Seasonal biases in proxy records are an outstanding issue in deciphering past climate evolution, and may contribute to the current discrepancy between models and proxy reconstructions during the Holocene, which is most pronounced in the northern extratropics. Bova et al. reported a method of transforming seasonal into mean annual temperatures (the SAT method) at low and mid-latitudes, and concluded that the thermal maxima during the Holocene and last interglacial (LIG) were mainly an artefact of a seasonal proxy response. We provide evidence that, in addition to this geographic mismatch, key assumptions of the SAT method are violated, and more importantly, that the method by construction removes thermal maxima. Thus, the main findings of Bova et al.4 probably reflect peculiarities of the SAT method instead of shedding light on the so-called Holocene conundrum.