Talk:Columbian exchange

Columbian exchange is currently an Agriculture, food and drink good article nominee. Nominated by Chiswick Chap (talk) at 18:08, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

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Short description: Transfers between the Old and New Worlds

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Sugar?

@WBardwin I've heard by it's literal definition it always existed in the old world (in the form of stuff like jaggery, apple, etc.) but what about the current type ?? 45.127.44.80 (talk) 03:51, 25 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Sugarcane "is native to the warm temperate and tropical regions of India, Southeast Asia, and New Guinea". Please note that talk pages are not forums; we add claims to articles only by finding and citing reliable sources. All the best, Chiswick Chap (talk) 09:30, 25 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Lead images

The lead images are not, I suggest, well-chosen, all being of plants. The exchange however was of animals and culture (and diseases) as well as plants, so the images are in that way misleading. We'd do better to have one plant, one animal, and one cultural image, for example. Or we might find a historic image of animals and plants on board a ship (with its human crew), which would give the idea more concretely in one go. Suggestions would be welcomed. Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:04, 2 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

We may also consider one disease from each hemisphere (recommend smallpox and syphilis). I will plan to dig around on the Commons for a contemporary illustration of goods aboard a ship. ThaesOfereode (talk) 15:15, 2 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Good idea. I've given it a go: it's already a whole lot better. Chiswick Chap (talk) 15:28, 2 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Theodore de Bry made a lot of engravings c. 1590. One or two might be usable, but they come with a lot of pro-European ideology, e.g. Columbus is greeted with gifts by the natives.

Yes, he inhabits a weird world in this context because he was also anti-Spanish (see his images on Black legend). I considered the image above since it shows a literal exchange between the Old and New Worlds, but they're not really exchanging anything relevant to this discussion (i.e., no maize, no cows, etc.). We might consider finding more images in the Florentine Codex, since it contains a lot of images about the New World/Old World contact. ThaesOfereode (talk) 21:07, 2 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Most of them seem to be about fighting, but I've found and added one image which shows 4 kinds of livestock arriving in Mexico, not bad at all. Chiswick Chap (talk) 17:43, 3 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Mistake in plants table?

The article states that chilies were brought from the Americas to Europe and India, but the table at the end of the section puts chilies in the “old world to new world” column 51.7.218.116 (talk) 06:02, 11 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Fixed. Thanks. Smallchief (talk) 07:56, 11 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Many thanks both. Chiswick Chap (talk) 16:06, 11 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

GA Review

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

Nominator: Chiswick Chap (talk · contribs) 18:08, 3 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Reviewer: Gog the Mild (talk · contribs) 11:52, 27 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This looks interesting, I'll have a look at it. Could you give me a nudge if I haven't started it by the weekend. Thanks. Gog the Mild (talk) 11:52, 27 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Good Article review progress box

Criteria: 1a. prose () 1b. MoS () 2a. ref layout () 2b. cites WP:RS () 2c. no WP:OR () 2d. no WP:CV ()

3a. broadness () 3b. focus () 4. neutral () 5. stable () 6a. free or tagged images () 6b. pics relevant ()

Note: this represents where the article stands relative to the Good Article criteria. Criteria marked are unassessed

Comments

"in the late 15th and following centuries." Maybe 'from the late 15th century'?
- Done.

"It is named after the Italian explorer Christopher Columbus". I don't see this in the main article.
- Fixed over there.

" Some of the exchanges were purposeful", do you mean 'deliberate'?
- Yes, fixed.

"resulted in an 80 to 95 percent reduction in the number of Indigenous peoples ... most severely in the Caribbean." I thought it was 100% in the Caribbean?
- Yes, fixed.

"the number of Indigenous peoples of the Americas" → 'the number of Indigenous people of the Americas' if you are talking about individuals rather than groups (tribes/cultures/similar).
- Done.

"replaced Indigenous populations across the Americas". Why the upper-case I?
- Lower case.

"understand the variety of contemporary ecosystems". Does "variety of" add anything?
- Many species of.

Maybe "The weight of scientific evidence" → 'The consensus of scientific opinion?
- Edited.

"had no known impact on the Americas." Did it have any known effect on the Old World?
- Um, if we're discussing effects that cross the pond, then this could have been one such (OW->NW) but wasn't. An OW->OW effect would be out of this article's scope.

"resulted in caloric and nutritional improvements over previously existing staples". Arguably optional at GAN, but the MoS on quotations has "[t]he source must be named in article text if the quotation is an opinion". Emphasis in original.
- Paraphrased.

"but this has not diminished their importance to human nutrition." This is not what the source says.
- Removed.

Images at top: however amusing I may find it personally, you can't have Christianity as the equivilant of smoking.
- No equivalence is stated or implied. They are just the clearest examples of cultural exchange in the opposing directions.

File:Chute tobacco.JPG needs a US PD tag.
- Added.

As does File:Evangelización por la Orden Franciscana (cropped) (cropped).jpg
- Added.

And File:George Catlin - Buffalo hunt.jpg.
- Added.

Could you double check the rest of the image licencing please. Gog the Mild (talk) 15:56, 27 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

- Maize - PD by USDA
- Wheat - CC0
- Turkey - featured pic, CC-by-SA 4
- Cattle - CC-by-SA 3
- Syphilis - CC-by-SA 2
- Smallpox - PD by CDC
- File:BRI Columbian Exchange.jpg - CC-by-SA.
- File:The Florentine Codex- Maize.tif - added.
- File:The Florentine Codex- The Conquest of Mexico.png - added.
- File:Intikawan Amantani.jpg - plausibly licensed.
- File:400Behandlung der Syphilis.jpg - added.
- File:Aztec smallpox victims.jpg - added.
- File:1670 virginia tobacco slaves.jpg - added. Chiswick Chap (talk) 16:33, 27 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

"Rice became widely planted in the New World". This is the first mention of rice, so perhaps mention where it came from?
- Done.

If there is no in line dating for "colonial era" perhaps at least link it?
- Linked.

"wild tomatoes came from Central America to South America, initiating the cultivation of tomatoes in different parts of the Americas", I don't think you have the phrasing quite right here, it leaves hanging how "wild tomatoes came from Central America to South America, and reads as if their appearance in South America was what caused the "cultivation of tomatoes in different parts of the Americas".
- Edited.

You seem have missed a sentence or two from the middle of that paragraph. :-) Explaining that tomatoes travelled to Europe, were grown there and became particularly popular in Italy.
- Added.

"In 1544, Pietro Andrea Mattioli, a Tuscan physician and botanist, wrote that the tomato was eaten fried in oil." In Tuscany or the Americas?
- Hmm, edited.

Section header: Should that be 'Of cultivated plants'?
- Added a mention of wild plants and weeds of cultivation.

Which brings me to: Why just cultivated plants and not uncultivated ones? The article would seem to be struggling for "it addresses the main aspects of the topic" withtout this.
- See item above.

Tobacco?
- Is mentioned and illustrated, and discussed in 'Clash of cultures'. Probably sufficient for this article; much more in the main article, of course.

Down to the bottom of Of food and pausing to tand some of my own nominations. Gog the Mild (talk) 18:15, 27 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

More

"Native Americans learned to use horses to chase bison". Is that really what the sources say. Suggest deleting "to chase bison".
- Done.

Suggest moving the regions of origin for the turkey and the Muscovy duck from the second table to the prose.
- Done.

"For example, according to the work of James L. Watson, slaves were involved in handicraft production." I think that can be said in Wikipedia's voice, without in line attribution.
- Done.

I spotted at least one sfn style citation in among the <ref>s. Could they be standardised.
- I'm comfortable with the mix; the sources are major texts that are used repeatedly in the article, where sfn has the advantage of avoiding duplication of citations.

The use of only three authors leaves me with some qualms about NPOV.
- You mean in Sources? Well, firstly they're multiple independent voices singing from the same hymnsheet; secondly, they're supported in many details by all the other refs in the article. And thirdly, I guess, it's quite hard to imagine what a partisan position on this might be, as it's bidirectional and five centuries ago.