The paper presents the innovative study of the drilling technique applied to perforate hard stone (amethyst and rock crystal) beads from six sites in the Lesser Antilles. The research complements general archaeological observations with detailed data obtained from rigorous experimental replication studies. For this reason, the paper is not only interesting from a regional perspective but also offers important methodological insights. 

Although the study is detailed and rigorous, the manuscript has some minor issues that need to be addressed before it is accepted for publication. First, I recommend that the authors submit the text to a native English speaker for linguistic review. I reviewed most issues in the first pages but highlighted only the major mistakes and wrong technical terms in the following pages. Second, I recommend the authors include a short description of the sites and a map indicating their location. The studied artefacts, in fact, are completely deprived of any contextual information, which is important for the readers, either specialists in Caribbean archaeology or interested in bead and technological studies. 

That said, the abstract is concise and presents the study's state-of-the-art, primary datasets, and results. 
The introduction explains the motivation for the study, describing relevant recent and past research performed in the field, the main research questions, and the hypotheses to be validated. 
The description of the materials and methods at the basis of the research is comprehensive and detailed, allowing other scholars to replicate the study and/or apply the same method to their materials. I only recommend the authors elaborate more on the X-ray microtomography, an innovative component of the paper. 
Results are solid and well described, with only a few minor issues I indicated in the PDF attached to this general review. 

The tables and figures are clear. I only recommend a few minor improvements, also indicated in the PDF. 

All references are cited in the final bibliography. I only noticed a few issues, also I indicated in the PDF. In general, they are updated and allow going back to the information sources at the basis of the paper, both historical and methodological. In some methodological parts, however, there are several repetitions of the same list of papers, which could likely be selected with more attention to the specific topic they have to represent. However, this is a very minor issue. In other cases, archaeological case studies are indicated to represent ethnographic research instead. This issue must be corrected. Also for these cases, the authors can see my comments in the annotated PDF. 

All considered, the paper can be accepted for publication after these minor issues have been addressed and solved, either corrected or disputed by the authors, with recommendations for a linguistic review and sites description. 

Dontella,

It was a great pleasure to review this preprint and I learned a lot. Thank you for allowing me to look at this important piece of work. I hope to be able to interact with the authors in the future. I would also like to send them PDFs of some publications to help their research and I hope this is possible. For more detailed comments please see my PDF review file.

Best regards, 

Laura Kozuch

Review of Raymond et al. 2022 Analysis and reproduction of the techniques of perforation of quartz and amethyst beads from the Ceramic period in the Antilles, SocArXiv Papers By Laura Kozuch

This is a very important work, and it applies innovative, comprehensive, and good methods towards an understanding of the topic. The authors present a good review of current bead drilling research from Europe and the Caribbean. Most importantly, this focuses on bead crafting without using metal tools. Much research shows how stone beads are made with metal tools but methods for making beads without metal has rarely been discussed and is not well understood.

The authors demonstrate that a cactus drill tip was probably used. This coincides with the Chumash tribe on the California coast using sea lion whiskers (Arnold and Rachal 2002). I wonder whether pitahaya cactus spines (Acanthocereus tetragonus) may have been used.

This corroborates my own research on the types of materials needed to drill through very hard materials (Kozuch 2021, 2022). Some beads are sometimes up to 6 or 7 centimeters long and could not have been drilled with chert or other stone drill tips. The numbers shell beads found at Cahokia in the heart of North America are astounding and the shells used have high Mohs (5.5) values also. I can send the authors copies of my publications if authors have trouble locating them. 

See attached file for detailed review.

General remarks

The article describes a very well structured and applied research in a geographical area that is practically devoid of techno-functional studies on ornamental elements. To my knowledge, techno-functional studies of Central and South American parures are very few and recent (the last 20 years), although they do lead to the knowledge of exceptional cultural contexts. I find this contribution extremely brilliant for several reasons:

• The research question is original.
• The methodology is well described and well applied,
• The iconographic apparatus is definitely beautiful and very evocative.
• The analytical techniques used are very effective and powerful.

The research group not only presents very beautiful and extremely well-documented material (I stress that all the figures are very beautiful, well-focused and in high definition), but also uses a set of observation and analysis techniques (optical, electron and 'replication techniques' with elastomers and digital) that is heterogeneous, complementary and well coordinated in the different levels of study (low and high power approach). This is not insignificant, as the parure is often not studied so comprehensively from a methodological point of view.

The depth of the regional scientific project should also be emphasised. This contribution follows on from previous works that deal with both the issues of raw materials (by through archaeometric analysis) and aspects of the contexts and manufacture of the objects. In clear continuation of these is the main topic of the present work: the understanding, no longer of general manufacturing sequences, but of a more specific aspect related to the perforation of hard stone beads.

For prehistoric times (better said in societies without writing), the use of organic materials in everyday life is a known fact, but these are 'visible' objects. The present work deals with something that is invisible, or almost invisible, to archaeological investigation. Convincingly demonstrating the use of such ephemeral tools is uncommon and, in my opinion, the strength of the contribution lies in the methodology followed: rigorous in its analysis as in its experimental section.

One of the shortcomings of this field of study is that it is very differentiated according to the individual researchers (different terminology and conventions, documentation and analytical techniques that are not always easy to compare, few databases for comparison of technological and functional aspects, etc.). The present contribution seems to me to be a decisive step towards the explication of a research programme that has as its focus the study of ancient ornaments in their multiple cultural aspects.

The other comments are listed below and represent some minor issues (suggestions) that may be considered at the time of publication of this document. The article is brilliant and very interesting. The sole purpose of my comments is to improve it (if some of my comments are not adequate, do not hesitate to explain it). In the end, I have to say that I would have described some aspects very differently, but I don't think it is right to get into matters of personal style even when they concern more technical and operational aspects. The different contributions must be written to represent the logicalscientific choices and styles of each particular research group.The reviews in which I have been involved have always tried to make me write the paper in the style of the reviewers and according to their technical convictions, thus deeply affecting my final message. By trying to communicate within a unified methodological framework shared by colleagues, the reader should be able to read your specific approach to the study of parure.

If requested in the future, I remain at the authors' disposal for any requests or suggestions.

See attached document for detailed review.