We Came for the Lake—Late Pleistocene Landscape Reconstruction in Lieth Moor, District Pinneberg, Germany

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Dear Authors,

I’ve examined your manuscript with attention and pleasure. This is example of very interesting work based on the high-precision study with fascinating interpretations. The research questions are clear, and they are well-addressed. The findings would be interesting to the wide research community (also because of their methodological importance). I see excellent, well-thought, and accurate interpretations, and I value especially the consideration of the possible limitations of the methods. The manuscript is organized, illustrated, and referenced adequately. Generally, I like this work and specify some recommendations for its improvement. I hope you can find them helpful.

1)      Title: please, delete “dist.”.

2)      Line 15: do not capitalize “instead” because this is not the beginning of the sentence.

3)      Introduction: much more citations should be given in the first paragraph of this section – each principal statement there should be supported by citations.

4)      Line 51: what is this goal?

5)      The lengthy subsection 1.1 should become the section 2 titled “Study Area”, with subsequent re-numbering of sections and subsections.

6)      Materials and Methods: please, cite the basic literature for each method.

7)      Lines 318-319: this sentence is unnecessary.

8)      Line 571: was this a period? (to me, period is Devonian or Jurassic) Please, check the stratigraphical terminology everywhere.

9)      Subsection 4.3: can you put your interpretation in the broader, Europe-scale context of the late Pleistocene-early Holocene major environmental changes?

10)  Lines 720-722: this is very interesting interpretation. Can you cite some sources where the other lines of evidence of the protective function of dunes (also from the other places of the world) are given?

11)  Conclusions: please, add a paragraph stating the perspectives for future research.

12)  The writing needs certain polishing.

13)  The term “gyttja” should be defined in the first place of its use.

14)  Do you have some photographs of the study area or illustrating the process of your investigations? They are not mandatory, but would make the paper more attractive.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

TThe writing needs certain polishing, also stylistic somewhere.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This paper presents a very interesting review of a range of legacy data and integrates it with new geophysical investigations of the Lieth Moor area.  Both aspects are thorough and are integrated together to provide a new model of palaeolandscape evolution, useful to both other archaeological geophysics efforts and to the study of the Late Palaeolithic in this area. 

General comments:

1. Lines 3-5: One of the main claims about the "unexplained concentration" of lakes in the abstract and later in the text is confusing. Wouldn't the "numerous large lakes in Schleswig-Holstein" explain the "exceptional abundance of sites attributed to the presence of a large palaeolake"?  It is not at all clear what the "research desideratum" is and what is not explained.  This must be revised for any reader of abstract. This claim appears again on lines 169-172 and is still confusing there:

line 169-172: If the "melting Weichselian glaciers" left many large lake systems in this region, why are the presence of large lake systems unexplained?  It is not clear to me if the location is what is in question, or the source of the lakes.  This needs to be clarified for readers unfamiliar with the specific region or periods. If the Weichselian glaciers melted and left glaciers somewhere else (NOT Lieth Moor), then that also needs to be clarified.  As such, this "central conflict" seems fabricated/to not exist.

2.  A number of the figures need to be improved, either by adding or completing the legends, providing the location of the region, and enlarging the markers. See specific comments on the text below (particularly on figures 2, 4, 5, 7, and 11).  In general, figures appear too late after being introduced. This is particularly apparent with figures 4 and 5 (GPR), which appear 2 pages after being introduced and explained in detail. 

 

Specific comments on the text:

-Since this will be in geophysics, I suggest adding less technical terminology to aid readers unfamiliar with the specific region or period, at least in the abstract.  For example: "limnic gyttia (sedimentary peat)" on line 9.

-line 59: I would either introduce "our model" of landscape development explicitly or be more specific than just referring to "our model." There isn't yet a reference to the development of a model, what the model is for, etc., so it is preemptive to discuss its implications. 

-line 118: "nonetheless, also ..." revise

-line 135-136 sentence needs to be revised

-line 165: Is "Prussian topographic map, 1876" supposed to be a citation?

-line 136: The study area is stated to be covered in glaciers (Elsterian and Saalian).  This should be made explicitly, especially for readers who are not experts in this period but are reading because they’re interested in the geophysics (cf. main comment 1 on the confusing claims about paleolakes and settlements). Is the source of the palaeolake or the presence of the palaeolake the question?

-Figure 2: What do the shades of blue indicate? Blue lake shades should be added to the map legend/key for clarity (rather than just mentioned in the caption). Pollen sampling sites are not differentiable from the "Younger" sites (grey dots) and should be added to the map legend and differentiated. 

-lines 273-274: Two different bandpass filter ranges are used (line 273-274).  How are they chosen? When is the 25-500MHz used ("respectively")?

-In Figure 3, there seem to be specific regions of the study area chosen for GPR and EMI.  these should be justified.  That is, explain why the EMI and GPR areas are selected.  How are the study area boundaries determined? It's not clear how they are drawn, as coring and other finds appear inside and outside the boundaries and the geophysical investigation does not determine the boundaries. This could go in section 2.1.

-Figures 4 and 5 should appear earlier in the text (they are introduced on p9 and do not appear until 2 pages later, after being fully discussed).  You can defer to the editing guidelines, but it would be better to have the figures appear closer to their introduction.

-Figures 4 and 5: The colors used to interpret the facies (red, blue, yellow, etc) should be in a legend in the figure and not in the caption.   The water table should also be added (see comment on lines 399-401 and 339-378).

-Line 360 reads: "This gyttja thickness is undercut in 21 cases."  What is meant by "undercut"?  The thickness in question is 8 cm; are 21 cases of the gyttja layer less than 8 cm thick? Please revise.

-Line 367: "no available drilling has penetrated this low reflectivity zone:" What about B013 and B0179?  Please at least acknowledge why they are not used (not deep enough, that layer is not present due to the placement of the coring, etc).

-In figures 4 and 5, there is a larger ('zoomed out') section and an enlarged detail section.  Please order them consistently (e.g., top is zoomed out, bottom is enlarged) to aid the reader and avoid unnecessary confusion.

-Figure 5 caption reads "again, the blue line denotes the base of the limnic gyttja and sand facies."  There is no blue line mentioned previously, so the "again" is particularly confusing (instead of denoting those facies, the blue dashes on the corings, as in figure 4, denote the plough layer).  Again, figures 4 and 5 require a legend rather than a long confusing caption. 

-In the upper part of figure 5, there is an unexplained yellow-brown circle overlapping the Rotliegend clay layer on the right end.  What is it?

-Line 385, 530: Should "areal" be "aerial"? Or, for line 385, "plan view?"

-Figure 7: instead of the last sentence in the caption listing the corner coordinates, please use a small, simplified version of figure 3 to place the EMI data in the survey area.  This would also be greatly helpful in understanding figure 11. (e.g., "cf. Figure 6" in line 450 is very challenging).

-Lines 399-401 and 339-378: The water table is not mentioned until too late in the results and raises some confusion about the interpretation of the GPR facies (399-401).  The water table should be added to the GPR figures (4 and 5) and included in the discussion about distinguishing the aeolian and glacial sands (339-378).  The transition between the two facies appears to be similar to the depth of the water table, and it is not entirely convincing that the two zones are different facies instead of saturated and unsaturated sands.   Introducing the water table earlier on would make the comparison with the change in conductivity at that depth better.  It is also likely that reviewing the GPR interpretation will help clarifying the text and connect directly to the figures (lines 339-378).  In addition, labeling the GPR figures and adding a legend (that includes the water table) might also reduce the confusion and doubts about the water table appearing in the GPR.

-Line 441: what makes the high conductivity indicate a larger body of water? It is not clear which GPR facies this corresponds to, or which later in drill cores.  As such, this conclusion was unsupported (or not clearly articulated).

-Section 3.3: The conclusion is that gyttja is deposited in the ponds or pools.  But the GPR denoted gyttja regions outlined in black also include the area interpreted as a stream (figure 11).  Can you explain this? Or clarify the orientation of the stream feature?  Perhaps the best edit would be to change the "stream" feature from a point to some kind of line or area feature. Initially, one might see the figure and think that the stream crosses GPR lines 8 and 12 perpendicularly and runs roughly SW-NE, but this doesn't seem to make sense with the gyttja extents.  I suggest revision of this section for clarification, with edits to figure 11 as needed.

-Lines 500-522: It's not clear why such an extensive discussion of GPR differentiation of facies in the literature is present. I could see this being a helpful summary of what kinds of facies can be identified, but the conclusion in text is simply that GPR is a robust tool for identifying these facies in peatlands, which do not seem to be direct representatives of your study area.  Perhaps it is because peatlands and this region are not my specialty, but unless there is a compelling reason to include the complete discussion, I would suggest summarizing lines 507-522 with a single sentence or two.

-Lines 548-555: Similar comment about lengthy discussion of literature on combined method application that should be summarized or motivated explicitly.

-Lines 557-563: I would like to see similar recommended methodologies for coring based on the discussions on p20-21.  For example, locating corings along EM and GPR transects and what kinds of spacing would optimize information.

-Line 569: "He" should be the author's last name.

-Line 640-641: Sentence is confusing and should be edited.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Comments on the Quality of English Language

Please see some of the specific comments on the text above-minor edits suggested.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Dear Authors,

I'm fully satisfied by your responses and improvements. The manuscript looks perfect now, and I can recommend it for acceptance.

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Thank you so much for considering and revising the text in response to these comments. The manuscript is much clearer and more complete for readers from various backgrounds. Particularly the edits to the figures are commended.  The responses to all comments are quite satisfactory and the manuscript is of high quality.

One specific suggestion remains, regarding comment 19 and the interpretation of the GPR facies on line 367-368 in the revised manuscript: may I suggest explicitly explaining the difference between facies two and four to the reader, as you have done in the response to the comment? "...based on the internal reflection patterns and reflector continuity..." rather than "...based on their stratification..."