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SEAD Environmental Archaeology Context

SEAD contributes site-level environmental archaeology context to Pollenomics. It can show that a lake, pollen sequence, or biological record sits within a documented archaeological landscape. It does not turn proximity into direct association, and the current capture does not support same-period comparison.

Current Evidence Posture

Property Governed state Consequence
captured inventory 2,195 site rows the denominator remains visible before publication filtering
mapped publication members 2,172 site points these rows fall within the four governed country geometries
retained non-members 23 site rows they remain captured but outside the current country publication scope
observation unit one SEAD site inventory row a row is not a sample, event, taxon occurrence, or lake record
numeric chronology 0 of 2,195 rows time-aware overlap and same-period claims are refused
evidence role environmental archaeology context SEAD cannot establish biological identity or specimen provenance

The 23-row difference is a spatial membership result, not deduplication and not data loss. A boundary revision must reassess those same site identities rather than silently treating the rows as newly collected evidence.

What One Site Row Establishes

The checked-in inventory retains the site identifier, site name, available national identifier, coordinates, country assignment, description, and stable upstream site-page route where available. Those fields support a bounded claim: a named environmental archaeology site is represented at a reported location in the captured SEAD inventory.

They do not establish:

  • a specimen-level link to nearby pollen or ancient-DNA evidence;
  • a causal relation between a site and a lake catchment;
  • temporal overlap with another record;
  • sampling suitability, sediment preservation, access, or permitting; or
  • complete representation of the upstream relational database.

The repository publishes derived context from a thin site inventory. When the claim requires proxy records, bibliography, chronology, or a fuller site dossier, the upstream SEAD site must be inspected and the additional evidence captured before the claim can be strengthened.

Evidence Chain

flowchart LR
    Upstream["SEAD site inventory"] --> Capture["2,195 captured rows"]
    Capture --> Identity["site identity and coordinate review"]
    Identity --> Country{"inside a governed country geometry?"}
    Country -->|yes| Mapped["2,172 mapped context members"]
    Country -->|no| Retained["23 retained non-members"]
    Mapped --> Time["inventory-only temporal posture"]
    Time --> Product["spatial context with time-aware use disabled"]

Each transition preserves a different decision. Capture establishes what was retrieved. Identity review establishes the record being represented. Country membership controls the current publication scope. Temporal review controls which comparisons remain scientifically eligible.

Appropriate Use

SEAD is suitable for questions such as:

Question Result that may be reported Required qualification
Which environmental archaeology sites are mapped near this feature? site identities and distances under a declared spatial rule proximity is contextual, not association
Is a candidate lake surrounded by documented archaeology? a spatial context count or descriptive neighbourhood no direct lake evidence and no fieldwork recommendation
Does a country view include the captured site? inclusion under the current governed boundary geometry membership may change when boundaries change
Is a SEAD site contemporaneous with an aDNA or pollen interval? no numeric answer from the current capture recover chronology before comparison

Spatial context may contribute to Sweden lake triage, but SEAD does not prove that a lake is archaeologically linked, suitable for coring, or temporally aligned with a research question. Those decisions require lake identity, fieldwork evidence, chronology, and product-specific review from their owning sources.

Reuse Contract

A reusable SEAD-derived statement retains:

  • the SEAD site identifier and displayed name;
  • the captured source and retrieval identity;
  • reported coordinates and their spatial basis;
  • current country-membership decision and boundary basis;
  • the site_inventory_only temporal posture;
  • the contextual evidence role; and
  • the named product rule that admitted or excluded the row.

A distance alone is not sufficient lineage. Neither a nearby feature name nor a country match may replace the SEAD site identifier.

Recovery Boundary

The governed review artifacts distinguish absent evidence from evidence not yet captured:

  • data/sead/review/access_model.json records upstream visibility and reuse posture for each site;
  • data/sead/review/temporal_review.json records the current refusal of numeric temporal comparison;
  • data/sead/review/evidence_legibility_review.json records whether the captured representation is interpretable; and
  • data/sead/review/recovery_requirements.json identifies the evidence gaps, required evidence, and satisfaction signals that would materially strengthen future use.

Recovery should target the missing claim dimension. A chronology question requires temporal evidence; a source-attribution question requires references; a proxy question requires the relevant upstream dataset relation. Adding more nearby points cannot substitute for any of them.

Claim-Led Relation Recovery

Proposed stronger claim Relation that must be recovered Minimum review before use
a site overlaps a pollen or aDNA interval dating range or relative-period evidence with basis and uncertainty normalize time basis, retain source labels, and test interval eligibility
a site interpretation is supported by named literature bibliography relation and stable reference identity verify the reference-to-site relation and preserve access posture
a site contains a named environmental proxy dataset, sample group, physical sample, analysis entity, and analysis value lineage retain observation unit, method, taxon or proxy vocabulary, and units
two rows describe the same archaeological place governing identity evidence rather than name or coordinate similarity record alias, merge, split, or unresolved collision posture

Relation recovery is member-specific. Finding a rich dossier for one site does not raise the maturity of the other inventory rows, and recovering one table does not authorize a join until the intervening keys and observation units are also governed.