PONE-D-24-04698Deep time population expansions and recessions in Central West ArgentinaPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Freeman,

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PLOS ONE

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Additional Editor Comments:

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Please respond to Reviewer 1's concerns with the methodology and clarity of the manuscript. Additionally, please upload code that works, this is essential for reproducibility.

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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: Partly

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: No

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: In this article, the authors present an analysis of summed probability distributions of radiocarbon dates from Central Western Argentina (CWA) to demonstrate multiple population expansions and regressions during the Holocene in this region. These demographic changes are then interpreted in the context of the Ideal Specialization Model to argue for successive population expansions that are associated with multiple innovations in food production instead of a single agricultural demographic transition.

While this paper does attempt to make good use of available data to answer questions about demographic trends in the Holocene record of CWA, there are major issues with this paper including: 1) lack of taphonomic correction for radiocarbon dates and 2) lack of concrete archaeological data for contextualizing the authors' claims. For these reasons, I would suggest major revisions for this article.

Please find my full comments in the attached Word document.

Reviewer #2: While I am not familiar with the simulation models the authors use, I am aware of the data on which they are based and their previous publications in which they have been discussed. Therefore I consider that this work fits perfectly with the Plos One criteria.

The manuscript seems to me to be an excellent contribution to the understanding of the topic discussed about the population pulses in different sectors of the Central West of Argentina, in relation to the total or partial adoption of corn within their diet.

My only objection is that there is a need to delve into socio-political aspects related to the interaction between different populations of the macro region of study that may have influenced changes in the subsistence patterns analyzed.

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: Yes: Mónica Alejandra Berón

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Attachments

Attachment

Submitted filename: PONE-D-24-04698_review..docx

PONE-D-24-04698R1A model of long-term population growth with an application to Central West ArgentinaPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Freeman,

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.

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

Hi, please see minor revisions requested by the reviewer, which seem very reasonable to me.

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

Please submit your revised manuscript by Aug 16 2024 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.

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). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'.
• A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'.
• An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Manuscript'.

If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter. Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter.

If applicable, we recommend that you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io to enhance the reproducibility of your results. Protocols.io assigns your protocol its own identifier (DOI) so that it can be cited independently in the future. For instructions see: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols. Additionally, PLOS ONE offers an option for publishing peer-reviewed Lab Protocol articles, which describe protocols hosted on protocols.io. Read more information on sharing protocols at https://plos.org/protocols?utm_medium=editorial-email&utm_source=authorletters&utm_campaign=protocols.

We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Radu Iovita

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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Please review your reference list to ensure that it is complete and correct. If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references. Any changes to the reference list should be mentioned in the rebuttal letter that accompanies your revised manuscript. If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice.

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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: (No Response)

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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

**********

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

Reviewer #1: 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

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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

**********

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 updated version of this paper is much improved. Specifically, I greatly appreciate that the authors took the time to test the effects of taphonomic corrections on their radiocarbon dates and to explain their reasons for using uncorrected curves. This decision is now much better justified. I also appreciate the updates to the code and that the authors now provide all data necessary to successfully run the scripts. Furthermore, the inclusion of more contextualizing information about the archaeology of the CWA and the reorganization of how this case study is presented makes it easier to follow the logical flow of the paper. The new Figure 5 is a great addition to this paper; it helps tie together the description of the ISM and the archaeology. Ultimately, I think there are just a few additional minor revisions the authors could make to their “Model dynamics” section to improve its comprehensibility and and to support the conclusions of this paper even better.

1) In Figure 1, the numbered curves are confusing because they seem to suggest 4 infrastructure systems despite the authors saying they assume a ceiling of A2. Does the occurrence of an innovation necessarily push a population into a new infrastructure system or does the model allow for multiple innovations to occur in A1 and A2?

2) It is only in the caption of Figure 2 that it is explained that A = A2 – A1. This should be moved to the main text (perhaps on line 248) to make it clearer that A = 3 does not mean A3 exists.

3) It is extremely difficult to see the black curve in Figure 3 with the overlaid green and red lines. This makes it very hard for the reader to comprehend the effects of climate variability to keep the population from reaching equilibrium or to force oscillation between infrastructure systems (i.e. the patterns that authors describe in lines 293-295). Is there a better way to visualize this, especially since the green curve is not meant to be a central tendency of the black curve but a separate pattern altogether?

Minor comments:

There is a spelling error in Figure 1 – should be “population density”

In figure 1 caption, should “s” be capitalized to match S in the previous equations?

In figure 3b, is it possible to color the lines to match the green used in figure 3a that is showing what will occur without climate variability?

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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

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[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.]

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 PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step.

A model of long-term population growth with an application to Central West Argentina

PONE-D-24-04698R2

Dear Dr. Freeman,

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.

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Kind regards,

Radu Iovita

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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