Editorial Essay: Volume 28 Number 1--2

Editorial Essay Journal of Field Archaeology 28 (2001) 1--2

In September, 2002, Ricardo Elia stepped down as the Editor of the Journal of Field Archaeology. Curtis Runnels, an Aegean prehistorian in the Department of Archaeology at Boston University, takes his place as Editor, and Norman Hammond, a Mesoamericanist in the same department, is the Consulting Editor, a new position for the JFA. The Managing Editor, Al B. Wesolowsky, continues to oversee all aspects of the production of the journal, a task he has performed ably since its early years. New to the editorial staff is Jodi Magness of the Department of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, who is the Editor for Book Reviews. The editors are supported by Journal Fellows Alexia Smith, Trina Arpin, Ben Vining, and Christa Beranek, who have the major responsibility of working with the editorial staff on every aspect of the publication process.

With any change of editors, it is an appropriate time to review the goals of the Journal and to make clear what the policies of the new editors will be. The Journal of Field Archaeology was founded in 1974 by James R. Wiseman, and he was succeeded in time by Creighton Gabel and Ricardo Elia as editors. Under their leadership the JFA has become an established medium for the publication of new archaeological research. In its nearly three decades of existence the traditional focus of the JFA has been on the publication of articles that present measurable, concrete results of what we have happily called ``field archaeology.''However the ``field'' has been defined, whether it is the library, the laboratory, the survey region, or the traditional excavation of a site, the editors of the JFA have sought articles that present new and original research findings based on the analysis and interpretation of topography, architecture, features, artifacts, and more. The focus has always been on the results of research, and we have generally suggested to authors that manuscripts of a purely theoretical, methodological, or programmatic nature should be submitted to journals that specialize in these topics. We have nevertheless published and will continue to seek to publish articles of any type when they address concrete problems of the interpretation of archaeological data. To summarize our view, we consider the Journal of Field Archaeology to be a venue for the publication of results obtained by archaeologists carrying out fieldwork and research around the world.

The articles published by the JFA cover the whole world and all periods from the Palaeolithic through the Modern. We invite submissions from every sub-discipline and persuasion of archaeology: anthropological, biblical, classical, historical, and prehistoric. We are open to all theoretical approaches. The unifying thread that ties the articles in the JFA together is the focus upon the interpretation of data derived from excavation, survey, and the analysis of features, artifacts, ecofacts, and scientific samples. We are seeking insightful writing about archaeology that avoids jargon. Other topics of major concern include ethics, the destruction of archaeological context, the illicit antiquities market, and the history of archaeology from the Renaissance to the present.

Our mission remains substantially the same, but we are making some changes in the editorial office. The first is the introduction of the position of Consulting Editor. In our opinion, a journal with a global perspective cannot be served by a single editor, and Norman Hammond will bring his experience and the perspective of a different subdiscipline of archaeology. We hope in this way to broaden significantly the range of articles published in the JFA. All submissions of articles for publication should, however, go directly to the Editor.

One of the many ways in which we hope to build upon the successes of our predecessors is to continue to review, at length, significant new archaeological books. The goals we have for the book review section of the JFA have been stated before (see Curtis Runnels, ``The Place of Book Reviews in the Professional Literature,'' JFA 21 [1994]: 357--360), and we believe that the JFA should offer detailed and in depth reviews of books of every stripe. Past Book Review Editors have been specialists in different fields, and each one has brought a fresh perspective to the task of identifying significant books for review. We want to underscore the importance that incisive, constructive book reviews have for identifying new and important research in our field.

Editing a journal such as the JFA is a difficult task in the best of times and is perhaps harder today when there are thousands of books and articles on archaeology being published every year. The torrent of new publications threatens to tax the resources of the most dedicated scholar to keep up with his or her chosen field. No one person can evaluate all the manuscript submissions. A strong board of editorial advisors is essential. The JFA has been ably served by many individuals over the years, and we have built upon the goodwill expressed towards the JFA by dedicated scholars to recruit a new board. We believe that the new board members represent the international and cosmopolitan scope of archaeology today. Although it was not possible to enlist someone for every sub-field of archaeology, we have tried to be as comprehensive as possible. To ensure the quality of our publications we are firmly committed to the peer-review system and every manuscript will continue to be reviewed by more than one expert as part of the evaluation process. Many reviewers will assist the editors in their task, and without them no journal would be able long to survive.

Finally, we wish to address the question of our publication schedule. For a variety of reasons our schedule is in arrears, and we wish to assure subscribers and readers that this is a temporary problem. We are developing a comprehensive plan to return the JFA to a regular schedule, and many of the necessary changes have already been made. In the short term, at least, we will produce double issues and certainly more than four numbers in a calendar year in order to return to a regular schedule. Although the date of publication as it appears on the cover is in arrears, manuscripts received today will not be delayed. The time from the receipt of a manuscript until it appears in print is about fourteen months. We hope that our readers will bear with us in this effort. As to future changes that may be necessary because of the rapid, and sometimes unpredictable, changes in the technology of publishing that affect journals, publishers, and printers, only time will tell. In our editorial offices we have seen these changes, sometimes in dramatic ways, and we shall be considering all of the new and future options for journals like the JFA. We have already taken the step of joining JSTOR, the electronic database for journals, where back issues of the JFA are readily available to the subscribers of that provider. This service permits us, among other things, to eliminate our stock of back issues (saving valuable resources) and provides for a permanent archive of the Journal that is widely available to the academic community at large.

Curtis Runnels, Editor

Norman Hammond, Consulting Editor

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