Affiliations: [a] Institute of Philosophy, John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin, Lublin, Poland. E-mail: garbacz@kul.pl | [b] Institute of History, John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin, Lublin, Poland. E-mail: szady@kul.lublin.pl | [c] Tadeusz Manteuffel Institute of History, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw, Poland | [d] Faculty of Computing and Telecommunications, Poznan University of Technology, Poznan, Poland. E-mail: agnieszka.lawrynowicz@cs.put.poznan.pl
Note: [1] This paper is an extended version of the work by Garbacz et al. (2018).
Note: [**] All research related to this paper was performed while the author was employed at the Tadeusz Manteuffel Institute of History, Polish Academy of Sciences.
Note: [] Accepted by: Stefano Borgo
Abstract: The paper discusses the problem of diachronic criteria of identity for historic localities. We argue that such criteria are needed not just for the sake of ontological clarity but also are indispensable for database management and maintenance. Our survey of the current research in database management and engineering ontology literature found no satisfactory candidates thereof. Therefore we attempt to search for such criteria in the historic-geographical scholarship by exposing the ontological assumptions the researchers made there and by stating them explicitly. This attempt consisted of us presenting a number of brief scenarios taken from the historical studies whereby localities are claimed to maintain their identity through certain types of change or to be destroyed due to other types of change. Generalising these cases we provide a tentative formulation of the criterion and discuss its limitations.
Keywords: hgis system, locality, identity over time, digital humanities
