Relational Provenance Reconstruction with Knowledge Graphs and Neural Networks
The University of Freiburg is developing methods of relational provenance reconstruction for cases in which archives are fragmented, destroyed or structurally incomplete. Provenance is understood as the reconstruction of relationships between people, places, events, documents, acquisition networks, contexts of violence, oral traditions, communal knowledge and histories of loss.
The research proceeds from two directions. From the archive, it connects surviving fragments, historical publications, inscriptions, colonial records, places, persons, events, institutions and documented contexts of violence. From communities and states of origin, it engages with oral traditions, communal knowledge, genealogical memory, place-based histories and histories of loss. Where these forms of knowledge meet, provenance hypotheses may emerge.
Neural networks and large language models support the evaluation of large and heterogeneous source collections. They can help identify references, patterns of colonial appropriation, connections between previously unlinked sources and systematic gaps in the transmission. The systems do not assign identities, origins or provenances. They generate possible connections that may inform provenance hypotheses. Every machine-supported hypothesis remains marked as a hypothesis and is subject to scholarly and ethical review.
The digital research environment is being developed in close connection with the Digital Humanities Lab of the University of Freiburg. The Lab provides an important institutional framework for digital methods, data modelling and the sustainable processing of historical research data.
A central aim is to model non-sensitive research results, provenance hypotheses, source references and degrees of evidence in such a way that they become compatible with national documentation infrastructures. PROVEANA, the research database of the German Lost Art Foundation, is an important point of reference.
The project prepares non-sensitive results so that they can prospectively connect to the ontological frameworks and documentation standards of PROVEANA. Freiburg’s research is intended to contribute not only to the reappraisal of university responsibility, but also to broader national and international infrastructures of provenance research.
Provenance research on people removed from colonial contexts of violence cannot be conducted from European archives alone. Wherever possible and authorized, the University of Freiburg therefore works with communities of origin, repatriation programmes, researchers and responsible institutions to centre histories of loss, communal memory and the perspectives of the affected societies.
This cooperation is guided by respect for different forms of historical knowledge and by the CARE Principles for Indigenous Data Governance, which emphasize collective benefit, authority to control, responsibility and ethics in the handling of Indigenous data and knowledge. Community-based knowledge is not treated as freely available research data and is not transferred into a university database without agreement. Questions of access, documentation, data sovereignty and publication are clarified with the respective partners.
Colonial records and communal knowledge are not treated as equivalent data sources, but as historically and ethically different forms of evidence that must be handled with care. Where traditions, memories or sensitive information are shared, their epistemic authority remains with the respective communities.
The people in university custody are kept in protected conditions and are not publicly displayed. The University does not use images of the deceased for public communication unless consent from the relevant communities of origin has been obtained.
This decision is ethically and methodologically grounded. Public display without consent would repeat the historical objectification that this research seeks to counteract.
Biographical Database and Archive Access
The following database is part of an ongoing transition. Earlier entries were created in archival and collection systems that documented the people in university custody as objects of an anatomical-anthropological collection. The University of Freiburg has begun to detach this responsibility holding from the object-centred archival logic and to transfer it into a biographical and relational form of documentation.
The aim is to describe these people not as collection objects, but to reconstruct their origins, relationships, contexts of violence and individual biographies as far as possible.
Because many historical entries are fragmentary, uncertain or shaped by colonial and racialising scientific practices, older terms, attributions or categories may still appear in the database as source or legacy data. These terms do not correspond to the present language and position of the University of Freiburg. They remain visible only where necessary for critical documentation, provenance research and the preparation of further repatriations.
Team
Prof. Dr. Sylvia Paletschek
Rector for University Culture
University of Freiburg / Rectorate
Phone: +49 761 203 4322
E-mail: prorektorinunikultur@zv.uni-freiburg.de
Dr. Christoph Balzar
Project Lead
Provenance Research on Colonial Scientific Collections
University of Freiburg / Rectorate
Albertstraße 23
79104 Freiburg, Germany
Phone: +49 761 203 96884
E-mail: christoph.balzar@zv.uni-freiburg.de
Dr. Dieter Speck
Research Associate
Provenance Research on Colonial Scientific Collections
University of Freiburg / Rectorate
Albertstraße 23
79104 Freiburg, Germany
E-mail: dieter.speck@zv.uni-freiburg.de
Abdullah Rahhal, M.A.
Research Associate
Provenance Research on Colonial Scientific Collections
University of Freiburg / Rectorate
Albertstraße 23
79104 Freiburg, Germany
E-mail: abdullah.rahhal@email.uni-freiburg.de
