Preservation of microscopic fur, feather, and bast fibers in the Mesolithic ochre grave of Majoonsuo, Eastern Finland

Tuija Kirkinen; Olalla López-Costas; Antonio Martínez Cortizas; Sanna P. Sihvo; Hanna Ruhanen; Reijo Käkelä; Jan-Erik Nyman; Esa Mikkola; Janne Rantanen; Esa Hertell; Marja Ahola; Johanna Roiha; Kristiina Mannermaa

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0274849

Peer Review History

Original SubmissionJune 7, 2022
1 Aug 2022 Decision Letter - Peter F. Biehl, Editor PONE-D-22-16382Preservation of microscopic fur, feather, and bast fibers in the Mesolithic ochre grave of Majoonsuo, Eastern FinlandPLOS ONE Dear Dr. Kirkinen, 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 comments have to addressed before re-submission. ============================== Please submit your revised manuscript by Sep 15 2022 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, Peter F. Biehl, PhD Academic Editor PLOS ONE Journal Requirements: When submitting your revision, we need you to address these additional requirements. 1. 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 https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=wjVg/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_main_body.pdf and https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=ba62/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_title_authors_affiliations.pdf 2. Your ethics statement should only appear in the Methods section of your manuscript. If your ethics statement is written in any section besides the Methods, please move it to the Methods section and delete it from any other section. Please ensure that your ethics statement is included in your manuscript, as the ethics statement entered into the online submission form will not be published alongside your manuscript. 3. We note that Figure 1 in your submission contain map image 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: a. 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].” b. 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/ 4. 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. Additional Editor Comments: All comments have to addressed before re-submission. [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: Partly ******** 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: The authors have submitted a paper presenting the results of their analytical study finding evidence for bird feathers, animal hair and bast fibers in a Mesolithic child burial in Finland. The text is well structured and written in good English. The data is presented in full including tables, graphics and photographs of the site and samples taken. The study is interesting and important for archaeological research. However, the manuscript needs some revision: 1) The conclusions are too uncritical, even if no bioturbation was "macroscopically" seen. Studies of criminal technicians on the remains of scavangers and experiments with buried animal bodies are not considered. References to these studies are missing. 2) The text includes several mistakes and incomplete archaeological comparative data: a) The Republic of Finland is part of Northern Europe not Northeastern Europe (see lines e.g. 62-63 or 376). Moreover, in Finland but not in Northeastern Europe (e.g. NW Russia, Baltic States) human remains and unburnt animals bone are rarely recovered. b) The authors cite the archaeothanatological analysis for the evidence for wrapping (lines 422-425), but do not mention that our knowledge is largely based on ethnographical studies and archaeological finds from much younger periods (see references). c) The size of the Mesolithic child is compared to the size of a modern child (see Diskussion, line 382-383). However, the Mesolithic population was smaller. It would be better to refer to the children buried at the Mesolithic cemeteries, e.g. at Skateholm I, Olenii Ostrov or Zvejnieki. d) Soft organic materials can also be preserved as imprints in soil (even from the Upper Palaeolithic period). e) Some references need checking. ****** 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". 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. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0274849.r001
Revision 1
26 Aug 2022 Author Response Response to Reviewer / Preservation of microscopic fur, feather, and bast fibers in the Mesolithic ochre grave of Majoonsuo, Eastern Finland We thank the reviewer for his/her valuable comments! Here are our responses: 1 The conclusions are too uncritical, even if no bioturbation was "macroscopically" seen. Studies of criminal technicians on the remains of scavangers and experiments with buried animal bodies are not considered. References to these studies are missing. • According to the reviewer's suggestion, the conclusions regarding the bioturbation have now been nuanced and we have added the possibility of scavengers action: “Similar physical properties of the analyzed soil samples point to a minimal or non-existing contamination, although we cannot discard small-scale changes caused by scavengers.” We have also added “very likely “ in the previous phrase. In addition, we have now included reference to forensic experimental studies on the discussion: “Studies on forensic cases indicate that scavenging behavior differs depending on the animal, but also on seasonality, rates of decomposition, and insect activity (Young et al 2014). Rodent marks are the most important (Toledo, et al 2017 ). However, it is difficult to assess if vertebrate scavengers might have caused small-scale bioturbation, without preserved bones to check the presence of bite marks, fractures and fragmentation (Young 2017)”. • We would like to remark that our conclusion regarding the lack of bioturbation was not only based on the lack of macroscopical evidence. In contrast, we based it on a high resolution geochemical study: the 60 analysed soil samples showed quite similar physico-chemical properties without outliers. 2 The text includes several mistakes and incomplete archaeological comparative data: a) The Republic of Finland is part of Northern Europe not Northeastern Europe (see lines e.g. 62-63 or 376). Moreover, in Finland but not in Northeastern Europe (e.g. NW Russia, Baltic States) human remains and unburnt animal bones are rarely recovered. • We corrected above mentioned geographical definitions as recommended b) The authors cite the archaeothanatological analysis for the evidence for wrapping (lines 422-425), but do not mention that our knowledge is largely based on ethnographical studies and archaeological finds from much younger periods (see references). • First, we added a clarification that we can also use the term soft container (c.f.) for tight wrapping (effet de parois) as well as all kinds of under covers and grave furnishings (c.f. Nilsson Stutz 2003, 295–304). • Second, we replaced some wrapping terms with soft containers • Finally, we added a sentence that our knowledge is largely based on ethnographical studies and archaeological finds from much younger periods as recommended c) The size of the Mesolithic child is compared to the size of a modern child (see Diskussion, line 382-383). However, the Mesolithic population was smaller. It would be better to refer to the children buried at the Mesolithic cemeteries, e.g. at Skateholm I, Olenii Ostrov or Zvejnieki. -The size estimation of Mesolithic children is not necessary here. We have deleted the following sentence and the reference: A current growth reference for Finland indicates a height of 1.2 m at 10-years-old for boys and girls [65]. d) Soft organic materials can also be preserved as imprints in soil (even from the Upper Palaeolithic period). • That is true. We added a sentence “Even if the fibers themselves have decayed, their imprints e.g. in burnt clay carry information of hairs and plant fibers [13]”. The new reference is Tortosa et al. 2020. e) Some references need checking. • We have checked the references, removed one reference and added three references. Response to Journal Requirements 1 We have done our best to follow PLOS ONE’s style requirements. We renamed the files logically after the instructions. 2 The ethics statement of the permits required for archaeological field work and analysis was moved from Acknowledgements to the Methods section 3 The maps in Figure 1 are both CCBY 4.0 international licensed and can be used freely in the publications. We added the source information both in the maps themselves and in the figure caption. The small scale map (map A, Finland with a dot) is ESRI’s National Geographic Basemap, sources National Geographic, ESRI, Garmin, HERE, UNEP-WCMC, USGS, NASA, ESA, METI, NRCAN, GEBCO, NOAA, INCREMENT P. The large-scale map (Map B) is modified on the basis of a map of the National Land Survey of Finland, licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. More information about its copyright issues can be found in https://www.maanmittauslaitos.fi/en/opendata-licence-cc40 . By modification we refer here to shore-level reconstruction. This is mentioned in the figure text and the figure caption. The geographical information of archaeological sites is based on the Finnish Heritage Agency Register, CCBY 4.0. For more information, see https://www.museovirasto.fi/en/services-and-guidelines/data-systems/kulttuuriympaeristoen-tietojaerjestelmae/kulttuuriympaeristoen-paikkatietoaineistot 4 We have reviewed the reference list and deleted the former reference 65 because it is not necessary, and added three new references [97, 98 and 99] Additional information We have resubmitted Fig 1, which has been modified after reviewer comments, and S5 Appendix, in which we have corrected Table xxx with Table 1. Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Response to Reviewers.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0274849.r002
6 Sep 2022 Decision Letter - Peter F. Biehl, Editor Preservation of microscopic fur, feather, and bast fibers in the Mesolithic ochre grave of Majoonsuo, Eastern Finland PONE-D-22-16382R1 Dear Dr. Kirkinen, 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 for payment will follow shortly after the formal acceptance. To ensure an efficient process, please log into Editorial Manager at http://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/, click the 'Update My Information' link at the top of the page, and double check that your user information is up-to-date. 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 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): Reviewers' comments: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0274849.r003
Formally Accepted
15 Sep 2022 Acceptance Letter - Peter F. Biehl, Editor PONE-D-22-16382R1 Preservation of microscopic fur, feather, and bast fibers in the Mesolithic ochre grave of Majoonsuo, Eastern Finland Dear Dr. Kirkinen: I'm pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been deemed suitable for publication in PLOS ONE. Congratulations! Your manuscript is now with our production department. If your institution or institutions have a press office, please let them know about your upcoming paper now to help maximize its impact. If they'll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team within the next 48 hours. 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. If we can help with anything else, please email us at plosone@plos.org. Thank you for submitting your work to PLOS ONE and supporting open access. Kind regards, PLOS ONE Editorial Office Staff on behalf of Dr. Peter F. Biehl Academic Editor PLOS ONE https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0274849.r004

Open letter on the publication of peer review reports

PLOS recognizes the benefits of transparency in the peer review process. Therefore, we enable the publication of all of the content of peer review and author responses alongside final, published articles. Reviewers remain anonymous, unless they choose to reveal their names.

We encourage other journals to join us in this initiative. We hope that our action inspires the community, including researchers, research funders, and research institutions, to recognize the benefits of published peer review reports for all parts of the research system.

Learn more at ASAPbio .