# r3-b1-03

**Claim (as registered):** Independently-curated European binding-waste fragment collections (built from reused/recycled parchment, not deposit-and-preserve archives) converge on a mean cataloged date inside [1150, 1450] -- distinct from, and later than, Cairo Genizah fragment material, even though both are the same physical unit (fragment).

**Proposed mechanism:** Binding waste and a preservation-focused fragment survey are proposed to be distinct chronological populations from a Genizah-style storage/deposit trove, reflecting different real-world processes that generate loose fragments.

**Scope:** This conjecture concerns the manuscript-catalogue source(s) named below only -- it does not involve NAMAMI or India data at all, and is not decided by NAMAMI's India-state holdout in any way (no India state's landing can confirm or refute it). It is decided only by future growth of, or new landings to, the specific source(s) named below; no such test has run yet. Specifically: two independently-curated binding-waste fragment sources (a Swedish archival collection and a general European fragment survey), and a Genizah-fragment comparison subset of a third source, all restricted to the 'fragment' unit only (never summed with whole-manuscript counts).

**Training-side evidence:** The two binding-waste sources converge within 0.3 years of each other: mean cataloged date 1280.61 (n=17,234 dated of 22,909) and 1280.29 (n=6,946 dated of 7,126). The Genizah-fragment comparison subset has mean 1471.71 (n=4,272 dated of 43,017, a much lower 9.9% dated rate) -- about 190 years later on average than the binding-waste pair, which already revises a naive 'fragments are the oldest material' prior.

**Holdout test and outcome:** No holdout test has been run for this conjecture. Evaluate the rival mechanisms against the training evidence alone.

**Status:** Not yet tested; decided only by future data.
