-prepared visitors.
• Zoological info: the Ukr mention of bat populations and their protection status is a bit more detailed; also, four species of bats that inhabit the cave are listed as protected in the Red Book of Ukraine

• The current lead image is from 2006; a 2017 photo shows that there is now a pathway leading to the entrance.

There's no obligation to include any of this extra stuff, as I think the article currently is pretty close to meeting the "broadness" criterion for GA, but I place it here for your consideration. Esculenta (talk) 04:53, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

@Esculenta: Apologies for the late response! I had a medical episode and have been recovering the last couple of weeks.

I have implemented most of the changes you've recommended. Some notes:

• Updated the infobox image and added another to the Archaeology section.
• I don't want to wikilink to Transnistria as the full noun is the Transnistrian karst region and doesn't correlate to the state.
• I tried but could find nothing more on Jan Khmeletsky, I tried with other spellings as well. Not sure what else can be done on that front, I would bet any sources regarding him might either be offline and/or in Polish or Ukrainian. There seems to be nothing published about activity in the cave between 1822–1876; if anything does exist it's probably in the archaeological archives, which we can't access.
• The overlap between the typologies and cultures is intentional; these horizons persisted at different times in different locations. The dates in the article are for the cultural horizon as a whole, I've clarified that in the article.
• I agree that 803 years is oddly precise (as someone with an archaeology degree, it's odd they included such a precise figure in the article without the immediate caveat of it being mathematically or RC derived); I've improved the phrasing there.
• I updated the total length of the cave as a range in both the infobox and prose, I hope it's not too clunky.
• One thing I overlooked is the current status of that emergency exit the Jewish refugees created. As far as I can tell, this exit either no longer exists (probably covered up by topsoil) or simply isn't used. Its location is certainly known at least by Chris Nicola, as he included photos of it in his book and the documentary (which I was able to watch!). This is an unanswered question in the article, but I can't find any source that mentions whether or not that entrance is now closed and probably can't be answered without original research.
• Added a couple new sources, both by Sokhatskyi (see Sokhatskyi and Potekhina 2022 in References; Snitovskyi 2018 in Citations. Both are in Ukrainian. One is an interview with Sokhatskyi, but since he's pretty indisputably the leading researcher on this site, I think it's perfectly fine to use. I also found and added the source for the 2018 oven discovery.
• Did a little tweaking to the headings within the Archaeology section. I decided the use of Osteoarchaeology was too specialized.
• Thanks for pointing out the cave floor area/capacity, I somehow totally missed that in Kadrow and Pokutta 2016.
• I checked the website for the Dniester Canyon Preserve and couldn't confirm if the cave is or isn't inside the actual reserve boundaries. The maps are such poor quality, and there's no mention of Verteba itself (although several of the other caves are mentioned by name). I also can't find lists of monuments for it being listed on any register.

Anything else on the Ukrainian version of the article is unsourced, and I was unable to find the origin of the other statements. It's a shame the article is so poorly sourced inline, as there are some other nuggets in there but simply aren't supported by the sources.

I'll still be making improvements to the article in line with your recommendations and other info I've found! I plan on adding more about the dental caries. I saw the article but decided it was too niche, but now that you've mentioned it and I've gone and given it a second look, I'll use it to expand the Diet section. – TCMemoire 20:46, 6 May 2024 (UTC)