As a meta-result, we found that a single run of the algorithm (on reshuffling with a single sequence, for a given similarity matrix, step c in SI Fig. ) results in reductions of usually > 50% in the number of families, SI Fig. : Historical convergence of the periodic system. Each value quantifies the similarity between the periodic system of year i (column) regarding that of year j (row) (z(i → j), Methods 6.5). Any value above a threshold of 0.88 is shown in red to highlight the strong similarity between periodic systems of consecutive years, showing the continuity in the evolution of the periodic system.