AI-generated conjecture · below the evidence/publication boundary

Hollow ways are slime mold

Status: Prior

Status is derived only from the shepherd-authored triage/prediction data above -- community submissions and claims are a separate overlay and can never change it (see the participation panel below).

This is a proposed connection between two domains, generated by a language model. It is not an article and not evidence: it sits below the evidence/publication boundary. A quantitative prediction and a named kill-dataset are attached (when registered) so the claim stays falsifiable rather than merely evocative.

Claim (verbatim)

Hollow ways are slime mold. Bronze Age route networks around Mesopotamian tells should match Physarum-style optimal transport given tell sizes as sources. Falsify: CORONA-imagery hollow-way maps vs simulation.

Kill-dataset (verbatim)

CORONA-imagery hollow-way maps vs simulation.

Provenance

Run: Imported conversation (verbatim harvest) · model: claude-fable-5

Origin: operator conversation with Claude Fable 5 at max effort, conducted 2026-07-03, relayed verbatim by the operator into the shepherd session on 2026-07-04. No ModelRun exists for the original generation (it happened outside the pipeline); this transcript file is the canonical capture. Transcript path: docs/generated/conjecture_harvest_fablemax_20260703.md. Model (operator-attested, not pipeline-recorded): claude-fable-5. Novelty disclaimer (verbatim, load-bearing -- rule 4): "Same caveat as before, doubled: at 100 items across all of archaeology and history, some of these will have cousins in the literature I can't check. What I can guarantee is the format — each links two things not normally linked, and each names the dataset or measurement that would kill it."

Novelty / leakage triage

Adjacent (closely related prior work exists)

The hollow-way corpus is mapped at scale (Ur's CORONA work, 6,000+ km) and quantitative network/scaling analyses of these route systems exist ('Urban and Transport Scaling: Northern Mesopotamia'). A Physarum-style optimal-transport comparison with tell sizes as sources was not located — but the data and network formalization groundwork is published, so this is a new test on an established quantified object, not a new join of unconnected fields.

Ur 2003, 'CORONA Satellite Photography and Ancient Road Networks', Antiquity 77 — The hollow-way corpus
'Urban and Transport Scaling: Northern Mesopotamia in the Late Chalcolithic and Bronze Age' — Network scaling on the same object

Predictions

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