Archaeology International

The UCL Institute of Archaeology is the largest centre for research and teaching in the fields of archaeology, cultural heritage, conservation and museum studies in Britain. It hosts events on many different aspects of archaeology and it is linked to a wide range of heritage organisations, museums and archaeological societies internationally, providing an outstanding research environment for staff, students and visitors.

Archaeology International, produced annually, combines news about Institute activities with reports on research, both on new and on-going projects, carried out by members of staff. Refereed articles reflect the broad geographical, theoretical and methodological scope of research at the Institute. Reports and news items cover topics such as recent publications by Institute staff, current fieldwork and aspects of the history of the Institute. The intended audience is both academic researchers and those with a general interest in archaeology and heritage.

This publication supersedes the Institute of Archaeology Bulletin (published until 1994, numbers 30 and 31). Archaeology International now has a fully online edition, to which back issues have been added.  

   

The UCL Institute of Archaeology is one of the largest centres for archaeology, cultural heritage and museum studies in Britain. Founded in 1937, it is one of very few places in the world actively pursuing research on a global scale in the archaeological sciences, heritage studies and world archaeology.

The Institute offers Undergraduate, Graduate Taught and Graduate Research Programmes to UK/EU and overseas students. Opportunities are also available to members of the public to take courses at the Institute and to affiliate students wishing to spend some time at the Institute during their own degree programmes.

Read more about the UCL Institute of Archaeology at https://www.ucl.ac.uk/archaeology

Editor-in-Chief

Dr Alice Stevenson, Associate Professor in Museum Studies, Institute of Archaeology, UCL, UK    

Deputy Editor

Barney Harris, Institute of Archaeology, UCL, UK

Editorial Board Chair

Prof Sue Hamilton, Professor of Prehistory, Institute of Archaeology, UCL, UK

Editorial Board Members

Prof Dorian Fuller, Professor of Archaeobotany, Institute of Archaeology, UCL, UK
Dr Andrew Garrard, Reader in Early Prehistory, Institute of Archaeology, UCL, UK
Prof Rodney Harrison, Professor of Heritage Studies, Institute of Archaeology, UCL, UK
Andrew Margetts, Post-Excavation Manager, Archaeology South-East
Katie Meheux, UCL Institute of Archaeology Library, UCL Library Services, United Kingdom
Prof Kevin MacDonald, Professor of African Archaeology, Institute of Archaeology, UCL, UK
Dr Theano Moussouri, Associate Professor in Museum Studies, Institute of Archaeology, UCL, UK
Dan Swift, Post-excavation Project Manager, Institute of Archaeology, UCL, UK
David Wengrow, Professor of Comparative Archaeology, Institute of Archaeology, UCL, UK

Open access policy

From December 2020, all articles published in the Archaeology International are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution Licence (CC-BY) 4.0 international licence agreement and published open access, making them immediately and freely available to read and download. The CC-BY licence agreement allows authors to retain copyright while allowing others to copy, distribute, and make some uses of the work.

Further information regarding this can be found at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ and licensing terms and conditions can be found in our Editorial Policy.

Abstracting & indexing

UCL Press works with subject specific indexers to deposit published articles in relevant repositories and search databases. Articles published in the Archaeology International are indexed in: 

• academia.edu
• Cengage Learning
• Center for Open Science
• Chronos
• CNKI
• Dimensions 
• Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ),
• EBSCOHost
• European Reference Index for Humanities and Social Sciences (ERIH PLUS)
• ExLibris
• Google Scholar
• JISC KB+
• Journal TOCs
• Norwegian Register for Scientific Journals, Series and Publishers
• OpenAIRE
• OCLC
• Sparrho
• UCL Discovery
• Web of Science - Emerging Sources Citation Index (ESCI), 

Peer review

All submissions to Archaeology International are initially assessed by an Editor, who decides whether or not the article is suitable for peer review. Submissions considered suitable for peer review are assigned to two or more independent experts, who assess the article for clarity, validity, and sound methodology.

Authors may be invited to recommend or ask for the exclusion of specific individuals from the peer review process. The journal does not guarantee to use these suggestions. All reviewers must be independent from the submission and will be asked to declare all competing interests.

Archaeology International operates a double-blind peer review process, meaning that authors and reviewers remain anonymous for the review process. The review period is expected to take around four to eight weeks, although this may vary depending on reviewer availability. Reviewers are asked to provide formative feedback, even if an article is not deemed suitable for publication in the journal.

Based on the reviewer reports the editor will make a recommendation for rejection, minor or major revisions, or acceptance. Overall editorial responsibility rests with the journal’s Editor-in-Chief, who is supported by an expert, international Editorial Board.

Archaeology International is happy to accept submissions of papers that have been loaded onto preprint servers or personal websites, have been presented at conferences, or other informal communication channels. These formats will not be deemed prior publication. Authors must retain copyright to such postings. Authors are encouraged to link any prior posting of their paper to the final published version within the journal, if it is editorially accepted.

Members of the editorial team/board are permitted to submit their own papers to the journal. In cases where an author is associated with the journal, they will be removed from all editorial tasks for that paper and another member of the team will be assigned responsibility for overseeing peer review. A competing interest must also be declared within the submission and any resulting publication.

Reviewer guidelines 

Reviewers are asked to provide comment on the below topics and guidelines:

• Content: Does the article fit within the scope of the journal? Is the submission original, relevant and rigorous? Is the author’s depth of understanding of the issues researched adequate? Are the sources and references adequate? Has the existing knowledge base been explored and built upon? Are the chosen methodologies appropriate and have they and the evidential base been appropriately used? Does the conclusion reflect the argument in the main body text and bring something new to the debate?
• Structure and argument: Does the abstract summarise the arguments in a succinct and accurate way? Is the manuscript logically structured and do the arguments flow coherently? Is there enough reference to methodology in the introduction and are the arguments fully evidenced and substantiated? Does the introduction signpost the arguments in the logical way and does the conclusion adequately summarise them?
• Figures/tables: Does the author’s use of tables, charts, figures or maps illustrate the arguments and support the evidential base? Is the quality of the formatting and presentation adequate?
• Formatting: Does the submitted file adhere to the general author guidelines listed for the journal? Are the citations and references formatted to house-style?
• Language: Is the text well written and jargon free? Please comment on the quality of English and need for grammatical improvement.

Further information regarding peer review can be found on our Peer Review Policy.

Article publication charges (APC)

UCL Press journals do not levy an Article-Processing Charge (APC) for submission or publication in Archaeology International. Contributors to Archaeology International will not be required to make an APC payment for submission or publication of their article.

How to submit

Authors should follow the journal’s author guidelines. Manuscripts that are not formatted appropriately for the journal will be referred to edit accordingly before peer review.

All submissions should be sent to the Editor-in-Chief. Please email your full manuscript, author CV, as well as a 300 word abstract to the Editor at…

Before submitting to the journal, all authors must have read and agreed to the journal’s editorial policy and the Journals Contributor Agreement https://www.uclpress.co.uk/pages/journals-contributor-agreement.

When to submit 

Archaeology International publishes one issue per year. Submissions can be sent throughout the year, however, editorial deadlines are:

• For research articles: March / April
• For reports, news items and similar: May / June

Preparing your manuscript

Authors are requested to reference the guidelines for journal authors, as well as the following specific instructions outlined here. It is the responsibility of the author to ensure adherence to the style guide. Please note that editors will not undertake any extensive formatting to this extent, and anything not adhering to the guidelines might be returned for revision.

The Archaeology International operates double blind peer review, where both the reviewers and authors are anonymised during review. Authors should submit an anonymous version of the manuscript, stripped of all identifying references to the author(s) for peer review. The word count should be clearly indicated. All submissions must be in .doc or .docx format to facilitate the peer-review process.

Article types

Research articles 
Research articles are fully refereed. They should describe the aims, processes, outcomes and application of unpublished original research. They should make a substantial contribution to knowledge and understanding of the subject matter and should be supported by relevant figures and tabulated data. Research articles should be normally no more than 6,000 words in length (including list of references), with 4 figures.

Research updates
Research updates should introduce a new research project or present an overview of research in progress. Normally no more than 2000 words (including references), and 2 figures.

News
News articles should describe events relevant to the Institute of Archaeology which have occurred within the last year. Normally no more than 1000 words  and 1 figure.

People and places
People and places articles by alumni should be normally no more than 1000 words (including references), with 1 figure.

All word limits include citations, notes, and list of references.

NOTE: If Authors wish to include more figures the number of words in the text may need to be adjusted.

Formatting 

It makes a huge difference to the ease of production if you read and adhere to the author guidelines when preparing your manuscript. If your submission does not follow these guidelines it may be returned to you for modification.

Title page
The title page must include all of the information below, in the same order. No further information should be included:

1. Title of the manuscript
2. Full name(s) of contributing authors including their institutions/affiliation and address, and their institutional email address (including ORCiD ID’s).
3. The corresponding author should be clearly identified and include their contact email address (normally this will be your UCL email address)
   
   

Abstract
Present the abstract as an overview of your article (up to 250 words), giving a summary of the contents and major themes. (Note that this will ultimately be used by search engines, and it will form part of the meta-data that will be seen first by people searching your article.)

Keywords
All articles must list a maximum of up to ten key words.

Main text
The body of the submission should be structured in a logical and easy to follow manner. A clear introduction section should provide non-specialists in the subject with an understanding of the topic and a background to the issue(s) involved. Methods, results, discussion and conclusion sections may then follow to clearly detail the information and research being presented.

Headings and sub-headings
Up to three level headings may be present and must be clearly identifiable using different font sizes, bold or italics. We suggest using Headings 1, 2 and 3 in MS-Word’s ‘Style’ section.

List of abbreviations
If any abbreviations have been used, please define and list them accordingly under this heading.

End notes
Use endnotes rather than footnotes, for any additional notes and information. These appear at the end of the main text, before References. All notes should be used only where crucial clarifying information needs to be conveyed.

Acknowledgements
The Acknowledgements page mentions everyone whose contribution to the work you wish to recognise.

Funding Information (if applicable)
Should the research have received a funding grant then the grant provider and grant number should be detailed.

References/bibliography
A full references list should contain all the sources cited in the text.

Declarations and conflict of interests
Clearly state the following in the article:

• Consent from all authors for publication and their contributions
• Clearly declare any possible conflicts of interest, including but not limited to financial and non-financial competing interests. Where there are no conflicts of interests or competing interests, authors must clearly declare this under the same heading. For further information, please refer to the journal’s Editorial Policy.
• For research involving human subjects, informed consent to participate in the study must be obtained from participants (or their legal guardian).

Authors' contributions
A sentence or a short paragraph detailing the roles that each author held to contribute to the authorship of the submission. Individuals listed must fit within the definition of an author, as per the authorship guidelines.

Common errors to avoid
Archaeology International uses several stylistic idiosyncrasies that are often overlooked by authors when preparing their manuscripts. For your convenience, these are listed below. Please be aware that this list is by no means exhaustive and authors should consult the full guidelines if in doubt.

• Any supplementary material should be submitted as separate files and referenced in the main text, or designated for review purposes only (including clarifying this in your covering letter to the Editor if relevant.)
• The use of ‘et al’ should be avoided. Please refer to the Author Guidelines for further guidance on correct referencing.
• Multiple sources within single in-text citations should be separated with a semi-colon and arranged alphabetically. See the References section for further information.
• Bibliographic entries referring to online resources (web pages etc.) should always be appended with a ‘last accessed’ date in the following format: [Last accessed numeric date text month numeric year]. See the References section for further information. 
• Bibliographic entries should always be appended with a DOI link, where it is available (this applies to nearly all journal articles and more recent chapters in edited volumes). You should obtain your DOI by searching for your source using https://www.crossref.org/. This will provide you with a secure link. See the References section for further information.
  
  

ORCiD
ORCiD helps researchers record and report their work by providing researchers with a personal unique identifier that can be kept throughout their career. UCL Press journals now implement ORCiD in publications and authors are encouraged to register with ORCiD and enter their ORCiD details on submission. To register, follow the instructions on the ORCiD web pages at https://orcid.org/, or for UCL authors please visit the UCL Open Access pages http://www.ucl.ac.uk/library/open-access/ORCID. 

Submission Preparation Checklist 

As part of the submission process, authors are required to check off their submission's compliance with all of the following items, and submissions may be returned to authors that do not adhere to these guidelines.

1. The submission has not been previously published, nor is it before another journal for consideration (or an explanation has been provided in Comments to the Editor).
2. Any third-party-owned materials used have been identified with appropriate credit lines, and permission obtained from the copyright holder for both the print and the online editions of the journal.
3. The submission file is in Open Office, Microsoft Word, RTF, or Word Perfect document file format.
4. Where available, URLs and DOIs for the references have been provided.
5. The text uses a 12-point font; employs italics, rather than underlining (except with URL addresses); and all illustrations, figures, and tables are cited within the text at the appropriate points. Tables should be included within the text document, whilst figure files should be uploaded as supplementary files.
6. All figures/images have a resolution of at least 150dpi (300dpi or above preferred). Each file is no more than 20MB per file. The file must be in one of the following formats: JPG, TIFF, GIF, PNG, EPS. To retain quality, the original source file is preferred.
7. The text adheres to the stylistic and bibliographic requirements outlined in the Author Guidelines.

Journal Policies 

In addition to the UCL Press Journal’s Editorial Policies found online at https://www.uclpress.co.uk/pages/journals-editorial-policy, the following additional policies are relevant to Archaeology International:

Reproducibility

Open Data

The journal strongly encourages authors to make all data associated with their submission openly available, according to the FAIR principles (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable). This should be linked to from a Data Accessibility Statement within the submitted paper, which will be made public upon publication. . If data is not being made available with the journal publication then ideally a statement from the author should be provided within the submission to explain why. Data obtained from other sources must be appropriately credited.

Structured Methods

As the traditional Materials and Methods section often includes insufficient detail for readers to wholly assess the research process, the journal encourages authors to publish detailed descriptions of their structured methods in open, online platforms such as protocols.io. By providing a step-by-step description of the methods used in the study, the chance of reproducibility and usability increases, whilst also allowing authors to build on their own works and gain additional credit and citations.

Open Code

If research includes the use of software code, statistical analysis or algorithms then we also recommend that authors upload the code into Code Ocean, where it will be hosted on an open, cloud-based computational reproducibility platform, providing researchers and developers with an easy way to share, validate and discover code published in academic journals.

Preprint Policy

Archaeology International allows authors to deposit draft versions of their paper into a suitable preprint server, on condition that the author agrees to the below:

• The author retains copyright to the preprint and developed works from it, and is permitted to submit it to the journal.
• The author declares that a preprint is available within the cover letter presented during submission. This must include a link to the location of the preprint.
• The author acknowledges that having a preprint publicly available means that the journal cannot guarantee the anonymity of the author during the review process, even if they anonymise the submitted files.
• Should the submission be published, the authors are expected to update the information associated with the preprint version to show that a final version has been published in the journal, including the DOI linking directly to the publication.