Talk:Vinča symbols

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"Prevailing theory"

The article reads:

The prevailing theory is that the symbols were used for religious purposes in a traditional agricultural society.

This is very strong phrasing. Is it even true? It's plausible that some people think this but that it's prevailing? Seems doubtful to me. The entire section is unsourced, so there's no source to check regarding how widespread this view is. -- Scyrme (talk) 22:27, 10 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Joe Roe: You seem familiar with this area; what do you think? -- Scyrme (talk) 22:27, 10 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I dont believe it to be prevailing, it seems scientific consensus is lacking regarding the Vinca symbols and it doesn’t seem to be shifting to be favorable to any direction MichaelDMelvin23 (talk) 12:46, 28 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Scyrme: Sorry for the slow response to this ping. I am not so up to date on this area but I think Michael has it right: it's an understudied topic with little consensus either way. It attracts amateur speculation more than scholarship, and certain established scholars also tend to let their imaginations run wilder than usual with it. Basically it's hard to write anything that fits WP:NPOV and WP:FRINGE... not a very helpful answer, I know! – Joe (talk) 09:54, 1 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

It helps a bit. If there's no consensus then the lack of any evidence for these ideas being "prevailing" is probably because it doesn't exist as opposed to me being bad at finding it. I've reworded it to soften the phrasing for now, but I may prune the section further if I'm not able to find anything substantiating these theories. – Scyrme (talk) 23:23, 4 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

PIE

Is it possible that the symbols represent Proto-Indo-European? I am a Green Bee (talk) 12:42, 28 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

No. Even if they are writing, which has not been definitively proven, the Vinča culture of Neolithic Europe was not Proto-European. – Scyrme (talk) 15:55, 28 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Gradeshnitsa tablets

@Ario1234: Hello. Do you have a reference that identifies the Gradeshnitsa tablets as being part of the corpus of Vinča symbols? As far as I know, the tablets are regarded as bearing decorative markings not Vinča signs, but I could be mistaken. – Scyrme (talk) 20:49, 18 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Gimbutas (1991), The Civilization of the Goddess, p.313

https://archive.org/details/civilizationofgo0000gimb/page/312/mode/2up Ario1234 (talk) 22:39, 18 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Does this really need to be cited?

"The use of the symbols seems to have been abandoned (along with the objects on which they appear) at the start of the Bronze Age, suggesting that the new technology brought with it significant changes in social organization or population, and beliefs." Apparently this needs a citation, but isn't it extremely obvious that there were enormous changed in social organisation, population and beliefs between the Neolithic and the Bronze Age in Europe due to it being invaded? How is anyone supposed to cite such a broad claim without linking to some article on populations from the Eurasian Steppe invading Europe that barely pertains to the symbols at all? 203.220.8.107 (talk) 00:49, 24 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Who says that the abandonment of the symbols "suggests" anything more than that the symbols were abandoned? I'm not saying it's wrong; the point is that Wikipedia editors aren't meant to draw conclusions from the evidence independently of what is stated in the sources. Original research, including editorial synthesis, has to be avoided. If the claim is too broad to be referenced, it doesn't belong on Wikipedia.

(Although, personally, I don't find it implausible that researchers writing about the Vinča symbols or the Vinča culture more generally may have explicitly discussed the factors that lead to the abandonment of these objects and symbols, including technological change. The effect of technology on culture is a common topic in academia, so much so that there's an entire field dedicated to it. It would be surprising if no scholarship has even commented on this in the context of the Vinča culture.) – Scyrme (talk) 14:21, 24 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Winn (1981) on property marks?

Does anyone have access to Winn's Pre-writing in Southeastern Europe (1981)? Milisauskas and Kruk mention that Winn considered the Vinča inscriptions as symbols of property ownership, citing the 1981 work. Starović (2005) also refers to Winn (1981). It may provide a relevant reference for Vinča symbols § Property marks. – Scyrme (talk) 21:29, 18 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Winn (1981) might also be helpful for Vinča symbols § Religious symbolism. A 2008 paper by Haarmann quotes Winn in this context. – Scyrme (talk) 22:14, 18 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Haarmann (2020) on numerical signs?

I've not been able to find anything anywhere about "comb" or "brush" signs being used as numerical symbols, so I'm unsure where that information is from. A Google Books search shows that Haarmann (2020) appears to cover the topic of numerical signs, but he doesn't appear to make any mention of "comb" or "brush" signs. A 2008 paper by Haarmann notes that the identification of grouping of strokes as numerical signs is "pervasive", but he himself seems to doubt that; he notes that other cultures (namely Sumer and Elam) used dots not strokes for this purpose, so identifying groups of strokes is numerical signs is "highly arbitrary".

Does anyone have access to Haarmann's The Mystery of the Danube Civilisation (2020)? What does he write on the topic? Is it much different to what's in the 2008 paper?

I'm also unsure where "which collectively constitute as much as a sixth of all the symbols so far discovered" comes from. My best guess is Winn (1981) based on what Starović writes, but I don't have access to check. – Scyrme (talk) 22:10, 18 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Change title

More appropriate titles for this article are Danube script or Old European script as they are widely used by researchers and represent better this script. Vinča is only one archeological site where examples of the script were found.

http://www.prehistory.it/ftp/winn.htm

https://www.archaeomythology.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/2008-vol4-intro1.pdf MiltenR (talk) 21:44, 30 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

"proto-writing"

The first paragraph comes across as conjecture. This viewpoint is a theory, but it is written and presented as if it is fact. It would be better worded to say that the author(s) cited propose this theory/viewpoint, which flows better with the counter theory in the following paragraph. 2601:182:107E:9A0:D5D0:8DB9:20BB:C8B0 (talk) 06:46, 22 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

What counter-theory? This is pretty much the best we have, as it is all conjecture—many don't really think they're a conventional sign system, many consider them to be proto-writing, and exactly one guy with credibility thinks they encoded language. Remsense ‥ 论 15:26, 23 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]