Age and origin of a Cahokian wooden monument at the Mitchell site, Illinois, USA

Nicholas V. Kessler; Erin M. Benson; Timothy R. Pauketat; Jason D. Kirk; Matthew D. Therrell

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0333783

Peer Review History

Original SubmissionMarch 3, 2025
6 Jul 2025 Decision Letter - Peter Biehl, Editor PONE-D-25-11477Age and origin of a Cahokian Wooden Monument at the Mitchell Site, Illinois, USAPLOS ONE Dear Dr. Kessler, 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. ==============================Please address the reviewer's comment before re-submission. ============================== Please submit your revised manuscript by Aug 20 2025 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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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 ******** 2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: 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 ****** 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 ****** 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: Pros: The authors do an excellent job of contextualizing the study providing clarity for non-archaeological reader. The methodological approaches and analyses are presented in detail and conform to generally accepted procedures. The conclusions as to the chronological dates for the log’s growth and cutting are securely established and generally supported by earlier research on the post’s chronological context and confirm the cultural context. The Sr analyses are well conceived and support the conclusion that the post was obtained from a distant location to the south and justifies the interpretation that the inhabitants were engaged in the long-distance transport of such items. Cons: The interpretation of the timing and significance of the post is problematic. While the research confirms the dating of the post’s cutting, it does not relate to the post’s attempted extraction. Whether it relates to the cultural events of the site’s decline is at present hypothetical. The post’s historical significance as a key interpretive event is further diminished by the authors’ account that hundreds of such posts likely dotted this landscape. ****** 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 ******** [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". 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Revision 1
15 Sep 2025 Author Response We thank the editor and anonymous reviewer for their comments and suggestions. The critical point highlighted by the reviewer is an issue that the authors have considered carefully; prior to, during, and after writing. It is our view that a discussion of post extraction should remain in the article because it is of critical to contextualizing the historical importance of the post-pit phenomenon in the past. We have, in response to the concerns of the reviewer, revised our discussion of the timing of post extraction to emphasize that (1) we are not predicting an extraction date with the same resolution as our observed cutting date and that (2) the proposed timing of extraction is supported by independent information from other archaeological contexts and informs archaeological models for the process of the dissolution of the Cahokia phenomenon. To address concerns about the hypothetical relationship between the proposed date of the poles extraction and its observed cutting date, we expand the explanation of the logic of our inferred indirect date for the pole extraction – that is based on the fact that when it was extracted the pole must have been weakened by rot at the ground surface sufficiently to break as it did. We re-phrase our discussion of this to clarify that this is an inference based on contextual clues from surrounding archaeological features and is copiously supported by references cited in the text. While not a formal hypothesis or model, this inference can be refuted with further research and is valid in the context of the discussion of the results. Importantly, we acknowledge the potential error inherent in such a claim and do not attempt to extend the precision of the pole’s cutting date to the inferred extraction date. We also address the argument that the large number of marker posts on the ancient Cahokian landscape diminish the value of the post under study by clarifying in the introduction that the importance of dating marker posts is to gain a better understanding of the dissolution of Cahokian urbanism (a phenomenon of world historical importance) through charting the tempo of ritual marker pole emplacement. While we cannot do that with our sample of one, the paper’s contribution is that it clearly shows how this research could be accomplished technically. Furthermore, we emphasize that this is the first such marker pole, and a major and prominent one at that, to ever be directly dated at high-precision and sourced chemically. Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Response to Reviewers.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0333783.r002
19 Sep 2025 Decision Letter - Peter Biehl, Editor Age and origin of a Cahokian Wooden Monument at the Mitchell Site, Illinois, USA PONE-D-25-11477R1 Dear Dr. Kessler, 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. An invoice will be generated when your article is formally accepted. Please note, if your institution has a publishing partnership with PLOS and your article meets the relevant criteria, all or part of your publication costs will be covered. Please make sure your user information is up-to-date by logging into Editorial Manager at Editorial Manager® and clicking the ‘Update My Information' link at the top of the page. For questions related to billing, please contact billing support . If your institution or institutions have a press office, please notify them about your upcoming paper to help maximize its impact. If they’ll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team as soon as possible -- 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. Kind regards, Peter F. Biehl, PhD Academic Editor PLOS ONE Additional Editor Comments (optional): Reviewer #1: 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 ******** 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 ****** 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: In the enhanced revised manuscript the authors have presented a clarified and well-reasoned contribution to the chronological and social history of Cahokia. It will be a contribution to regional history and more broadly to the development of urbanism in Native North America. ****** 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 ******** https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0333783.r003
Formally Accepted
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