Landscape Archaeology of Southern Mesopotamia: Identifying Features in the Dried Marshes

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The visual interpretation method of using remote sensing images to identify regional archaeological targets has been very common.

This paper focuses on recognition of the archaeological landscape elements of the Mesopotamian floodplain using high-resolution satellite images, literature and ground truth.

The study area has important archaeological significance, and the recognition and mapping results are very interesting.

Suggestion:

In line100, about “Sasanian and Islamic periods”, it's better to give an absolute age range. 

 

Author Response

 Dear Reviewer 1,

Thank you very much for your constructive and positive comments! We have gladly made the revisions suggested by you and other reviewers. Therefore, I am attaching the revised version of the paper, and, of course, we welcome any more suggestions you may have.

Best regards,

Reviewer 2 Report

The article has an informative character about the basic mapping of the landscape archaeological features in southern Mesopotamia, based on satellite images. In terms of methodology of the topic, the article follows standard procedures, but does not use them in their full capacity (no application of filters or different spectral parameters for better feature visibility, no interest to apply the combination of different missions of historical satellite imagery or different remote sensing sources). The Figures 1 and 2 are very poor quality. The article lacks addressing any underlying, innovative issues. It could be build on a topic that is shortly mentioned in the chapter of „Results“ on lines 176-181. This topic would deserve elaboration and application to the wider landscape in southern Mesopotamia to test this hypothesis. The paper provides interesting information about archaeological research on the landscape of southern Mesopotamia, and it is clear that the authors have spent quite a lot of time on field research, but the scientific level and contribution of the text is still very low (especially in the context of publication in a journal with an impact factor).

Not a single example of feature detection, based on CORONA images is used. How come, that the basis for digitization was only Quickbird? The landscape must be very significantly changed from the past. Comparison with CORONA and digitization of landscape components on archival images is necessary and then compare those with modern images. I strongly recommend using also sources like freely available Hexagon or (if possible) also U2 photographs.  

Very little referenced literature - both on the method and on historical water systems and their remote sensing-based retrieval in the Middle East. I would recommend focusing on a study of the recent literature, regarding the use of remote sensing as a mapping tool in the northern Mesopotamian region (there is a large number of published outputs of ongoing or recently completed landscape archaeological projects in Iraqi Kurdistan).

The English is at a fairly simple level, which would not in principle matter, but some turns of phrases are constantly repeated, which giving the text the appearance of being machine-translated. As such, the text is punctuated by a fair amount of incorrect paragraph indentation, spacing, etc. In some parts, the English sentence structure is incorrect. I recommend a native speaker for final corrections.

 

Partial issues:

·       Improve the quality of the images - CORONA image is very poorly contrasted; any identification of orientation to the north is missing; the red square, marking the polygon of interest is meaningless in the context of the low quality of the underlying images and their excessive zooming out.

·       Chapter 2 is missing.

·       Lines 62-63 is not a true: „In fact, analysis of CORONA images has revealed several ancient river channels that cannot be identified using other examined images.“   What about HEXAGON, U2 missions, OrbView system etc.? 

·       Line 91- nonsensical reference to figure 2.

·       Figure 2 is necessary to increase its quality – correct labels (increase their quality so that no pixels are visible), hollow ways to amplify, again missing indication of orientation to the north.

·       Lines 81 and 86 start with the same phrase.

·       81-86 - why didn't the authors try applying visibility filters (High pass, Sobel, Edge detection etc.) to satellite imagery?

·       No mention at all of linking feature visibility to the date, when the images were taken (winter images have different spectral properties than summer images)

·       What mission is the CORONA image from?

·       Lines 86-90: Was the drone also used in this case? There is no reference anywhere in the text. Why do the authors mention this technique at all?

·       179-183 interesting idea, but the sentence is completely wrong (especially I don´t understand to the part of: „or a long time, there has been considerable ignorance of the role of human impact on the river geomorphology of the Mesopotamian floodplain, geologists, and geomorphologists “).

·       The statement in lines 187-190 is not well formulated; in particular, it is not clear where the authors got the claim that: " it might possibly be argued that anthropogenic factors have been the most influential aspect in river and marsh geomorphology in comparison to other factors such as tectonics, natural flooding, or climate change”.

Author Response

Dear reviewer 2,

Thank you so much for reviewing our paper and providing us with your valuable, very accurate and constrictive corrections. We have taken all of them (the major and the partial) into account and revised our paper based on them as follows:

1-    We have modified the paper and focused on our main aim, determining the type and nature of the preserved archaeological features in the dried marshes' landscape.

2-    We stressed that the intensive ground survey carried out in a selected area of the dried marshland resulted in the identification of six types of archaeological features: settlement sites, rivers, canals, farms, grooves, and roads (hollow ways). That is why our work on remote sensing tools was less, and we agree with you that using machine learning in remote sensing is vital, but we have relied on the fieldwork. Of course, we firmly use remote sensing tools when surveying the dried marshes' whole area.

3-    We have hired a professional native English speaker to proofread the text.

4-    We have changed Fig.1 and will upload a high-resolution version separately for each figure.

5-    We have added essential and relevant references.

I am attaching the revised version of the paper, and, of course, we welcome any more suggestions you may have.

Best regards,

Reviewer 3 Report

Dear Authors,

I have read with much interest your paper on archaeological features in the marshlands of southern Mesopotamia. I was especially impressed by the photographs and images, which greatly enhance the article in my opinion. 

Apart from some general/language related comments (see below), I have one major commentary on the paper:

From reading the paper it is unclear to me what the exact aim (and therefore relevance for academia) of this study is. Is the aim to test the proposed methodology? In which case this needs to be clearly stated and an overview needs to be given of how prior research was conducted in this area and how the methodology used is different. Also in the results section some form of “performance” needs to be given (this does not need to be metrics perse) to show how well the methodology works (in comparison to other methodologies).
Or is the aim to show human impact on the research area? In which case the discussion needs to be extended to again make a comparison with the current ideas on the research area and how this study has changed that. Regarding this I was kind of surprised by the statement in line 181 and further as this was not mentioned clearly in the introduction but could be the aim of the study? 
So please consider adding a clear aim in the introduction. I prefer just to be blunt and say: “The aim of this study is to ….”. This also makes it easier to form a discussion / conclusion at the end of the paper. 

In addition (but slightly related to the prior comment) I am missing a conclusion/outlook/future research. What are you (or other researchers) going to do with these results? 

Following are smaller comments sorted by line-number.

Lines:

27: “rule” should be “role”;

35: “There are” should be deleted;

36: “)” should be followed by a comma (,);

60: add: “Examples of distinguishable landscape features”;

67: remove “out”;

68: Please revise sentence for better readability;

70-75: This statement has been made by many researchers. I would suggest to add a reference to one of these articles. For instance Dave Cowley has published many recent articles on the interpretation of remote sensing data and fieldwork;

76-77: What about additional techniques such as (hand)corings? From my own experience as a landscape archaeologist I know that crevasse splays are (easily) recognizable in corings. Could you elaborate on that?;

83-86: please revise sentence for readability;

86-91: please revise sentence for readability;

91: Why is there a reference to Figure 2 here? I can not find the mentioned excavation or boat on the figure;

94: Could I suggest changing “archaeological site” to “archaeological settlement site”? In my opinion hollow road systems or canals are archaeological sites in their own right. Especially when we are talking about landscape archaeology I prefer to consider all features as sites and not talk about off-site features; 

122: are “meander scars” the same as “river scars”, in that case please use consistent terminology;

147: “mound” should be “mounds”;

148: Are the grooves also modes of transport or more natural features? In case of the latter I would consider moving this part to the section on palaeochannels and revise. 

178: revise to: “it is dry and move” ;

181-183: please revise for readability.

 

Figures:

Fig. 2: change caption to: “map showing the archaeological features mapped in this case study.”;

Fig. 4/5/9/11/12: I really like these images, but the caption needs to explain what the different sub-images contain. So please revise;

Fig. 8: Either indicate the river scar in the image (with lines or arrows) or elaborate in the caption what part of the image is the scar;

Fig. 10: Revise caption please.    

Author Response

Dear reviewer 3,

We want to thank you very much for your constructive and detailed corrections, and we have gladly taken all of them into account and have reformed our paper accordingly.

1-    We have made the aim of the paper clearer now.

2-    We have modified the methodology and result and corrected the discussion.

3-    We have revised the English Language based on a professional native English speaker.

4-    We have fixed all the text and figures typo mistakes.

5-    We have added the relevant references

I am attaching the revised version of the paper, and, of course, we welcome any more suggestions you may have.

Best regards,

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

The corrected version of the article is a quality scientific text, that can be published. The authors have accepted the suggested changes and recommendations after the peer review process and have substantially revised the article. The English is of a good standard, I would just recommend checking the text thoroughly again before final publication. Please correct the typo in the name of the U2 air mission (line 74, where it is listed as UT plane photographs). I appreciate the addition to the literature and recommend the text for publication.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer 2,

Thank you very much again for your supportive comments. We have happily made the suggested corrections. 

Thank you,

Jaafar Jotheri

Reviewer 3 Report

Dear Authors,

Thank you for the revised manuscript on the survey of the Hammar marsh in Irak. I think the article has improved much and is almost ready for publication. I have two comments and a few typos:

Comments:

-Line 46-55: so basically the aim is to map the full extent of archaeological site types in the research area? If so, I would make this clearer. 

- Although the aim of the article is much clearer, I am still missing a consideration on the methodology used in the discussion. Please add a few sentences about this.  

Typos (per linenumber):

- 48: add "as" after such;
- 58: images not imges; 
- 66: remove "and";
- 71: add "at that time" after water;
- 78: add ) after ];
- 93: remove comma, add "the" after completing;
- 99-100: was coring only used for dating or also to determine the nature of features?
-103: replace Seven with "Six";
-115: replace mounds with "settlement sites";
-137: add comma after 8;
-156: remove "a", add "that"after breaks;
- 164: remove comma;
- 168: add commma after 5;
- 181: add "the"after that;
- 186: add comma after biodiversity;
- 208: add "a"after how and replace appear with "appears";
- 224: remove extra space after )

Author Response

Dear Reviewer 3,

Thank you again for your supportive and encouraging comments and corrections. We really appreciate it!

• We have clarified the study's primary aim, mapping the full extent of archaeological site types in the research area.
• We have added some sentences to the discussion about the methodology.
• We have corrected all the typos.

Thank you very much,

Jaafar Jotheri