Content of review 1, reviewed on June 17, 2025

The article reports a meticulous study on radicals induced by ionizing radiation in two fossilized teeth and establishes a comparison.
The spectral lines found in the samples are different and characterized according to the literature. The authors used a Matlab routine for spectral deconvolution to demonstrate the differences.
The work is well conducted, but in my opinion, for it to be considered a scientific paper, it lacks demonstrating the originality, importance, innovation brought by the study, and its implications. The conclusions are specific to these two materials, the more "general" implication is to reinforce the complexity of the interaction between radiation and enamel.
For the article to be of interest to the reader, the content of the article must be applicable in other studies/contexts. The authors briefly mention it in the last paragraph of the abstract, but they could elaborate more. As it stands, it resembles more of a report on an experiment conducted. The article describes the differences, but without substantiating or hypothesizing the differences that could be inferred from other analyses of the material and correlating them. Furthermore, ESR dating is performed with pulverized samples to avoid much of what the article discusses. If the sample cannot be pulverized, what is the validity of a fragment of the tooth? Does it apply to the whole tooth?
Therefore, it is necessary to clarify why it is important to establish these differences between these two samples? How can these differences be explained? What are the possible implications of this study? Anyway, I believe the authors can conduct a self-assessment of the work to find a reason for it to deserve to be published as an original and innovative article.
Other minor revisions:
The abstract should summarize the most important points of the work, with more objectivity and precision. Highlight the importance of the work, originality, and innovation. There are a series of undefined acronyms and excessive detailing of results that hinder readability.
Page 1, line 27, definition of ESR dating. Review,"..the amount of
natural radioactivity a sample absorbs over time" is not appropriate.
Page 3, sample preparation, I imagined that in some sections the authors refer to figure 2, without mentioning it. Necessary to review
Page 5 line 15 (or 153). I imagine that figure 1 is mentioned incorrectly.
Review the figures and the captions. The figures are beautiful, they are in the article to demonstrate something. Therefore, make annotations on the figures, improve the caption so that the reader can visualize the image and understand it, independently of the text. For example, in figure 3, neither in the caption nor in the image is it explained what the colors are. And also the axes are without labels.

In conclusion, the work is well done, but as a report. For it to become an article, it lacks the essential elements that drive scientific publications.

Source

    © 2025 the Reviewer.

References

    Wenjing, Y., Renaud, J., Rainer, G. 2025. The Complexity of ESR Signals in Tooth Enamel Fragments, A Comparison of Examples from Jebel Irhoud (Morocco) and Broken Hill (Zambia). Archaeometry.