Climate Change along the Silk Road and Its Influence on Scythian Cultural Expansion and Rise of the Mongol Empire

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The results section is too short. I propose to the authors to have a comon title (Results and Discussion) for sections 4 and 5. 

Author Response

Reply: Thank you very much for the careful review and useful comments. We have combined the Results and Discussion in the revised manuscript according to your suggestions.

Reviewer 2 Report

I have read the revised version of this manuscript with attention, and I appreciate the work done by the authors to improve it. Now, it looks much better. Although I still have doubdts about suitability of this paper to 'Sustainability' ('Geosciences' or 'Quaternary' published by MDPI would be better), I leave the decision on the paper suitability to the editor.

I have three principal recommendations.

1) The section "Results" cannot be so short. This should be extended significantly (up to 1-2 pages).

2) The section "Conclusions" should be divided into paragraphs.

3) The paper is better to label as 'Communication' not as 'Article'. This is important study, but it is not a standard research article.

Author Response

Reviewer 2:

I have read the revised version of this manuscript with attention, and I appreciate the work done by the authors to improve it. Now, it looks much better. Although I still have doubts about suitability of this paper to 'Sustainability' ('Geosciences' or 'Quaternary' published by MDPI would be better), I leave the decision on the paper suitability to the editor.

Reply: Thank you very much for the careful review and useful comments.

This manuscript assesses the relationship between climate change and Scythian Culture and Mongol Empire during the late Holocene, which is benefit for understanding the SUSTAINABILITY for human being, especially under the continued global warming scenario, and should be a special highlight in this Issue of “Local-to-Global issues in Sustainability”. Thus, the authors suggest this paper is suitable for the scopes of the Journal of 'Sustainability'.

 

I have three principal recommendations.

1) The section "Results" cannot be so short. This should be extended significantly (up to 1-2 pages).

Reply: Thank you for your suggestions. Yes, we agree the reviewers’ idea that the result section is too short. As suggested by the Reviewer 1, we propose to combine the Results and Discussion. Frankly, the Results must not be separated from the Discussion. The section of “Results and Discussion” is also a standard regulation for international journals. For examples, the recent papers in Geophysical Research Letters (doi: 10.1029/2018GL081795) and Global and Planetary Change (doi: 10.1016/j.gloplacha.2019.05.010) have published as “Results and Discussion”. Thus, we sincerely suggest to marked as “Results and Discussion”.

 

2) The section "Conclusions" should be divided into paragraphs.

Reply: Thank you for your suggestions. we have modified it in the revised manuscript.

5. Conclusions

We analyzed climate change along the Silk Road during the late Holocene based on 40 records from multiple archives, such as lake sediments, shoreline/beach ridges, peatlands, ice cores, tree rings, aeolian deposits, moraines, and historical documents. We combined this information with archaeological data to establish the climatic influence on the development and expansion of the representative pastoral nomadism, such as the expansion of Scythian Culture and rise of the Mongol Empire.

Our results show that the Silk Road experienced a succession of cold-warm and dry-wet cycles during the late Holocene. Among these, the most notable changes were characterized by decreasing temperature, expanding glacier, increasing precipitation, and increasing humidity in Central Asia, occurring over the transition from the Sub-Boreal to Sub-Atlantic Period (ca. 9-8th century BC) and from the MWP to LIA (ca. 13-14th century AD). The temperature declines and glacial advances forced pastoral nomadism southward migration. Meanwhile, the wetness and southward migration of grassland landscape in Central Asia were beneficial for the expansion of Scythian Culture and the Mongol Empire, which can cross the entire arid and semi-arid Eurasia. Therefore, climate change is possibly the most key factor for the development and expansion of pastoral nomadism in prehistoric and historical periods.

 

3) The paper is better to label as 'Communication' not as 'Article'. This is important study, but it is not a standard research article.

Reply: Thank you for your suggestions. Yes, this paper is not a standard research article, but it is not a Short Communication. So, the revised manuscript is submitted as “Review”, as suggested by Reviewer 1. We sincerely hope that the Reviewer and Editor can accepted it as “Review”.

 

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Well, the authors have changed something. The paper looks better. However, I still have two concerns.

1) The authors promised to re-label their paper, but it is still labeled as 'Article'.

2) Combination of Results and Discussion is impossible. However, if this paper is a review, this combined section can be named as 'Synthesis', and this may be enough.

To make the relevant changes will taken a minute, but these are really necessary changes.

Author Response

Response to Reviewer

Reviewer:

Well, the authors have changed something. The paper looks better. However, I still have two concerns.

Reply: Thank you very much for your useful comments. We have modified it in the revised manuscript according your suggestions.

 

1) The authors promised to re-label their paper, but it is still labeled as 'Article'.

Reply: Thank you for your suggestion. Yes, we have labeled our paper as “Review” in the MDPI system (see the following Figure). But we do not know why the reviewer-interface still shows as “Article”.

2) Combination of Results and Discussion is impossible. However, if this paper is a review, this combined section can be named as 'Synthesis', and this may be enough.

To make the relevant changes will taken a minute, but these are really necessary changes.

Reply: Thank you for your suggestions. We have named the combined section as “Synthesis”.

This manuscript is a resubmission of an earlier submission. The following is a list of the peer review reports and author responses from that submission.

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The reviewed paper deals with an interesting topic, although I feel it is better suitable to any geoscience journal like 'Geosciences' or 'Quaternary' published by MDPI. The topic is related to sustainability indirectly, although the relevant issues are not stated clearly in this paper. Anyway, I feel sensible to make some recommendations on this paper improvement.

• Section 2: the historical framework (position and timing of the Silk Road) and the Holocene evolution of Central Asia need more extensive explanations.
• Section 3: the methods of how the collected records are used need explanation.
• Section 4: Results MUST be separated from Discussion. This is standard requirement in all international journals.
• A comparison to the results of the other studies putting the Silk Road into the frame of palaeoenvironmental changes in necessary.
• In my opinion, this contribution cannot be labeled as 'Article' because it focuses on the interpretation of the previously published data. As it stands it cannot be labeled 'Review' because it is too short and presents the general view. So, I think this can become 'Communication'.

Reviewer 2 Report

The manuscript entitled “Climate change along the Silk Road and its influence on Scythian Cultural expansion and rise of the Mongol Empire” is of a very interesting topic which combines geological records with historical data in order to investigate the influence of climate on development and expansion of representative pastoral nomadism, such as expansion of the Scythian Culture and rise of the Mongol Empire.

The topic of the manuscript is within the scopes of the journal “Sustainability”. I am not a native speaker but I think that the paper is written in good English and in general reads well.

One of the weak points of the paper is that it does not provide any new data on climate change of the area. The authors use already published papers and this makes it a kind of “review paper”.

Here are some comment and suggestions which in my opinion could improve the final version of the paper:

The abstract is a bit long. Authors should try to shorten it.

Figure 1 and 2 as well as Table 1 should not be at the “Introduction” since they provide information about the data and literature used for the study. These figures and table should be part of the materials and methods.

At the “Study area” the authors should add a Figure of the area under investigation. Maybe a map like Figure 1 (without the spots and the shaded area) and showing the location of each one of the plains, plateaus and basins that are mentioned within the text (e.g. lines Central Asian Plain, Southern Siberian Plain, Altai Mountains-Tianshan Pamir Plateau, Junggar Basin, Tarim Basin, and Mongolian Plateau). All these names should be added (shown) on this map.

Finally a more “to the point” discussions should be provided in order to show how climate variations affected the expansion of the Scythian Culture and rise of the Mongol Empire. Even if data from the literature are provided the linkage between them and a synthesis is missing.