Journal of Social Archaeology
Social Archeology
The Journal of Social Archaeology promotes interdisciplinary research focused on social approaches in archaeology, opening up new debates and areas of exploration. It engages with and contributes to theoretical developments from other related disciplines such as feminism, queer theory, postcolonialism, social geography, literary theory, politics, anthropology, cognitive studies and behavioural science. It is explicitly global in outlook with temporal parameters from prehistory to recent periods. As well as promoting innovative social interpretations of the past, it also encourages an exploration of contemporary politics and heritage issues.
Interdisciplinary
The editorial board is drawn from archaeology and the social sciences and submissions should reflect that interdisciplinary engagement. Established scholars from a variety of fields are asked to comment on submissions where relevant, bringing archaeology to a wider forum in the process. The journal also engages with contemporary perspectives on antiquity, linking past and present, the local and the global.
Broad-ranging topics
The journal covers a full range of social archaeology in independent and themed issues. Relevant topics include social life; identity issues such as gender, sexuality, ethnicity, class; the body; material culture; landscape; time; aesthetics; sociopolitics; postcolonialism; representation; mortuary analysis; ritual; household studies, and social memory.
"JSA is the only journal which provides world-wide coverage of the current theoretical and political issues facing archaeology making it central to debates about the current importance of the past.” Chris Gosden, University of Oxford, UK
"Theoretical archaeology has emerged as a new and exciting topic in the discipline during the last fifteen years. The Journal of Social Archaeology promises to further discussions of the interconnections between the practice of archaeology and the diverse bodies of social theory on which its practitioners draw." Thomas C Patterson, University of California at Riverside, USA
The Journal of Social Archaeology is a fully peer reviewed international journal that promotes interdisciplinary research focused on social approaches in archaeology, opening up new debates and areas of exploration. It engages with and contributes to theoretical developments from other related disciplines such as feminism, queer theory, postcolonialism, social geography, literary theory, politics, anthropology, cognitive studies and behavioural science. It is explicitly global in outlook with temporal parameters from prehistory to recent periods. As well as promoting innovative social interpretations of the past, it also encourages an exploration of contemporary politics and heritage issues.
Interdisciplinary
The editorial board is drawn from archaeology and the social sciences and submissions should reflect that interdisciplinary engagement. Established scholars from a variety of fields are asked to comment on submissions where relevant, bringing archaeology to a wider forum in the process. The journal also engages with contemporary perspectives on antiquity, linking past and present, the local and the global.
Broad-ranging topics
The journal covers a full range of social archaeology in independent and themed issues. Relevant topics include social life; identity issues such as gender, sexuality, ethnicity, class; the body; material culture; landscape; time; aesthetics; sociopolitics; postcolonialism; representation; mortuary analysis; ritual; household studies, and social memory.
| Lynn Meskell | University of Pennsylvania, USA |
| Joshua Pollard | University of Southampton, UK |
| Annalisa Bolin | Aarhus University, Denmark |
| Rosemary Joyce | University of California, Berkeley, USA |
| Robert Preucel | Brown University, USA |
| Arjun Appadurai | New York University, USA |
| Ammar Azzouz | University of Oxford and University of Essex, UK |
| Reinhard Bernbeck | Freie Universität Berlin, Germany |
| Kimberly Bowes | University of Pennsylvania, USA |
| Mats Burström | Stockholm University, Sweden |
| Judith Butler | University of California, Berkeley, USA |
| Denis Byrne | Western Sydney University, Australia |
| Chip Colwell | SAPIENS, USA |
| Felipe Criado Boado | Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Spain |
| Kristina Douglass | Columbia University, USA |
| Justin Dunnavant | University of California--Los Angeles, USA |
| Pedro Paulo A. Funari | University of Campinas, Brazil |
| Roberta Gilchrist | University of Reading, UK |
| Chris Gosden | University of Oxford, UK |
| Martin Hall | University of Cape Town, South Africa |
| Michael Herzfeld | Harvard University, USA |
| Tim Ingold | University of Aberdeen, UK |
| Webb Keane | University of Michigan, USA |
| Paul Lane | Uppsala University, Sweden |
| Ian Lilley | University of Queensland, Australia |
| Gavin Lucas | University of Iceland, Iceland |
| Randall McGuire | Binghamton University, USA |
| Danny Miller | University College London, UK |
| Steve Mithen | University of Reading, UK |
| Lindsay M. Montgomery | University of Toronto, Canada |
| Stephanie Moser | University of Southampton, UK |
| Paul Mullins | Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, USA |
| Tim Pauketat | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA |
| Gertjan Plets | Utrecht University, Netherlands |
| Himanshu Prabha Ray | Jawaharlal Nehru University, India |
| Colin Renfrew | University of Cambridge, UK |
| Uzma Z. Rizvi | Pratt Institute, USA |
| Krish Seetah | Stanford University, USA |
| Alinah Segobye | Namibia University of Science and Technology, Namibia |
| Linda Tuhiwai Smith | Te Whare Wananga o Awanuiarangi, Whakatane, New Zealand |
| Julian Thomas | University of Manchester, UK |
| Bryan S Turner | Catholic University of Australia, Sydney |
| Mary Weismantel | Northwestern University, USA |
Manuscript Submission Guidelines: Journal of Social Archaeology
This Journal is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics
This Journal recommends that authors follow the Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals formulated by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE).
Only manuscripts of sufficient quality that meet the aims and scope of Journal of Social Archaeology will be reviewed.
There are no fees payable to submit or publish in this Journal. Open Access options are available - see section 3.3 below.
As part of the submission process you will be required to warrant that you are submitting your original work, that you have the rights in the work, that you are submitting the work for first publication in the Journal and that it is not being considered for publication elsewhere and has not already been published elsewhere, and that you have obtained and can supply all necessary permissions for the reproduction of any copyright works not owned by you.
- What do we publish?
1.1 Aims & Scope
1.2 Article types
1.3 Writing your paper - Editorial policies
2.1 Peer review policy
2.2 Authorship
2.3 Acknowledgements
2.4 Funding
2.5 Declaration of conflicting interests
2.6 Research Data - Publishing policies
3.1 Publication ethics
3.2 Contributor's publishing agreement
3.3 Open access and author archiving - Preparing your manuscript
4.1 Formatting
4.2 Artwork, figures and other graphics
4.3 Supplemental material
4.4 Reference style
4.5 English language editing services - Submitting your manuscript
5.1 Permissions
5.2 Information required for completing your submission - On acceptance and publication
6.1 Sage Production
6.2 Online First publication
6.3 Access to your published article
6.4 Promoting your article - Further information
Before submitting your manuscript to Journal of Social Archaeology, please ensure you have read the Aims & Scope.
Journal of Social Archaeology publishes original articles and some interview transcriptions.
The Sage Author Gateway has some general advice and on how to get published, plus links to further resources. Sage Author Services also offers authors a variety of ways to improve and enhance their article including English language editing, plagiarism detection, and video abstract and infographic preparation.
1.3.1 Make your article discoverable
When writing up your paper, think about how you can make it discoverable. The title, keywords and abstract are key to ensuring readers find your article through search engines such as Google. For information and guidance on how best to title your article, write your abstract and select your keywords, have a look at this page on the Gateway: How to Help Readers Find Your Article Online.
Sage does not permit the use of author-suggested (recommended) reviewers at any stage of the submission process, be that through the web-based submission system or other communication. Reviewers should be experts in their fields and should be able to provide an objective assessment of the manuscript. Our policy is that reviewers should not be assigned to a paper if:
• The reviewer is based at the same institution as any of the co-authors
• The reviewer is based at the funding body of the paper
• The author has recommended the reviewer
• The reviewer has provided a personal (e.g. Gmail/Yahoo/Hotmail) email account and an institutional email account cannot be found after performing a basic Google search (name, department and institution).
All parties who have made a substantive contribution to the article should be listed as authors. Principal authorship, authorship order, and other publication credits should be based on the relative scientific or professional contributions of the individuals involved, regardless of their status. A student is usually listed as principal author on any multiple-authored publication that substantially derives from the student’s dissertation or thesis.
Please note that AI chatbots, for example ChatGPT, should not be listed as authors. For more information see the policy on Use of ChatGPT and generative AI tools.
All contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed in an Acknowledgements section. Examples of those who might be acknowledged include a person who provided purely technical help, or a department chair who provided only general support.
2.3.1 Third party submissions
Where an individual who is not listed as an author submits a manuscript on behalf of the author(s), a statement must be included in the Acknowledgements section of the manuscript and in the accompanying cover letter. The statements must:
- Disclose this type of editorial assistance – including the individual’s name, company and level of input
- Identify any entities that paid for this assistance
- Confirm that the listed authors have authorized the submission of their manuscript via third party and approved any statements or declarations, e.g. conflicting interests, funding, etc.
Where appropriate, Sage reserves the right to deny consideration to manuscripts submitted by a third party rather than by the authors themselves.
2.3.2 Writing assistance
Individuals who provided writing assistance, e.g. from a specialist communications company, do not qualify as authors and so should be included in the Acknowledgements section. Authors must disclose any writing assistance – including the individual’s name, company and level of input – and identify the entity that paid for this assistance”).
It is not necessary to disclose use of language polishing services.
Please supply any personal acknowledgements separately to the main text to facilitate anonymous peer review.
Journal of Social Archaeology requires all authors to acknowledge their funding in a consistent fashion under a separate heading. Please visit the Funding Acknowledgements page on the Sage Journal Author Gateway to confirm the format of the acknowledgment text in the event of funding, or state that: This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.
2.5 Declaration of conflicting interests
Journal of Social Archaeology encourages authors to include a declaration of any conflicting interests and recommends you review the good practice guidelines on the Sage Journal Author Gateway.
2.6 Research Data
The journal is committed to facilitating openness, transparency and reproducibility of research, and has the following research data sharing policy. For more information, including FAQs please visit the Sage Research Data policy pages.
Subject to appropriate ethical and legal considerations, authors are encouraged to:
- share your research data in a relevant public data repository
- include a data availability statement linking to your data. If it is not possible to share your data, we encourage you to consider using the statement to explain why it cannot be shared.
- cite this data in your research
Sage is committed to upholding the integrity of the academic record. We encourage authors to refer to the Committee on Publication Ethics’ International Standards for Authors and view the Publication Ethics page on the Sage Author Gateway.
3.1.1 Plagiarism
Journal of Social Archaeology and Sage take issues of copyright infringement, plagiarism or other breaches of best practice in publication very seriously. We seek to protect the rights of our authors and we always investigate claims of plagiarism or misuse of published articles. Equally, we seek to protect the reputation of the journal against malpractice. Submitted articles may be checked with duplication-checking software. Where an article, for example, is found to have plagiarised other work or included third-party copyright material without permission or with insufficient acknowledgement, or where the authorship of the article is contested, we reserve the right to take action including, but not limited to: publishing an erratum or corrigendum (correction); retracting the article; taking up the matter with the head of department or dean of the author's institution and/or relevant academic bodies or societies; or taking appropriate legal action.
3.1.2 Prior publication
If material has been previously published it is not generally acceptable for publication in a Sage journal. However, there are certain circumstances where previously published material can be considered for publication. Please refer to the guidance on the Sage Author Gateway or if in doubt, contact the Editor at the address given below.
3.2 Contributor's publishing agreement
Before publication, Sage requires the author as the rights holder to sign a Journal Contributor’s Publishing Agreement. Sage’s Journal Contributor’s Publishing Agreement is an exclusive licence agreement which means that the author retains copyright in the work but grants Sage the sole and exclusive right and licence to publish for the full legal term of copyright. Exceptions may exist where an assignment of copyright is required or preferred by a proprietor other than Sage. In this case copyright in the work will be assigned from the author to the society. For more information please visit the Sage Author Gateway.
3.3 Open access and author archiving
Journal of Social Archaeology offers optional open access publishing via the Sage Choice programme and Open Access agreements, where authors can publish open access either discounted or free of charge depending on the agreement with Sage. Find out if your institution is participating by visiting Open Access Agreements at Sage. For more information on Open Access publishing options at Sage please visit Sage Open Access. For information on funding body compliance, and depositing your article in repositories, please visit Sage’s Author Archiving and Re-Use Guidelines and Publishing Policies.
4. Preparing your manuscript for submission
The preferred format for your manuscript is Word. LaTeX files are also accepted. Word and (La)Tex templates are available on the Manuscript Submission Guidelines page of our Author Gateway.
4.2 Artwork, figures and other graphics
For guidance on the preparation of illustrations, pictures and graphs in electronic format, please visit Sage’s Manuscript Submission Guidelines.
Figures supplied in colour will appear in colour online regardless of whether or not these illustrations are reproduced in colour in the printed version. For specifically requested colour reproduction in print, you will receive information regarding the costs from Sage after receipt of your accepted article.
This journal is able to host additional materials online (e.g. datasets, podcasts, videos, images etc) alongside the full-text of the article. For more information please refer to our guidelines on submitting supplementary files.
Journal of Social Archaeology adheres to the Sage Harvard reference style. View the Sage Harvard guidelines to ensure your manuscript conforms to this reference style. For titles of works not in English, please provide an English translation in brackets after the original.
If you use EndNote to manage references, you can download the Sage Harvard EndNote output file.
4.5 English language editing services
Authors seeking assistance with English language editing, translation, or figure and manuscript formatting to fit the journal’s specifications should consider using Sage Language Services. Visit Sage Language Services on our Journal Author Gateway for further information.
Before submitting your manuscript, please ensure you carefully read and adhere to all the guidelines and instructions to authors provided below. Manuscripts not conforming to these guidelines may be returned.
Submission of mss: Email your submission as a Word or RTF file (accompanied by submission letter) to either the US editorial office: Lynn Meskell, School of Arts & Sciences, Penn Museum, and Weitzman School of Design, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104, United States [lmeskell@sas.upenn.edu] or the UK/Europe editorial office: Joshua Pollard, Department of Archaeology, University of Southampton, University Rd, Southampton SO17 1BJ, UK [C.J.Pollard@soton.ac.uk].
Format of mss: Each manuscript should contain:
(i) title page with full title and subtitle (if any). For the purposes of anonymize refereeing, full name of each author with current affiliation and full address/phone/fax/email details plus short biographical note should be supplied on a separate sheet. Owing to the broad range of subject matter, authors are asked to specify two or more subfields or areas of inquiry to which their paper pertains and are encouraged to include the names of one or more potential referees.
(ii) abstract of 100-150 words and 5-8 key words.
(iii) main text and word count – suggested target is about 8000 words including bibliography. Footnotes should be avoided. Text to be clearly organized, with a clear hierarchy of headings and subheadings and quotations exceeding 40 words displayed, indented, in the text. Please note that the journal seeks to limit the number of figures to six per-article.
(iv) end notes, if necessary, should be signaled by superscript numbers in the main text and listed at the end of the text before the references.
Authors are encouraged to submit supplementary material (e.g. data, text, images) that could be linked to their article and accessed online.
Dual submissions are not accepted: please attach to every submission a letter confirming that all authors have agreed to the submission and that the article is not currently being considered for publication by any other journal.
Please also ensure that you have obtained any necessary permission from copyright holders for reproducing any illustrations, tables, figures or lengthy quotations previously published elsewhere. For further information including guidance on fair dealing for criticism and review, please see the Copyright and Permissions page on the Sage Author Gateway.
5.2 Information required for completing your submission
You will be asked to provide contact details and academic affiliations for all co-authors and identify who is to be the corresponding author. These details must match what appears on your manuscript. The affiliation listed in the manuscript should be the institution where the research was conducted. If an author has moved to a new institution since completing the research, the new affiliation can be included in a manuscript note at the end of the paper. At this stage please ensure you have included all the required statements and declarations and uploaded any additional supplementary files (including reporting guidelines where relevant).
6. On acceptance and publication
Your Sage Production Editor will keep you informed as to your article’s progress throughout the production process. Proofs will be made available to the corresponding author via our editing portal Sage Edit or by email, and corrections should be made directly or notified to us promptly. Authors are reminded to check their proofs carefully to confirm that all author information, including names, affiliations, sequence and contact details are correct, and that Funding and Conflict of Interest statements, if any, are accurate.
Online First allows final articles (completed and approved articles awaiting assignment to a future issue) to be published online prior to their inclusion in a journal issue, which significantly reduces the lead time between submission and publication. Visit the Sage Journals help page for more details, including how to cite Online First articles.
6.3 Access to your published article
Sage provides authors with online access to their final article.
Publication is not the end of the process! You can help disseminate your paper and ensure it is as widely read and cited as possible. The Sage Author Gateway has numerous resources to help you promote your work. Visit the Promote Your Article page on the Gateway for tips and advice.
Any correspondence, queries or additional requests for information on the manuscript submission process should be sent to the Journal of Social Archaeology editorial office as follows:
US editorial office: Lynn Meskell, School of Arts & Sciences, Penn Museum, and Weitzman School of Design, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104, United States [lmeskell@sas.upenn.edu]
UK/Europe editorial office: Joshua Pollard, Department of Archaeology & Anthropology, University of Bristol, 43 Woodland Road, Bristol BS8 1UU, UK [c.j.pollard@soton.ac.uk].