PONE-D-19-20970

DENDROCHRONOLOGICAL EVIDENCE FOR LONG-DISTANCE TIMBER TRADING IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE

PLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Bernabei,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process.

==============================

All three reviewers think that the manuscript is interesting for publishing in PLOS ONE. However, they require minor revision before it can be accepted for publication.

In addition, please note that manuscripts reporting paleontology and archaeology research must adhere to the PLOS ONE policies described at http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-paleontology-and-archaeology-research. Specifically, appropriate specimen numbers should be provided, and the specimens should be publicly deposited or available for replication of the study.

==============================

We would appreciate receiving your revised manuscript by Sep 26 2019 11:59PM. When you are ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file.

If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter.

To enhance the reproducibility of your results, we recommend that if applicable you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io, where a protocol can be assigned its own identifier (DOI) such that it can be cited independently in the future. For instructions see: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols

Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript:

• A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the academic editor and reviewer(s). This letter should be uploaded as separate file and labeled 'Response to Reviewers'.
• A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. This file should be uploaded as separate file and labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'.
• An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. This file should be uploaded as separate file and labeled 'Manuscript'.

Please note while forming your response, if your article is accepted, you may have the opportunity to make the peer review history publicly available. The record will include editor decision letters (with reviews) and your responses to reviewer comments. If eligible, we will contact you to opt in or out.

We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Michal Bosela, Ph.D.

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Journal Requirements:

1. When submitting your revision, we need you to address these additional requirements.

Please ensure that your manuscript meets PLOS ONE's style requirements, including those for file naming. The PLOS ONE style templates can be found at

http://www.journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=wjVg/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_main_body.pdf and http://www.journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=ba62/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_title_authors_affiliations.pdf

2. Thank you for stating the following in the Acknowledgments Section of your manuscript:

WT received funding from the German Research Foundation (DFG, TE 613/3-2). UB received funding from the Czech Republic Grant Agency (17-22102s).

We note that you have provided funding information that is not currently declared in your Funding Statement. However, funding information should not appear in the Acknowledgments section or other areas of your manuscript. We will only publish funding information present in the Funding Statement section of the online submission form.

Please remove any funding-related text from the manuscript and let us know how you would like to update your Funding Statement. Currently, your Funding Statement reads as follows:

The author(s) received no specific funding for this work.

3. In your manuscript, please provide additional information regarding the specimens used in your study. Ensure that you have reported specimen numbers and complete repository information, including museum name and geographic location.

If permits were required, please ensure that you have provided details for all permits that were obtained, including the full name of the issuing authority, and add the following statement:

'All necessary permits were obtained for the described study, which complied with all relevant regulations.'

If no permits were required, please include the following statement:

'No permits were required for the described study, which complied with all relevant regulations.'

For more information on PLOS ONE's requirements for paleontology and archaeology research, see "" ext-link-type="uri" xlink:type="simple">https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-paleontology-and-archaeology-research.""

4. We note that Figure 1 in your submission contain [map/satellite] images which may be copyrighted. All PLOS content is published under the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which means that the manuscript, images, and Supporting Information files will be freely available online, and any third party is permitted to access, download, copy, distribute, and use these materials in any way, even commercially, with proper attribution. For these reasons, we cannot publish previously copyrighted maps or satellite images created using proprietary data, such as Google software (Google Maps, Street View, and Earth). For more information, see our copyright guidelines: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/licenses-and-copyright.

We require you to either (1) present written permission from the copyright holder to publish these figures specifically under the CC BY 4.0 license, or (2) remove the figures from your submission:

1. You may seek permission from the original copyright holder of Figure 1 to publish the content specifically under the CC BY 4.0 license. 

We recommend that you contact the original copyright holder with the Content Permission Form (http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=7c09/content-permission-form.pdf) and the following text:

“I request permission for the open-access journal PLOS ONE to publish XXX under the Creative Commons Attribution License (CCAL) CC BY 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Please be aware that this license allows unrestricted use and distribution, even commercially, by third parties. Please reply and provide explicit written permission to publish XXX under a CC BY license and complete the attached form.”

Please upload the completed Content Permission Form or other proof of granted permissions as an "Other" file with your submission.

In the figure caption of the copyrighted figure, please include the following text: “Reprinted from [ref] under a CC BY license, with permission from [name of publisher], original copyright [original copyright year].”

1. If you are unable to obtain permission from the original copyright holder to publish these figures under the CC BY 4.0 license or if the copyright holder’s requirements are incompatible with the CC BY 4.0 license, please either i) remove the figure or ii) supply a replacement figure that complies with the CC BY 4.0 license. Please check copyright information on all replacement figures and update the figure caption with source information. If applicable, please specify in the figure caption text when a figure is similar but not identical to the original image and is therefore for illustrative purposes only.

The following resources for replacing copyrighted map figures may be helpful:

USGS National Map Viewer (public domain): http://viewer.nationalmap.gov/viewer/

The Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth (public domain): http://eol.jsc.nasa.gov/sseop/clickmap/

Maps at the CIA (public domain): https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/index.html and https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/cia-maps-publications/index.html

NASA Earth Observatory (public domain): http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/

Landsat: http://landsat.visibleearth.nasa.gov/

USGS EROS (Earth Resources Observatory and Science (EROS) Center) (public domain): http://eros.usgs.gov/#

Natural Earth (public domain): http://www.naturalearthdata.com/

5. We note that you have stated that you will provide repository information for your data at acceptance. Should your manuscript be accepted for publication, we will hold it until you provide the relevant accession numbers or DOIs necessary to access your data. If you wish to make changes to your Data Availability statement, please describe these changes in your cover letter and we will update your Data Availability statement to reflect the information you provide.

Additional Editor Comments:

Please note that manuscripts reporting paleontology and archaeology research must adhere to the PLOS ONE policies described at http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-paleontology-and-archaeology-research. Specifically, appropriate specimen numbers should be provided, and the specimens should be publicly deposited or available for replication of the study.

[Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.]

Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Partly

Reviewer #3: Yes

**********

2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

**********

3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

**********

4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

**********

5. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: The study presents an original research on dendrochronology of oak from an ancient Roman construction recently excavated in Rome. To my knowledge this is the first successful dendrochronological dating of oak from the given period in Rome. In addition to dating of the construction, the investigation enabled to define the origin of wood and revealed information on wood transport in Roman time, which has not been reported in archived documents. The study presents an excellent collaboration between wood science (dendrochronology) and humanities (archaeology) and provides enrichment for both disciplines.

Specific comments:

Lines 54, 55: please give also scientific names of wood species ebony, cedar, box, terebinth, holm oak

Lines 81-86

You can also mention recent successful application of dendrochronology related to Roman period south of the Alps like

Cufar et al. 2014. Journal of Archaeological Science (Roman barge in the Ljublanica river…)

Cufar et al. 2019. Les / Wood (Research potential of wood of barrels from Roman water wells)

Figure 1. map on the Left and on the Right

On both maps please use larger font to mark an important location (e.g. San Giovanni in Laterano) in the current version of the maps the font is too small to read the inscriptions

Line147 …. Finally, a mean TRW sample chronology

Change to …. Finally, a mean TRW chronology…

Line 149 Each comparison is based on …

Change to …was based on…

Figure 5 – Can you add a scale bar (in kilometres)? Or somewhere in the text mention approximate distance between the area of timber source and Rome

Reviewer #2: I found this an interesting, informative paper that set the results in good context, allowing the reader to understand the importance of the findings to wider fields of study. It is well written. I have a minor problem with the specificity of the conclusion that trees were felled between 40 and 53 CE - which, unless I am missing something, is not fully supported by the evidence in Table 2. If one takes the quoted sapwood range of 10-30, then C1 could go to 55CE, C17 to 58CE and C37 to 54CE, and given that sapwood estimates vary a little geographically, I think it unwise to stick rigidly to 53CE as the end point - would it not be safer to say 60CE, but then comment about any justification you may have for trimming that outer point?

line 89 - the ref to Corona 1974 does not fit comfortably in the sentence as it stands, needs a little editing so that it is clear just what is meant - presumably Corona - in a rather old reference now, states how difficult results are to obtain in Rome? Suggest this is re-worded.

line 160 Cerris? are you talking Q cerris? Unclear.

Fig 4 - presumably all DATED individual Roman oak series?

Throughout - use decimal point in t values, 6.57 not 6,57 (inconsistent at present)

The following references are used in the text but do not appear in the References list:

Janssen et al 2017

Eackstein and Bauch 1969

Momigliano and Schiavona 1988

Rea 2001

Reviewer #3: Highly interesting paper - the first scientific evidence of Roman timber trade from north-eastern France to Rome and solid confirmation of Roman long-distance timber trade. This is a confirmation of high level of wood technology and wood-working skills of the Romans, and their enormous organizational level. A few of my suggestions of minor improvements concern the introductory part:

- page 3, line 71: reference to Buengten et al. 2018 is not the happiest in this context. There were numerous scholars before, who stressed annual precision of dendrochronological dating - Douglass, Huber, Becker, Eckstein, etc.;

- page 4, line 84: Guibal focused his research on shipwrecks found south of the Alps;

- page 4, lines 88-89: Corona's investigation published in 1974 was not very successful, and had nothing to do with this study.

In general I would like to suggest to be more careful with references, and to reduce their number. Not every sentence must be supported by references.

**********

6. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy.

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

Reviewer #3: No

[NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files to be viewed.]

While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email us at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step.

DENDROCHRONOLOGICAL EVIDENCE FOR LONG-DISTANCE TIMBER TRADING IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE

PONE-D-19-20970R1

Dear Dr. Bernabei,

We are pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it complies with all outstanding technical requirements.

Within one week, you will receive an e-mail containing information on the amendments required prior to publication. When all required modifications have been addressed, you will receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will proceed to our production department and be scheduled for publication.

Shortly after the formal acceptance letter is sent, an invoice for payment will follow. To ensure an efficient production and billing process, please log into Editorial Manager at https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/, click the "Update My Information" link at the top of the page, and update your user information. If you have any billing related questions, please contact our Author Billing department directly at authorbilling@plos.org.

If your institution or institutions have a press office, please notify them about your upcoming paper to enable them to help maximize its impact. If they will be preparing press materials for this manuscript, you must inform our press team as soon as possible and no later than 48 hours after receiving the formal acceptance. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information, please contact onepress@plos.org.

With kind regards,

Michal Bosela, Ph.D.

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Reviewers' comments: