How do you prepare provenance evidence for expert review?

Why this question is difficult

A long narrative and folder of files force reviewers to reconstruct the research process and can anchor them to the producer’s preferred conclusion. A useful packet makes every material claim, source, uncertainty, and correction target visible while keeping the reviewed revision frozen.

The Research Commons treats this as a method question rather than a shortcut to a historical conclusion. Work remains source-first, identity-aware, revision-bound, and open to correction. Every consequential result requires an attributable human reviewer, and publication remains a separate approval decision.

A reproducible method

Lead with the bounded question and an object fingerprint. Assign stable claim IDs and map each claim to exact citations, quotations, certainty, and counterevidence. Include a chronology of events without flattening ownership, custody, movement, exhibition, and rights. Preserve contradictions and at least one credible alternative hypothesis.

Create one machine-readable packet for the exact revision being reviewed. Preserve source URLs, visible queries, access dates, quotations or field locations, object-identity anchors, contradictions, rejected candidates, alternative hypotheses, gaps, and limitations. Hash the canonical packet so later corrections cannot silently alter the evidence reviewed.

Evidence and responsible automation

Bind the packet to a canonical JSON representation and SHA-256 digest. List source receipts, retrieval dates, rights constraints, rejected candidates, no-result searches, missing primary documents, prior-art queries, and all AI assistance. The reviewer should be able to reproduce the core answer across independent sources without contacting the producer.

AI agents may assist with bounded query planning, retrieval after a human trigger, evidence extraction, citation checking, collision warnings, contradiction detection, and packet assembly. They may not establish identity, authenticity, title, wrongdoing, novelty, publication readiness, or legal conclusions. Missing evidence should produce a refusal or next research action, not invented completion.

Challenge the result before using it

Ask the reviewer to challenge identity first, reproduce citations, test the alternative account, list material corrections, decide novelty, and state limitations or additional expertise. Preserve the original and append decisions; accepted corrections create a new version. Review does not itself authorize publication, outreach, authentication, title, or legal action.

A qualified reviewer should reproduce the most material citation, challenge identity, test the alternative hypothesis, identify source dependencies, and record corrections. The reviewer’s decision must name what is supported, disputed, unresolved, or outside scope. A polished narrative, repeated database statement, or high similarity score cannot substitute for this work.

Primary method references

• Linked Art data model — Event-centered cultural-heritage data semantics and multi-valued evidence structures.
• Getty Provenance Index — Official scope and access context for provenance, sales, dealer, and archival indexes.
• CIDOC Conceptual Reference Model — Reference model for events, actors, objects, places, timespans, and evidence-bearing relationships.

Questions and limits