My analogy about temples, mosques, ancestral populations, or ancient territorial claims is different.

That concerns tracing ownership or occupation back through history, where there is often no principled endpoint because human settlement extends into prehistory. Citation chains, by contrast, have a defined scholarly purpose: tracing the evidence or argument supporting a particular claim until you reach the relevant primary sources or foundational scholarly works. Researchers stop when further tracing no longer adds evidential value for the claim they are investigating.