Holocene Environmental Archaeology of the Yangtze River Valley in China: A Review
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
As an overview of recent environmental archaeological work in the general area of the Yangtze River, this paper does a nice job of comprehensively summarizing the findings from a large number of studies. However, many of the studies presented are highly problematic in that they uncritically link various aspects of environmental change to cultural change. Several recent papers, cited below, have pointed out the many issues with these studies in China, not to mention the extensive literature, for example questioning the link between the 4.2kya climate event and cultural "collapse," in other parts of the world. This literature is never referenced in this paper, and thus their presentation of recent research in China is completely uncritical and in turn reinforces the perception that climate changes directly influenced past human activities.
In order to meet basic standards of critical investigation the authors need to consult the Chinese-specific and wider literature on human-environmental interaction and reassess the studies presented in a more critical manner. At that point this paper will make a significant contribution to the field, but as it currently stands I cannot endorse publication of such as uncritical study.
Aside from that, I'm unclear why this paper has been submitted to Remote Sensing since remote sensing data is rarely referenced in the paper. Finally, minor editing is needed throughout. Please see my pdf comments for a more detailed discussion of specific issues.
See, Jaffe et al. 2020. Mismatches of scale in the application of paleoclimatic research to Chinese archaeology.
Jaffe and Hein. 2020. Considering change with archaeological data: Reevaluating local variation in the role of the ~4.2k BP event in Northwest China
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Author Response
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Reviewer 2 Report
1.“ Dramatic changes to Neolithic cultures that occurred approximately 4.0 ka BP were influenced by climate change and associated consequences, although the impacts differed on the various Neolithic cultures in the Yangtze River Valley”
A recent work must be quoted and related to the current context.
Qin Zhen (2021) Exploring the early anthropocene: implications from the long-term human– climate interactions in early China. Mediterranean Archaeology and Archaeometry Vol. 21, No 1, (2021), pp. 133-148. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.4394053
2) The quoting of molecular biology in DNA sequencing of spores, pollen ,plants is not at all enough covered. It needs expansion and references.
3)For Liangzhu cultural period, this important late Neolithic period does not present references of various works made (C13, magnetic susceptibility Rubidium-Strintium ratios, etc.)
4)The flooding which caused disasters on a physical recording and narrative as well needs more elaboration (see Liritzis, I, Westra, A and Changhong, M (2019) Disaster GeoArchaeology and Natural Cataclysms in World Cultural Evolution: An Overview. Journal of Coastal Research 35(6):1307. DOI: 10.2112/JCOASTRES-D-19-00035.1
Author Response
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Reviewer 3 Report
I think that authors did a great work of synthesis:
- of the literature concerning environmental archaeology
- of the literature in the archaeological research in their study area.
They also did an interesting statistical work to spatially describe settlements patterns.
However I think this work is off topic of the journal, because there is nothing about "novel / improved methods / approaches and / or algorithms of remote sensing".
I think that this work could be easily published in another scientific journal. If I can give a suggestion to the authors, with all the data and the archaeological background that they have, they could develop also a spatial predictive model.
Author Response
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Reviewer 4 Report
The manuscript is a review of major scientific works concerning Holocene environmental archaeology in the Yang River Valley in order to analyze the large-scale regional Holocene (10 to 3 ka BP) environmental and human-landscape interaction within this area and the evolution of human civilizations. While investigating the different types of threads/materials (animal fossils, sedimentary records, stratigraphy), integrated technologies (GIS, AMC-14C, phytolith analysis) and methodologies (spatiotemporal distribution, archaeometry, stepwise regression) exploited for study, several conclusions are drawn regarding the impact of environmental effects on Neolithic cultures and their corresponding survival and adaptation practices.
The content is interesting and understandable by non-specialists. The bibliography seems to cover all the research on the topic and in this sense, the paper fulfills its purpose. Its writing style is articulate with a good technical dictionary. The article will certainly, be of particular interest to the readers of the journal assigned that are involved in Archaeological Research in China. The overall evaluation is positive. Nevertheless, the following remarks can be referred to it and a minor revision would be welcome.
Introduction: The introduction presents concisely the general area of interest, stating the current knowledge as well as the historic context of the environmental archaeology. The reference to the argument, the aim and the contributions of the work presented is outlined in section 3 (lines 177-185). Usually, the aim of the study should appear earlier, at the end of the Introduction section. I would also advise the authors to integrate a short structure description of the paper to better support understandability.
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