Sxx Temporary Aggregates

Temporarily treating a number of otherwise distinct entities as a unit may be necessary for activities such as scientific investigation, treatment, classification, transport, or exhibition. Such a grouping does not necessarily form a physical whole: rather, it provides a common context for collectively assessing and handling the entities at hand, while the entities retain their own identities. The proposed CRMsci construct is intended to represent these temporary, context-dependent aggregates, particularly where collective observations, classifications, or inferences are made about their members as a group.

Martin Doerr (pc) --31 August 2026

 I think it is a very important concept to describe laboratory practice. I think my very restricted definition avoids a lot of ambiguities and can make handling easy.  I think it should go into CRMsci, because it is rather an epistemic construct.

I further think we need to distinguish creating aggregates by enumerating/ collecting elements from creating aggregates by producing an unspecified number of elements catch of fish), and from creating the elements themselves in one process (such as a set of samples). Similarly discarding the whole batch versus using it otherwise.

Typical actions on aggregates are classications, overall for each element the same, with percentages (dimension?) only, or separating into new subaggregates by refined classification, or treating each element individually.

I am not sure if the "base type" is always the best solution. The "base type" appears to be adequate for the collecting scenario, or the conservation action on same materials. If the elements are created initially altogether as an aggregate, the common provenance may compete as identity condition.

Achille Felicetti (p.c.) --14 September 2026

Ciao Martin, all,

reading your notes, the first example that immediately comes to my mind is a recent study on the Pompeii plaster casts, where a group of casts were specifically selected for a paleogenetic investigation, and the bone fragments they contained were subjected to the same screening and analytical procedures. This seems to me a rather good example of an aggregate created by selecting pre-existing objects for the same kind of scientific investigation, since the casts already have their own archaeological identity, while the temporary aggregation derives specifically from the analytical activity. You will find more details in the related paper:

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2024.10.007 

The study is also particularly interesting because the results substantially changed the interpretation of some of the best-known Pompeian victims. The genetic evidence showed, for instance, that the adult wearing a golden bracelet and holding a child, traditionally interpreted as a mother and child, was actually an adult male unrelated with the child. Likewise, individuals traditionally interpreted as two sisters were found to include at least one genetic male :-)

A second, less clear-cut but perhaps still interesting Italian example is the restoration of about 100 Roman coins from the Varzi hoard, selected from the larger hoard and physically divided into three groups before the restoration. See the attached article for more information, the text is in Italian, sorry, but the figures are quite intriguing.

This could also be interpreted as an aggregate created by collecting existing objects for a common treatment, although the example is less centred because the publication does not make sufficiently explicit why the three groups were formed (they may reflect an earlier physical grouping of the coins, perhaps related to how the hoard was originally arranged), nor whether exactly the same treatment was applied to every coin. I would therefore see it as a supporting example rather than a “canonical" one.

On the other side, the Pompeii case may also be relevant to the distinction between collecting existing elements and producing the elements themselves: the study subsequently involved obtaining bone samples from the selected casts, so the same archaeological case illustrates two different stages with rather different aggregation patterns.

I hope this helps :-)

Bests,
A.
 

Dominic Oldman (p.c.) --14 September 2026

Object aggregates / evidentiary aggregates

Have people thought about the aggregation of samples rather than objects?

When you aggregate objects you are aggregating things which have discrete physical forms.

When you aggregate samples you aggregate material evidence about something else. Do all the samples (which may be heterogeneous) in an aggregate need to be representative of the same material substance or have some other general representational quality? Are there different types of sample aggregate?

D

Gerald Hiebel (p.c.) --14 September 2026 

Dear all,

I just came across an example in Archaeology that may qualify as an aggregate.

They put objects in a find bag that gets a Find sheet which is uniquely identified in the excavation and if one of the objects in worth more attention it gets an inventory number, which may further be used.

Would you see that as an aggregate?

Best,

Gerald

Martin Doerr (p.c.) --14 September 2026

Hi Achille,

On 9/14/2026 11:15 AM, Achille Felicetti wrote:
Ciao Martin, all,

reading your notes, the first example that immediately comes to my mind is a recent study on the Pompeii plaster casts, where a group of casts were specifically selected for a paleogenetic investigation, and the bone fragments they contained were subjected to the same screening and analytical procedures. This seems to me a rather good example of an aggregate created by selecting pre-existing objects for the same kind of scientific investigation, since the casts already have their own archaeological identity, 

Yes, this is one case I thought of, by declaration. To be discussed what the utility is to treat it as an aggregate. Are there common things to assess or to infer?

while the temporary aggregation derives specifically from the analytical activity. You will find more details in the related paper:

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2024.10.007

Yes, then we have the 14 different samples, each one a temporary aggregate in its own right. The results will pertain summarily to the sample aggregate, I assume?

The study is also particularly interesting because the results substantially changed the interpretation of some of the best-known Pompeian victims. The genetic evidence showed, for instance, that the adult wearing a golden bracelet and holding a child, traditionally interpreted as a mother and child, was actually an adult male unrelated with the child. Likewise, individuals traditionally interpreted as two sisters were found to include at least one genetic male :-)

A second, less clear-cut but perhaps still interesting Italian example is the restoration of about 100 Roman coins from the Varzi hoard, selected from the larger hoard and physically divided into three groups before the restoration. See the attached article for more information, the text is in Italian, sorry, but the figures are quite intriguing.

This could also be interpreted as an aggregate created by collecting existing objects for a common treatment, although the example is less centred because the publication does not make sufficiently explicit why the three groups were formed (they may reflect an earlier physical grouping of the coins, perhaps related to how the hoard was originally arranged), nor whether exactly the same treatment was applied to every coin. I would therefore see it as a supporting example rather than a “canonical" one.

On the other side, the Pompeii case may also be relevant to the distinction between collecting existing elements and producing the elements themselves: the study subsequently involved obtaining bone samples from the selected casts, so the same archaeological case illustrates two different stages with rather different aggregation patterns.

Exactly. The point modelling aggregates in this sense are the summary assessments about them.

Those may be:

Common provenance context,
common types
quantitative classifications
....
?
?
?

Cheers,

Martin

Martin Doerr (p.c.) --14 September 2026

Dear All,

Now other cases come to my mind: 
Objects being packed into one box and sent somewhere: The Aggregate is useful to describe the common history,
Or objects going for exhibition and being exhibited ?

Cheers,

Martin

Achille Felicetti (p.c.) --15 September 2026

Dear Martin,

Yes, this is one case I thought of, by declaration. To be discussed what the utility is to treat it as an aggregate. Are there common things to assess or to infer?

Sure, the results are reported primarily for each individual sample, but also collectively for the 14 samples, especially in the genome-wide analysis. For instance, taken together, the data showed that the sampled Pompeiians have predominantly Eastern Mediterranean ancestry, consistent with other Imperial Roman individuals from central Italy and supporting the picture of Pompeii as a cosmopolitan population.

Ciao :-)
A.