This issue of the European Journal of Archaeology contains six excellent research articles, three equally excellent reviews, and this self-indulgent editorial. As this is the final issue of EJA that I will have the privilege to edit, I am going to go a little off-piste here instead of writing one of my normal editorials.
I have been editing EJA in some form for a decade. In 2015, I joined then General Editor Robin Skeates as Deputy Editor and almost immediately fell in love with the process of journal editing and working with authors. I have had the extraordinary pleasure of learning from so many brilliant colleagues as they develop their research, and I have learned about bits of archaeology I never would have known before. I want to thank the EJA’s wonderful authors for submitting such compelling work and then working with the editorial team to present it as perfectly as possible. Your thoughtful, innovative, and insightful research is what makes this journal so readable. Getting to support you and to act as a sort of publishing midwife to your work has been nothing but joyful.
I must also thank the amazing peer reviewers who take time out of their busy schedules to read and comment on submitted work. Peer reviewing is pretty thankless: your name is intentionally obscured, you are the butt of jokes about ‘mean Reviewer 2’, and the work you review may take months to reach publication (if it does at all). Especially during the pandemic years, colleagues from around the world and across the discipline turned up to review for EJA with generosity, clarity, and collegiality. I’ve said for years, and I still believe it’s true, that the work peer reviewers do for EJA showcases the best of the European archaeology community.
Of course, I don’t work alone. The editorial team, our reviews editors Monika Baumanova and Maria Relaki and Deputy Editor Zena Kamash, are wonderful colleagues and a joy to work alongside. Moreover, the EJA editorial board is probably one of the most hardworking journal ed boards I’ve encountered. Editorial board members read every single submission and offer thoughtful comments about its fit for EJA, the best peer reviewers, and its broader intellectual insights. This journal quite literally would not function without the tireless contributions of the editorial board, and I thank every single person who has been a member through the ten years I’ve been working with EJA. Many thanks also to our publication team at Cambridge University Press—Jamie and Julia (and of course the whole marketing team too!), your contributions are entirely invisible to our readers but so so necessary. As the journal of the European Association of Archaeologists, we have close ties to the executive, and their support of and interest in EJA is a fundamental driver of its success. I have always worked extra hard to produce something worthy of EAA’s incredibly diverse and engaged membership, and so I also thank the exec for their support and the membership for their time and their interest.
Finally, the handover. As announced earlier this year, Zena Kamash will be taking over as EJA General Editor from September. She brings a wealth of experience and expertise, and an incredibly powerful ethical vision for archaeology and heritage in the twenty-first century. She will be joined by Marianne Moen (University of Oslo), who will be the new Deputy Editor and will, I’m sure, fall just as in love with working with EJA authors as I did. It’s very bittersweet to leave this journal after a decade, but I’m incredibly excited to see in what directions Zena and Marianne take it. I look forward to being a regular reader in upcoming years and to continuing to learn from and with the brilliant archaeologists who publish in EJA.
If you are interested in submitting an article on any aspect of European archaeology, or have recently published a book that you would like us to review, do please get in touch with a member of our editorial team or visit us on https://multimediafluids.uam.elogim.com/core/journals/european-journal-of-archaeology.
The Reviews team is also actively trying to increase the pool of potential book reviewers. If you would like to be considered to review for EJA, please email Monika and Maria at ejareviews@e-a-a.org and ejaassistreviews@e-a-a.org with a brief list of your topics of interest and a short CV attached. Advanced postgraduate students as well as those who have completed their PhD are able to review for EJA. Proposals to review specific books are considered, provided that they are relevant to the EJA’s mission.
