---
slug: formation_time_provenance_marker
name: Formation-Time Provenance Marker
one_liner: "A parcel acquires at its point of formation a conservative intrinsic property that a downstream observer can read back to infer origin, requiring no unbroken chain of custody."
type: prime
schema_version: 2
status: density_v2_draft
categories: [structural, physical, epistemic]
origin_domain: geochemistry_and_forensics
alternate_origin_domains: [oceanography, materials_science, information_theory]
aliases: [intrinsic_origin_signature, custody_free_provenance, conserved_birthmark, formation_fingerprint, self_authenticating_origin]
related: []
solution_archetypes: []
review_flags:
- "OPERATOR-DERIVED (op-05 generalization) — the proposed GENUS of `signature_borne_provenance` (lift: strip the 'transported parcel of stuff' framing and keep only the general fact that a conservative property fixed at formation lets origin be inferred without a custody chain). Discovered in the op-05 remaining-strata sweep 2026-07-03. Tier B (B-rest) candidate. Domain-spread flag: siblings claimed span geochronology (isotopic dating), forensics (ballistic markings), and stylometry (authorship attribution) — three genuinely unlike inference settings. Distinctness flag: proposed distinct from a general `provenance`/`traceability` prime (which relies on an EXTERNAL custody record; this genus relies on an INTRINSIC conserved property). STATUS: HOLD pending owner keep/cut."
- "Created 2026-07-03; STUB ONLY (frontmatter + Core Idea + Notes). SI/SF/similarity are PROPOSER ESTIMATES pending triangulation. Body sections (Structural Signature onward) NOT written."
- "Phase-C action: re-similarity-check vs `signature_borne_provenance` (the input) and any `provenance` / `traceability` / `watermark` / conserved-quantity prime; confirm it is a genuine genus (covers the input AND the isotopic/ballistic/stylometric siblings) and not a restatement of the input, nor an alias of a provenance prime; draw a subsumption edge input→candidate + sibling edges at incorporation; sync one_liner to a v1 draft per CLAUDE.md before merge."
substrate_independence:
  composite_substrate_independence: 4
  domain_breadth: 4
  structural_abstraction: 4
  transfer_evidence: 4
  reasoning: 'The bare structure — origin is recoverable from the object itself, because at formation the object acquired a property that (a) is diagnostic of that origin and (b) is conserved under subsequent transport/handling, so a downstream reading of the property re-identifies the source without any external record of the path taken — is a clean, medium-neutral inference form. It recurs across physical samples (isotopes, defects), artifacts (tool-marks), and even symbolic/behavioral objects (writing style, code style), which is genuine breadth. The pattern carries little evaluative or institutional content: it is a property of information-preservation under transport, so structural abstraction and transfer are high. Composite 4: a strongly substrate-independent structure, well above its "parcel of stuff" input — the lift materially raised substrate-independence, as generalization lifts tend to.'
similarity_to_nearest_existing_prime:
  slug: signature_borne_provenance
  similarity: 0.7
structural_framed:
  label: structural
  aggregate: 0.28
  criteria: {vocab_travels: 0.15, evaluative_weight: 0.15, institutional_origin: 0.35, human_practice_bound: 0.35, import_vs_recognize: 0.3}
  rationale: 'The pattern is an information-preservation-and-inference structure: a conservative property set at formation carries origin through transport and is read back later. It carries almost no evaluative content, its vocabulary (conserved property, formation, origin inference) travels freely, and it is recognized as a bare structure rather than imported as a doctrine. It has forensic and geochemical instances with some practice-boundedness, but the core is medium-neutral. Reads clearly structural.'
phase_b_passes_completed: []
---
# Formation-Time Provenance Marker

## Core Idea

The genus is this bare structure: an object's origin can be inferred *from the object itself*, because at its point of formation the object acquired a property that is (i) diagnostic of that origin and (ii) *conservative* — preserved, at least approximately, under everything that happens to the object afterward. A downstream observer who can read the property, and who knows the map from origins to properties, can recover the origin without possessing any record of the object's journey. The single constraint stripped from the input `signature_borne_provenance` is the *material framing*: the input speaks of "a parcel of stuff" — a water mass, an air mass, a contaminant batch, a manufactured component — carrying a physico-chemical signature, whereas the genus keeps only the abstract requirement of a conserved, formation-set, origin-diagnostic property, whatever its medium.

The load-bearing anatomy has three parts. First, *formation imprinting*: at the moment of origin, conditions stamp the object with a property whose value is a function of the origin. Second, *conservation under transport*: that property must survive the object's subsequent history well enough to remain readable — it is the conservation that makes the marker useful, because a property that decays or is overwritten en route carries no reliable origin information. Third, *inverse inference*: a reader with the origin→property map inverts it, reading the property to name the origin. The characteristic payoff is *custody-free attribution* — you can establish where something came from with no witnessed, unbroken chain of handling, which is decisive precisely when no such chain exists (an anonymous artifact, an untracked natural flow, a sample of unknown history). The characteristic cost/failure modes are the mirror of the conservation requirement: if the property is *not* actually conserved (it drifts, ages, or is contaminated), the inference silently misattributes; and if the origin→property map is many-to-one (different origins imprint the same marker), origins become indistinguishable.

Walk the claimed siblings and the lift shows across structurally-unlike inference settings. *Isotopic dating* reads the isotopic ratios a rock acquired at crystallization — set at formation, conserved (decay is a clock, not an erasure of origin), and inverted to name the formation era, with no custody record of the rock. *Forensic ballistics* reads the striations a barrel impressed on a bullet at firing — imprinted at the object's formative event, conserved on the spent round, inverted to name the barrel. *Stylometry* reads the statistical fingerprints of an author's style embedded in an anonymous manuscript — imprinted at composition, conserved in the text, inverted to attribute authorship. Geochronology, forensics, and authorship attribution are three unlike domains; each infers origin from an intrinsic, formation-set, conserved property rather than from a tracked path.

## Notes

**Provenance.** Produced by operator 05 (generalization / lift) as the proposed GENUS of the input prime `signature_borne_provenance`, by stripping the "transported parcel of physical stuff" framing and keeping only the intrinsic-conserved-property-enables-origin-inference structure. Surfaced in the op-05 remaining-strata sweep on 2026-07-03, listed as a Tier-B (B-rest) candidate in `manifest_op05_rest.yaml`. It claimed three siblings — isotopic dating, ballistic markings, and stylistic authorship attribution — spanning geochronology, forensics, and stylometry.

**For owner evaluation (keep/cut).** The case FOR: the input is already fairly abstract, but it is anchored to physical "parcels of stuff"; the lift generalizes it to *any* object with a conserved formation-set marker, which cleanly pulls in symbolic/behavioral instances (style, code) that the input's material framing excluded, and it sharpens the contrast with ordinary provenance: this genus is precisely the *custody-free* mode of origin inference, resting on an intrinsic conserved property rather than an external handling record. Substrate-independence is genuinely high. The specific RISKS: (1) **High similarity to the input (~0.7)** — this is the strongest cut signal. The input already reads as a general structural pattern; the lift may be a *restatement* that merely swaps "stuff" for "object" without adding a new species the input didn't already cover. Kurt should judge whether the stylometry/behavioral sibling is genuinely NEW coverage or was implicitly inside the input. (2) **Alias risk vs a `provenance`/`traceability` prime** — if the corpus holds a general provenance prime, the boundary must be drawn deliberately: this genus is the *intrinsic/custody-free* branch, its complement being the *extrinsic/custody-chain* branch; if no such split exists, this could be one pole of a provenance prime rather than a standalone. (3) **Tier-B coinage** — "formation-time provenance marker" is a bespoke label; the underlying idea is real (it is what dating and forensics rely on) but is not a single named tradition. **Sharp keep/cut question for Kurt: given ~0.7 similarity to the input, does this lift add a genuinely new species (custody-free symbolic markers) that the input `signature_borne_provenance` does not already carry — or is it a restatement that should simply merge into the input?**

**At incorporation.** Re-run similarity against the input `signature_borne_provenance` FIRST (the 0.7 estimate makes restatement the live risk) and against any `provenance` / `traceability` / `watermark` / conserved-quantity prime. If it survives as distinct, draw a subsumption edge `signature_borne_provenance → formation_time_provenance_marker` and sibling edges across the isotopic/ballistic/stylometric instances; if a general provenance prime exists, add a missing-edge note positioning this as its intrinsic/custody-free branch. If it fails the restatement test, recommend merging up into the input rather than keeping both. Write a v1 draft and sync the one_liner across v1 and v2 per CLAUDE.md before merge.
