PONE-D-20-41004

Temporal, Spatial, and Gender-based Dietary Differences in Middle Period San Pedro de Atacama, Chile: A Model-based Approach.

PLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Pestle,

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.

The manuscript of Pestle and co-authors analyzed a rather large sample of human skeletal remains from the broad Middle Period (AD 500-1000) of the San Pedro de Atacama (Chile) oases. The main focus of the paper is to sort out a possible signal of social inequality through the changes in diet (access to food resources) across space, time and gender.

The two reviewers are positive about this manuscript and I share most of their opinion. Nevertheless, there are some important points, raised by the reviewers and by myself, to be clarified and the manuscript should be changed accordingly, before acceptance.

1. the manuscript is not formatted according to Plos One instructions, nor the text nor the reference section. Please, follow in detail the Plos One guidelines for authors.

2. There is a substantial lack of information about the archaeology of the graveyards. From which kind of funerary assemblages is the skeletal record coming from? What about the representativeness, in term of demographic profiles, of the single necropoles. Is the skeletal record a reasonable proxy of the ayllus society? Are the skeletal samples from single ayllus comparable? We perfectly know how the Osteological Paradox and the always non-random selection of the funerary record limit our biocultural reconstructions. The authors have to supply a concise but exhaustive description of the funerary contexts and if it is homogeneous through time and space. A better description of the "incredibly well preserved and contextualized human skeletons" should be made available for the reader.

3.Similarly,  the bioarchaeological record is not enough reported, and few lines of the basic methods used for sex and age at death determination should be provided. Are all the individuals fully adult ones? so subadults? If " we recently completed intensive bioarchaeological and biogeochemical analysis of a large set (over 600 individuals) of incredibly well preserved and contextualized human skeletons from the Middle Period of the San Pedro oases" what was the criterion used to select the 288 individuals?

4. The authors use the MDS for some data analysis, please specify more in detail which flavour and the R packege used.

5. " while inequality of some sort is inherent in all human societies", page 2, is a too deterministic and maybe not necessary sentence

6. page 32 " A sufficient number of sexed individuals were available from only four ayllus: Coyo, Larache, Quitor, and Solcor." then in page 32 "The final iteration of this sex-based analysis combined ayllu and sex, forming twelve groups..", then in figure 16 5 male groups and 6 female, same in figure 17. According to Table 1 the sexed individuals are

         

Conde Duque

         

7

             

Coyo

         

74

             

Larache

         

18

             

Quitor

         

31

             

Solcor

         

54

             

Tchecar

         

15

      

18 individuals from Larache aren’t much more than the 15 in Tchear. I suggest to fix this point and to use (if possible) all the subsample or to better justify the exclusions.

Finally, a table in the text summarizing the number of individuals by sex and age at death for the six sub-samples could  be useful.

Please submit your revised manuscript by Mar 25 2021 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. When you're 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.

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We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Luca Bondioli, M.D.

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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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: Yes

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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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

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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

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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: Very well-written and analyzed paper with a lot of information packed into a small space. Great sample size and background. Very nice introduction and convincing narrative.

Here are the few questions that arose as I read through it:

1. The paper explores the existence of inequalities in San Pedro de Atacama during the Middle Period. Are scholars directly addressing this question by using other bioarchaeological methods?

2. Three main potential vectors of difference (time, context and sex) are explored. Why age is not explored as a potential vector of difference?

3. Model-based paleodietary reconstruction is an interesting approach, and can help address differences among and within populations. However, many archaeologists may be unaware of the complexities and pitfalls of stable isotope mixing models. I do not think it is outside of the scope of this research to briefly discuss the idea that mixing models in paleodietary reconstructions can hardly provide an exact calculation of food group contributions, despite their potential to provide new lines of enquiry.

Reviewer #2: This is an excellent study that expands significantly beyond the approach usually used in archaeology by using a large data set and by applying statistical analysis to the results. My main concern with this paper is that there is almost no mention of where the skeletal and dental material comes from. If these samples are from archaeological sites, please provide some information about them. It is also unclear how the samples have been classified into ayllu.

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: Yes: Ian Moffat

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Temporal, Spatial, and Gender-based Dietary Differences in Middle Period San Pedro de Atacama, Chile: A Model-based Approach.

PONE-D-20-41004R1

Dear Dr. Pestle,

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

Within one week, you’ll receive an e-mail detailing the required amendments. When these have been addressed, you’ll receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will be scheduled for publication.

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Kind regards,

Luca Bondioli, M.D.

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation.

Reviewer #1: All comments have been addressed

Reviewer #2: All comments have been addressed

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2. 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: Yes

**********

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

4. 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

**********

5. 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

**********

6. 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 authors have well addressed my concerns and I think the manuscript is acceptable for publication

Reviewer #2: (No Response)

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7. 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: Yes: Ian Moffat