---
conjecture: r2-edh-b1-09
family: codex
model: "gpt-5.6-sol (codex-cli 0.144.0-alpha.4, ChatGPT-subscription auth)"
model_stamp_corrected: "2026-08-07 — archives were first written stamped gpt-5.5 by a runner bug (the stamper read config.toml's default instead of the -m flag actually passed). The calls themselves ran on gpt-5.6-sol throughout; only the label was wrong. Corrected in place, noted here rather than silently."
received: 2026-08-07
template: PROMPT_TEMPLATE_v1.md sha256 4344aabfacfe88362c56d89b6c89d594a7bf3a221e18a16b0e351482447e512f
rivals_parsed: 3
validation: VALID
---

{
  "rivals": [
    {
      "mechanism": "Epitaphs are formulaic and therefore easier to identify and assign a genre than fragmentary civic, commercial, administrative, or ownership texts. Restricting the denominator to genre-typed rows could consequently manufacture an epitaph plurality even if the underlying catalogued objects have a different genre mix.",
      "why_it_explains_the_same_evidence": "Genre-dependent classification operates throughout EDH, so an alphabetical province split would reproduce it in both halves. The minimum-support rule may amplify the effect by admitting provinces only after they accumulate many readily typed records, while excluding untyped inscriptions from the plurality calculation.",
      "named_confounds": [
        "genre-dependent missingness",
        "typed-row denominator selection",
        "formula-driven classification ease"
      ],
      "discriminating_test": {
        "description": "Blindly genre-code a stratified random sample of EDH's currently untyped rows using inscription text, object type, and context, estimate genre-specific typing probabilities, and recompute each province's distribution using inverse-probability weighting or multiple imputation. Compare the corrected plurality rate with the registered 85% threshold.",
        "computable_on_held_data": true,
        "what_result_favors_rival": "The rival is favored if epitaphs have substantially higher typing probabilities and correction causes several eligible provinces to lose their epitaph-or-votive plurality, reducing the province-level rate below 85%."
      }
    },
    {
      "mechanism": "A small number of intensively published or batch-imported necropoleis and funerary corpora may supply enough records to determine the plurality in most provinces. The result would then reflect clustered catalogue harvesting rather than a geographically pervasive provincial practice.",
      "why_it_explains_the_same_evidence": "Most provinces can contain at least one large cemetery corpus, and such corpora commonly contain hundreds or thousands of similar epitaphs. Because the test weights every record equally rather than every site or publication source equally, the same cluster-size effect can produce 11 of 12 training successes and 19 of 19 holdout successes despite arbitrary alphabetical splitting.",
      "named_confounds": [
        "unequal site-level sampling",
        "necropolis cluster pseudoreplication",
        "publication-source harvest artifact",
        "record-weighted province aggregation"
      ],
      "discriminating_test": {
        "description": "Within each province, group records by archaeological findspot and bibliographic or import source. Recalculate genre pluralities after giving each site equal weight, giving each source equal weight, and sequentially removing the largest funerary cluster; also measure the share of the winning genre supplied by the largest one and three clusters.",
        "computable_on_held_data": true,
        "what_result_favors_rival": "The rival is favored if epitaph plurality is repeatedly lost under site- or source-balanced weighting, or if removing one or a few necropolis clusters reverses the result in enough provinces to fall below 85%. Broad cultural dominance instead predicts substantial within-province and cross-source consistency."
      }
    },
    {
      "mechanism": "Funerary monuments may be overrepresented because cemetery stone is durable, archaeologically conspicuous, and often recovered in concentrated excavations, whereas many non-funerary everyday texts were made on less durable supports, remained in poorly sampled settlement contexts, or were destroyed through reuse. EDH would then record a Mediterranean-wide preservation and recovery regime rather than a Mediterranean-wide production preference.",
      "why_it_explains_the_same_evidence": "Stone burial markers face similar preservation and discovery advantages across provincial boundaries, so this observation process would survive an alphabetical split and could readily generate universal holdout success. Excluding Rome removes one unusual assemblage but does not remove the shared taphonomic and archaeological selection process affecting the remaining provinces.",
      "named_confounds": [
        "differential material survival",
        "cemetery recovery bias",
        "architectural reuse and destruction",
        "archaeological-context selection"
      ],
      "discriminating_test": {
        "description": "Construct prospectively defined archaeological inventories of all inscribed finds from sampled settlement, sanctuary, roadside, industrial, and burial contexts, recording excavation or survey effort, original context, material, completeness, and reuse. Compare effort-weighted genre distributions across contexts and materials with the EDH record-weighted distributions.",
        "computable_on_held_data": false,
        "what_result_favors_rival": "The rival is favored if epitaph plurality is confined to cemetery, durable-stone, reused, or otherwise high-recovery assemblages and disappears in effort-weighted inventories spanning original-deposition contexts. The proposed cultural mechanism predicts that funerary or votive dominance should remain visible after preservation and recovery opportunities are controlled."
      }
    }
  ],
  "no_viable_rival": false,
  "notes": "The alphabetical holdout is strong evidence that the database-level pattern generalizes across EDH provinces, but both halves share EDH's observation, classification, and aggregation processes, so the split does not independently test systematic catalogue-wide confounds."
}
