Methodology

Popular interface, scholarly infrastructure

The public pages are written for readers without academic training. Behind them the project keeps a stricter discipline: what is known, from which source, for which period, in whose words, where interpretations differ, what is later tradition, and what was AI-assisted and who checked it.

Eight rules

1. Identities and boundaries of groups change. The project does not describe a single eternal people divided into tribes and clans on fixed territories.
2. Names depend on period, author and source. The same word could be a self-name, an outside name, an administrative unit, the population of a territory, a political union, a genealogical tradition, a scholarly classification or a modern form of self-identification.
3. ug, obog, omog, otog and the Russian «род» are not translated automatically as “clan”. Each term is explained in the context where it was used.
4. Kinds of evidence differ. Archaeological, written, administrative, oral, genealogical and scholarly evidence are different kinds of data and are labelled as such.
5. Later tradition is valued as historical memory. It does not automatically become a fact about antiquity.
6. Alternative interpretations are kept and attributed. Where researchers disagree, the disagreement is shown with names, not resolved by the editor.
7. AI helps search, compare and format. It is never a source. No substantive statement is published with AI as its authority.
8. Substantive corrections are documented. See the public log below.

How a statement is labelled

Two independent axes replace a single “confirmed / plausible” scale.

• Type of statement: directly attested · scholarly interpretation · later tradition · community knowledge · editorial synthesis.
• State of evidence: strongly supported · limited evidence · contested · approximate · unreviewed externally.

The chronology cites its scholarly sources by author, title and year; page locators are being added. Where the project’s own synthesis rests on the literature rather than restating a single author’s argument, it is labelled editorial synthesis. Internal review is a process, never a source.

Sensitive material

Sacred, ritual, family and personal material, and images of human remains and burial objects, follow separate rules before publication. A written policy is in preparation.

Corrections log

14 September 2026

• Home and navigation: “Language · Clans · History · Culture” replaced by “Language · Histories · Communities · Living heritage”; “One people, many regions” replaced by “Buryat worlds across borders”; “about the ethnos, not borders” removed; “apolitical” replaced by “independent and non-partisan”.
• Chronology: the statement “Buryat communities form from diverse clans”, dated before the 12th century, withdrawn as anachronistic; the internal label “Buryat history verification core” is no longer shown as a source; the “Confirmed / Plausible” scale replaced by type of statement and state of evidence.
• Chronology, later the same day: external sources from the project’s knowledge base attached to the three remaining statements (Billé, Delaplace & Humphrey eds. 2012; Sablin 2016; Rupen 1956; Chakars 2014; Graber 2020) with links to their catalog entries; labels updated from “unreviewed externally” to the evidence found. Page locators still to be added.
• Period 1 of the chronology renamed “Deep past of the Baikal region”; a note on kinds of evidence added. Its address is unchanged.
• Catalog section “Clans” renamed “Communities & genealogies”; addresses unchanged.
• This page published (version 1).
• Glossary opened at /terms/ with six terms (ug, obog, omog, otog, «род», clan) in expert review; no definitions published yet.
• “Who are the Buryats?” restructured: it now begins with people today, the map moved below the text with a caveat, and a block “Why do sources use different names?” added.

Found an error or a missing source? Write to us. The project’s principles are on the Principles page.