LIAISON GROUPS

Project of “ARWA Journal” Liaison Group

Archaeological Research in Western Asia (ARWA) is the annual journal of the International Association for Archaeological Research in Western and Central Asia. The aim of the journal is to promote interdisciplinary and cross-regional research on the past human groups living in the cultural zone extending from the Mediterranean Sea to the Indus Valley, linking archaeology with history, philologies, cultural anthropology, heritage studies, biology, geology and applied sciences. The journal publishes lengthy perspective papers, both solicited and unsolicited, that offer a comprehensive review of the most important current problems in the archaeology of the region and the best original research papers.

A. Types of papers

1. The length of perspective papers is between 8.000-20.000 words (flexibility in length will also be considered depending on the topic). Authors should send a two-page summary and only submit the complete paper after preliminary acceptance by the editors. When finally accepted, the papers are available online for a few months before final publication and in that time other authors may send their comments / replies that will be published together with the original perspective paper.
2. Original research papers should be no more than 8.000 words and should follow the standard format of an archaeological paper, with relatively high limit of figures / tables.

B. Editorial procedures

For perspective papers: (1) initial submission of the proposal and review of the proposal by the editors, (2) submission of the paper and single-blind peer review by 3-4 external referees, (3) discussion of the peer review output between all editors, (4) after acceptance: submission of comments / replies that should also go through (simplified) peer review, (5) final decision about the publication of the comments.

For original research papers: (1) submission and allocation of the paper to one of associated editors, (2) standard peer review procedure (at least two reviews required), (3) the editor in charge decides on rejection / acceptance of the paper, but there should be space for discussion among the editors, if warranted.

C. Launching the journal

1. Appointment of the editor-in-chief and five associate editors, with broad competence in (1) archaeological methods and theory, (2) anthropology, (3) heritage studies, (4) applied sciences, (5) bioarcheology. The Editorial Board members will be invited by the editors.
2. Negotiations with possible publishers to find the best option; after that it will be possible to define the guidelines for authors, to set up the website of the journal and to announce the call for papers / invite potential authors for two first issues. Preferentially, at least the perspective papers should be published in a golden Open Access scheme, using Creative Commons license. Estimated number of papers per volume is 2-3 perspective papers and 10-15 original research papers.