PONE-D-19-27803

Shelter in Smoleń III – a unique example of stratified Holocene clastic cave sediments in Central Europe, a lithostratigraphic stratotype and a record of regional paleoecology

PLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Krajcarz,

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.

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While reviewer 1 entered a 'reject' recommendation, this was only because they felt unqualified to examine the bulk of your manuscript. However, they found your study well-written and thorough, an assessment backed up by Reviewer 2's more extensive analysis. Nevertheless, both reviewers indicated that your manuscript lacked some important contextual information that would make it more relevant to general readers. In particular, mention is made of the importance of this site for archaeological and palaeoenvironmental research, but these areas are only minimally addressed in the discussion. They should be more thoroughly introduced at the beginning, with an effort made in the conclusions to tie the major findings of this research within this context. 

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Reviewers' comments:

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Reviewer #1: Partly

Reviewer #2: Yes

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

Reviewer #1: I Don't Know

Reviewer #2: Yes

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Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: No

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5. Review Comments to the Author

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Reviewer #1: The site seems to be an important one for the thickness of its Late Quaternary deposits, quality and diversity of environmental proxy data, large number of good C14 and other radiometric dates, etc. It is well written (with only minor errors of colloquial English), excellently illustrated and quite adequately supported. But, as an archeologist of the Pleistocene and earliest Holocene, I was disappointed at the virtual absence of archeological (cultural) information or analysis. Nor am I a Central European prehistory specialist. So I am not an appropriate reviewer. My choice by PLOS-1 was not correct.

However, I cannot help but notice that this ms. is quite narrowly descriptive; neither the statement of purpose nor the conclusions really tell the reader why this site is important in the overall context of southern Poland or Central Europe generally. What does the site tell us about human activity, adaptations or behavior (especially in a broader context). I imagine that anthropological interpretation was not the authors' goal, but it is a shame that such an interesting site is not more generally contextualized in terms of humans and their cultures in this region throughout the course of the early Holocene. The Editors should seek appropriate reviewers who are relevant natural scientists.

Reviewer #2: The manuscript entitled Shelter in Smoleń III – a unique example of stratified Holocene clastic cave sediments in Central Europe, a lithostratigraphic stratotype and a record of regional paleoecology, deals with the stratigraphy of the archeologically valuable rock shelter. Sediment deposits have been analyzed in detail (morphological classification of limestone clasts, chemical composition...). 29 radiocarbon dating of faunal and human remains and charcoals cover the interval from 14.1 to 0.6 ky BP. Taxonomic composition of fossil faunal assemblages was used to obtain insight to the reconstruction of local paleoenvironment.

I would like to compliment the authors for their great effort collecting and analyzing such an important amount of data and effectuating a valuable multidisciplinary research. In cave entrances and especially in rock shelters, where sedimentation rates are high and artifact preservation can be remarkable, many aspects and processes must be considered, and the authors managed that requests very well.

The title is appropriate for the content of the text; hence the abstract could give more insight to the findings. Furthermore, the article is well constructed, the sampling and pitting were properly conducted, and analyses used are appropriate and well performed. Methodology and results are well described and accounts for large part of the manuscript. However, there are several issues that should be considered before publishing.

- The manuscript is clearly written. Still, several sentences are confusing in structure or word use. I suggested some changes but it would be good to edited the text by a native English speaker.

- Introduction should give better overview on the topic and the current state of the art in the field.

- The results are described in detail and are well interpreted, but a bit hard to follow.

- Discussion is structured in several sections, it is well explained but there is a clear need of more synthetic interpretations. All sections could be better linked together through time, discussed climatic events, paleo environmental changes and anthropogenic activities.

- Some statements should be more clearly explained and supported by references (for details please see the manuscript)

- I suggest moving the fig. 12 from Conclusion to Discussion, even to separate (sub)section which could be built around it.

- The manuscript would benefit putting the findings in broader context – regional settings (Central Europe, differences and similarities) with previous research.

- If the authors accept this suggestions Conclusion than could be restructured, giving more value to the authors results.

Overall, the research itself brings new paleoenvironmental data from a complex climate region, such as Central Europe, and contributes to better understanding of local climate dynamics and anthropogenic activities during the Holocene. However, more synthetic views would substantially increase the value of the presented results and consequently manuscript.

Additional comments can be found in the manuscript.

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

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Submitted filename: PONE-D-19-27803_reviewer_NL_fin.pdf

Shelter in Smoleń III – a unique example of stratified Holocene clastic cave sediments in Central Europe, a lithostratigraphic stratotype and a record of regional paleoecology

PONE-D-19-27803R1

Dear Dr. Krajcarz,

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.

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With kind regards,

Julien Louys

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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