The Society for Historical Archaeology’s Journal: Historical Archaeology
Alasdair Brooks, DPhil – Editor (shaeditor@gmail.com)
Historical Archaeology (ISSN 0440-9213) is the scholarly journal of The Society for Historical Archaeology. The quarterly journal is a benefit with SHA membership. Historical Archaeology is published and distributed four times a year.
Historical Archaeology was first published in 1967, the year SHA was founded. The journal publishes articles and reports on historic period archaeological research, method, and theory from throughout the world. Although most contributors and reviewers are members of the society, membership is not required to submit manuscripts for publication in Historical Archaeology. Scholarship and pertinence are the determining factors in selecting contributions for publication in SHA’s journal.
Manuscripts should be submitted via the online submission portal. Citation and reference style should follow that specified in the Historical Archaeology style guide, available on this website. Potential authors are welcome to contact the Editor-in-Chief with queries before submitting a paper.
Access to the SHA Journal is through the Springer Press website. SHA members can access all publications for free by logging into the SHA website and then connecting to the Springer website from the member area – Historical Archaeology. If you are not a member, you can access the journal at Springer.
Historical Archaeology is the journal of the Society for Historical Archaeology (SHA). Published quarterly, Historical Archaeology is one of the world’s premier scholarly publications on the sites and material culture of the modern world. With an emphasis on the formation of a global economy following the exploration and colonization of the 1400s, Historical Archaeology publishes articles on cultural identity and ethnicity, the archaeological expressions of cultural landscapes, theoretical applications to historic sites, archaeological studies of architecture, the archaeology of foodways, technological and methodological approaches to the historic past, synthetic studies on a variety of topics, major site excavations, material culture, and other topics, from both terrestrial and nautical sites.
The volunteer staff of Historical Archaeology consists of the Journal Editor-in-Chief assisted by four Managing Editors, who are responsible for manuscript solicitation/selection and journal production, respectively; the Associate Editors, who handle the peer review of individual manuscripts; the Book Reviews Editor, who administers the review of printed and graphic presentations of historical archaeological research and the Memorials Editor, who is responsible for the preparation of memorials on key figures in the field. The journal is professionally copy-edited, designed and composited, printed, and distributed by the journal’s publisher, Springer.
Manuscripts for submission to Historical Archaeology must be prepared in accordance with Historical Archaeology’s Style Guide. All manuscripts are peer-reviewed (see below). The journal typically publishes two thematic issues each year and two issues of contributed articles. Thematic issues are developed by Guest Editors and present collections of papers dealing with a specific subject, culture, region, site type, theory, or technology. Contributed paper volumes include individual articles and may also include Forum collections, in which invited scholars comment on a selected article to provide alternative perspectives on a given topic. Back issues of Historical Archaeology, with a two-year moving wall, and subject matter readers are available for purchase through the Springer website. if you are a SHA member, log into the SHA website first, and then use the link from the Member’s Area.
Peer Review
Historical Archaeology’s manuscript review process is rigorous and is intended to identify the strengths and weaknesses in each submitted manuscript, determine which manuscripts are suitable for publication, and to work with the authors to improve their manuscript prior to publication.
All manuscripts are first read by the Editor-in-Chief or a Managing Editor (the ‘core editorial team’) to determine if they are ready for review. In order to be accepted for review, manuscripts must follow the Style Guide, must address archaeological subjects of interest to the members of the SHA, and must be reasonably well written. Articles that do not meet these criteria will not be accepted for review. A member of the core editorial team will notify the author or lead author (for multi-authored papers) of each manuscript to advise them whether or not a manuscript has been accepted for review. Occasionally a paper is potentially of interest but may require revisions before it can be sent out for peer review; in these cases the author(s) will be asked to ‘revise before review.’
If an article is considered ready for review, a member of the core editorial team will identify an Associate Editor who will handle the review process and will contact that Associate to verify their willingness and ability to handle the review.
The Associate Editor will review the manuscript’s content and must then identify a minimum of two, but preferably three, peer reviewers for the given subject who are willing to read and comment on the manuscript. Depending on the subject matter, this may entail contacting multiple individuals until three willing reviewers have been found.
Reviewers are asked to comment on the suitability of a manuscript for publication, the strengths and weaknesses of a manuscript’s content, and the author’s writing style and clarity. Once all of the reviews are in, the Associate Editor will determine if a manuscript is suitable for publication.
Reviews result in one of four recommended outcomes:
- a manuscript is considered acceptable for publication with minor revisions requested;
- a manuscript is considered acceptable for publication, contingent on more substantial revision;
- significant issues are noted, or the reviewers disagree on the manuscript’s potential for publication, resulting in a request for a second review draft to address these issues; or
- the manuscript is rejected.
The vast majority of articles published in Historical Archaeology fall under categories 2 and 3 above and are accepted only after a second, and sometimes third, revision and review. Authors should recognize that while strenuous, this review process produces stronger publications by requiring authors to include all relevant publications and data, alternative perspectives, clarify and support their analyses, and present more conclusive results.
The timeline for manuscript review varies. In general, the Journal Editor will attempt to read and either accept a manuscript for review or return it to the author within two weeks of a manuscript’s receipt. An Associate Editor will attempt to have all manuscripts out for review within four weeks of receiving a manuscript. Reviewers are asked to complete their comments and provide their reviews within six weeks; however, the Associate Editor will frequently need to remind late reviewers of the need for their comments at the end of the review period, which will delay provision of review comments to the author. Authors should thus expect to see comments between three and five months from submission of a manuscript. Manuscripts submitted in the late spring or summer months, during the winter holidays, or during the SHA’s annual meeting, can generally expect to add another one to two months to their review schedule, since historical archaeologists, including the Associate Editors, are often busiest at these times and may be in the field. It is very important to recognize that all of Historical Archaeology’s staff are volunteers whose jobs demand their time and attention as well as the journal. It is not unheard of for an Associate Editor to be sent out on an urgent field assignment two days after agreeing to handle a manuscript’s review, and for the review process to incur a delay as a result. Please be patient and professional when dealing with the Associate Editors; all have made a significant contribution of their volunteer time and efforts to assist the SHA in producing Historical Archaeology.
Once a manuscript has been accepted, it will enter the copyediting queue. The author will be contacted by a copyeditor in due course. Volume and Issue listing on the copyright is determined by the core editorial team based on the publications in hand and the schedule for journal composition. Once articles have been copyedited and designed, the Author is provided a proof for review and comment. The copy editor assembles all corrections for the article proofs and provides these to the compositor for preparation of the final print-ready journal.
Thematic Issues
Thematic issues are organized by Guest Editors, and the latter determine how the thematic issue’s peer review is accomplished. Guest Editors are encouraged to use a Round-Robin Review process, and have each draft manuscript read and commented upon by at least one other author in the volume. The article authors will then address the reviewers’ comments and the Guest Editors will submit the reviewed manuscript to the Journal Editor. The Round Robin process offers advantages for volumes dealing with a common subject matter in that it ensures that contributing authors in the volume are aware of the presentations of authors on related subjects in the same volume, ensuring better integration and internal referencing. Round Robin volumes are then given just one outside review, rather than three. The core editorial team handles the review of all thematic issues rather than assigning them to an Associate Editor. Reviewed thematic volumes can take longer to review, given the number of articles each contains.
Thematic volumes should contain between 9 and 11 papers with the objective of a published page length of 116-156 pages. Guest Editors who are developing thematics out of a conference symposium should exclude papers whose results are preliminary or incomplete, as inconclusive results are not suitable for publication. Guest Editors are welcome to include invited papers in a thematic, particularly when they are aware of researchers and prospective articles that would provide a more rounded and complete thematic volume.
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