Previous articleNext article FreeEditorialA Letter from the Editors-in-ChiefEmma Blake and Robert SchonEmma Blake Search for more articles by this author and Robert Schon Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditEmailQR Code SectionsMoreAs we embark on our second year as Editors-in-Chief, we begin by announcing a significant change in the journal’s editorial policy. It concerns its temporal scope, which now covers “prehistory through late antiquity and beyond.” The full policy can be found at www.ajaonline.org/submissions/editorial-policy. This change was made after discussions with our Editorial Advisory Board, Academic Trustees, and the AIA Governing Board, who approved the expansion last spring. Our rationale for expanding the temporal coverage was threefold: first, the AJA is already publishing material from later periods in the field survey reports, museum reviews, online book reviews, and in reception and heritage studies, so excluding articles that cover postantiquity would seem inconsistent. Second, as we strive to expand the diversity of our contributors, including research on later periods may provide more possibilities for different voices to be heard in the journal. Third, the change better reflects the intellectual interests of the AIA’s membership as a whole, as many professional archaeologists work in postantique periods: certainly the sessions and papers at the AIA Annual Meetings span a greater temporal range than the journal. The primary focus of the AJA will remain the ancient world, and article submissions covering later periods will be evaluated as always with an eye toward their relevance to our readers.The deleterious effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on scholarship are beginning to wane, and we have been encouraged by the increase in manuscript submissions over the course of 2022. These manuscripts are strikingly diverse in subject matter: the current issue includes Nevett’s examination of a classical Greek house type and the reasons for its spread, Rodríguez’s study of the cultural messaging in a Roman monumental arch in southern France, and Meredith’s reconstruction of the stages of Late Roman glass production. However, articles set in certain hotspots, notably Pompeii, discussed below, reveal where work has picked up the most. One area where we are experiencing a lull in submissions is in field reports; this is perhaps unsurprising given the broad cessation of travel for fieldwork in 2020 and 2021. We hope that, as many of us returned to the field in 2022, those reports will return to our pages.In our last editorial letter (126.1) we outlined two major initiatives for the journal that we wish to pursue during our editorship. The first was to increase diversity, equity, and inclusion among our contributors, subject matter, and scholarly perspectives. Regarding our contributors, our approach is data driven: an independent (not commissioned nor conducted by us) critical assessment of the demographics of AJA contributors is scheduled to appear in print later this year,1 and the results of that study will establish a baseline for addressing this issue. In diversifying subject matter and scholarly perspectives, we have had more immediate success, because scholars themselves are moving in this direction. The modest infant burials in the ruins of a Roman villa,2 the charcoal graffiti jotted by the towns-people of Herculaneum,3 and the Late Roman falcon shrine of the Blemmyes, semi-nomadic migrants to Egypt from Nubia4—these subjects all concern people on the margins. Even in more traditional articles on elite material culture there is consideration of the unknown craftspeople making the objects for elite consumption. Pompeii is at the forefront of this scholarly shift. The town was the subject of a prominent New York Times article5 on 11 March 2022 describing exactly the new focus we had called for in last year’s editorial letter: toward the people traditionally neglected in archaeological scholarship, such as women, the poor, and the enslaved. This stimulating new research agenda is visible in the AJA, where in this issue alone we have two articles on Pompeii, each decentering elite hegemony in their own way. Beckmann’s close study of the wall painting of an enslaved boy in the prominent Villa of the Mysteries considers the experience of child servitude in the Roman world, while Notarian’s study of water fetching from Pompeiian fountains calculates the physical toll of this chore on the individuals doing this labor. These articles follow Dicus’ piece in the previous issue about refuse disposal in that city.6 We hope that scholars working in other periods and cultures will find inspiration in these approaches.The second initiative we announced a year ago was to increase our coverage of archaeological science in these pages. While recognizing that there are other journals that focus exclusively on archaeological sciences, we welcome submissions incorporating scientific methods, including bioarchaeology, ceramic petrography, paleogenetics, and more, in historically grounded studies. State of the Discipline articles are an effective means of introducing innovative and fast-evolving methods to our readers: see the archaeobotany State of the Discipline piece by Lodwick and Rowan;7 also Dodd’s State of the Discipline article on wine production in Italy,8 which online views indicate is one of the journal’s most popular recent articles. We intend to solicit more pieces of this sort—please reach out to us with suggestions.This journal would not exist if not for the wonderful team we work closely with on each issue: Managing Editor Meg Sneeringer, Production Editor Dr. Elma Sanders, and Editorial Assistant Dr. Anne Duray. In particular, last year Meg steered the journal successfully through the passage to its new platform and publishing partnership with University of Chicago Press Journals. We hope the transition has gone as seamlessly for our readers as it has for those of us on the editing and production side. In the past year we have been delighted to welcome Dr. Elizabeth Macaulay to the team, who joined us as the AJA’s Museum Reviews Editor; see her letter in the July 2022 issue.9 In addition to the reviews you see in this journal, Elizabeth directs the monthly production of the online exhibitions list and selects exhibits to highlight in the monthly AJA e-Update email—just some of the content to be found outside the printed pages of the journal.As we write this letter, Dr. David Stone is stepping down as Book Reviews Editor after six years. We truly cannot thank David enough for his magnificent service: he shepherded more than 400 reviews through to publication, and he was instrumental in shifting to the monthly rolling release of the reviews beginning in 2021. He helped us immensely as we learned the ropes of our job with the AJA, and we speak for everyone at the AJA when we say he has been a pleasure to work with and is a true professional.We close this letter by thanking our contributors, peer reviewers, and Editorial Advisory Board members, whose efforts are essential to the continued success of this journal.Notes[email protected]1 Heath-Stout, L.E., G. Erny, and D. Nakassis. “Demographic Dynamics of Publishing in the American Journal of Archaeology.” Forthcoming: AJA 2023, 127(2).2 Wilson, J.A., “Negotiating Infant Personhood in Death: Interpreting Atypical Burials in the Late Roman Infant and Child Cemetery at Poggio Gramignano (Italy),” AJA 2021, 126(2): 219–41. https://doi.org/10.1086/718295.3 DiBiasie-Sammons, J.F., “Qui carbone rudi putrique creta scribit: The Charcoal Graffiti of Herculaneum,” AJA 2021, 126(3):385–410. https://doi.org/10.1086/719699.4 Oller Guzmán, J., et al., “A Falcon Shrine at the Port of Berenike (Red Sea Coast, Egypt),” AJA 126(4):567–91. https://doi.org/10.1086/720806.5 Povoledo, E., “Pompeii Moves with the Times,” New York Times, 11 March 2022. www.nytimes.com/2022/03/11/arts/design/pompeii-italy-gabriel-zuchtreigel.html.6 Dicus, K.D., “Refuse and the Roman City: Determining the Formation Processes of Refuse Assemblages Using Statistical Measures of Heterogeneity,” AJA 126(4):543–66. https://doi.org/10.1086/720947.7 Lodwick, L., and E. Rowan, “Archaeobotanical Research in Classical Archaeology,” AJA 126(4):593–623. https://doi.org/10.1086/720897.8 Dodd, E., “The Archaeology of Wine Production in Roman and Pre-Roman Italy,” AJA 126(3):443–80. https://doi.org/10.1086/719697.9 Macaulay, E.R., “A Letter from the Museum Reviews Editor,” AJA 126(3):329–30. https://doi.org/10.1086/720862. Previous articleNext article DetailsFiguresReferencesCited by American Journal of Archaeology Volume 127, Number 1January 2023 The journal of the Archaeological Institute of America Views: 175Total views on this site Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/723404 Copyright © 2023 by the Archaeological Institute of AmericaPDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.