Skip to content

Animal Ancient DNA Evidence

Animal ancient DNA enters this repository through studies, project accessions, and supplementary tables, but the public-facing claim is rarely about the project alone. It is about a sample, a locality, a date, and a mapping decision that can be checked.

That is why the key unit is the sample-backed evidence chain:

flowchart LR
    project["project accession"]
    paper["paper and supplement"]
    sample["sample row"]
    site["site evidence"]
    date["chronology evidence"]
    coordinates["coordinate provenance"]
    atlas["atlas or country output row"]

    project --> paper
    paper --> sample
    sample --> site
    sample --> date
    site --> coordinates
    date --> atlas
    coordinates --> atlas
    sample --> atlas

Why This Domain Needs Extra Care

Animal ancient DNA is the part of the repository most likely to look stronger from a distance than it really is. A species can appear in a report, a map, or coverage summary long before every supporting sample row has clean locality and chronology support.

The important point is that animal evidence is not one file family or one project list. It is a recovery chain that has to hold together from source capture to public publication.

What A Strong Animal Record Should Answer

A strong animal row in this repository should make the following questions answerable:

Question Where the answer usually lives Example
Which study or archive project is this record tied to? project and paper registries data/adna/governance/source_library/project_registry.json
Which recoverable sample rows exist? project sample masters and normalized sample records data/adna/governance/source_library/projects/PRJEB36540/sample_master.json
What locality claim is actually supported? project sample sites and normalized site evidence data/adna/species/ovis_aries/normalized/site_evidence.json
What date claim survives review? project chronology and chronology audits data/adna/governance/source_library/project_sample_chronology_review.json
Why is a point mapped or blocked? coordinate provenance data/adna/species/ovis_aries/normalized/coordinate_provenance.json
Where does the public row appear? country reports and geography outputs docs/report/world/world_animal_atlas_evidence.json

One Practical Reading Path

If you want to check one animal point carefully, the shortest path is:

  1. identify the sample row in data/adna/species/<latin_name>/normalized/sample_records.json
  2. confirm the named place in data/adna/species/<latin_name>/normalized/site_evidence.json
  3. confirm the date posture in data/adna/governance/source_library/project_sample_chronology_review.json
  4. confirm the mapping basis in data/adna/species/<latin_name>/normalized/coordinate_provenance.json
  5. confirm the published row in the relevant country bundle or atlas evidence file

What This Evidence Model Refuses

  • treating a project list as if it were already a sample table
  • treating a broad locality label as if it were an exact excavation point
  • treating vague chronology text as if it were a precise date
  • treating a visible atlas point as stronger than the evidence chain behind it

Where To Go Next