Volume 9 - Editorial: Transition

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EDITORIAL
Transition

Jaime ALMANSA SÁNCHEZ, Editor
Elena PAPAGIANNOPOULOU, Editor


Easter 2020. Being in quarantine in our respective homes due to the COVID-19 pandemic crisis, it was time to move things forward and come out of this confinement with a belated volume 9. As this editorial is being drafted during the COVID-19 outbreak, our hope in the current climate of uncertainty is that you, your loved ones, and your community are safe. 

During this past year much has changed. As far as the journal is concerned, apart from dealing with the current crisis, this past year has been quite challenging and could be described as a year of transition. Unfortunately, with this volume we say goodbye to two treasured members of the team: Amanda Erickson Harvey and Alexandra Ion. Both have provided their great services to the journal for many years, having served as an Assistant Editor and Reviews Editor respectively, and felt that it was now time to move on. Needless to say, we will miss them. Once again, we warmly thank you, Amanda and Alexandra, for all your hard work over the past 6 years. This volume is dedicated to you both, as an earnest expression of well-earned gratitude. 

Looking back, ten years have just passed since the Pre-Editorial came out. At present, our aim is to have Volume 10 ready by the end of the year, while we intend to include some surprises to celebrate the 10-year journal anniversary. Thinking forward to Volume 11, we will hopefully be back on track to be able to publish on schedule, that is by the beginning of each year, and this should also have an impact on rankings now that the journal has been indexed. Another change concerns our publisher. Not by name, but by type, becoming a fully non-for-profit organization absorbing the company to carry on with the editorial work and other projects. This is a transition period that should reinforce the journal for a brighter future offering quality open access public archaeology.

Focusing now on the current volume, we are pleased to bring you a number of papers and topics that we hope you will find useful, interesting and engaging. To begin with, this issue presents three articles: First, Bisserka Gaydarska, John Chapman, Marco Nebbia, and Stuart Johnston bring us a very interesting case from Ukraine. A 'good death': the life and times of an experimental Neolithic house and its reception in the village of Nebelivka, Co. Kirovograd, Ukraine, is a great work of experimental public archaeology in the context of a long-standing project where the community little by little becomes part of it. Using the construction/burning of a house to engage the villagers the different interests and agendas are put on the table, negotiating and outcome that would satisfy all parts. 

Next, moving on to Portugal, Mauro Correia, Gabriel R. Pereira, Gustavo Santos, and Orlando Fernandes present an experience of community involvement in the context of valorisation of two burial mounds. Towards the Public: A contribution of Public Archaeology at Serra do Carvalho, Póvoa do Lanhoso (North of Portugal), also points out the controversy of including certain practices of community involvement within contract archaeology work, thus opening an interesting debate. 

Third, a contribution from the Florida Public Archaeology Network (FPAN). Participatory Evaluation of Cultural Heritage Based Programming to Empower Communities: A Quantitative Analysis, is an interesting evaluation of six Heritage Monitoring Scouts programs in Florida, suggesting some useful tools to evaluate the actual impact of heritage programs.

This year´s Points of You comes following some rather sad news. Theresa O’Mahony passed away a few months ago and we wanted to offer a small obituary. Her work with Enabled Archaeology has been great proof of what “inclusivity” means and we really hope it continues beyond her legacy.

This volume closes with two reviews: Empowering communities through archaeology and heritage, a book by Peter G. Gould, is reviewed by Jaime Almansa Sánchez. Finally, Floor Huisman reviews Public Archaeology and Climate Change, a very interesting edited volume from the session that took place during the EAA Meeting in Glasgow in 2015.

Before closing this editorial, we would like to thank all the authors and reviewers of this volume, as well as our readers, and we hope you will all enjoy reading it. As usual, we close this editorial with our standard calls:

1.         Call for Debate: 
We welcome guest blog posts on a wide range of topics related to public archaeology as well as event reviews. You can send your posts in a Word document with image files attached to our email. We also encourage your feedback and comments, after visiting our blog, as well as discussion via our social media. If you have any specific topic in mind that you wish to write about, we are open to suggestions. Don’t forget our forums that are always open to discussion and comments.

2.         Call for Papers:
Volume 10 will be a celebratory special by invitation and is scheduled to be published in fall 2020, so we are now accepting submissions for volume 11. We wish to receive papers for our next volume as soon as possible so that there will be enough time to get things done in a timely, consistent manner. For more information about the submission procedure, please visit our website. In case you have any questions or doubts, please feel free to contact us via email.

3.         Call for Special Issue Proposals: 
We invite guest editor proposals from those who wish to discuss particular topics and areas of research that fall within the aims and scopes of the journal. Special issues provide a great opportunity to review a specific topic, examine aspects that remain unaddressed, discuss, suggest and develop novel approaches, and encourage new research models. Feel free to contact us for guidance on preparing your proposal.

4.         Call for Donations:
The philosophy of this journal—and of its editors—is to provide the widest possible access at no cost for both authors and readers. AP is—and will remain—an open-access, peer-reviewed and not-for-profit journal, thus, sustainability is always an issue. The publisher, JAS Arqueología, will continue to take care of it for as long as it exists.  The material costs of the journal are less than 100€ per year, which is affordable for the company in case donations are low, but keeping it a fully open-access and ad-free publication means its future depends on your support. So, if you find any stimulation in AP Journal, please consider a modest donation. No matter how small the amount, it can make a big difference.

At this point, we should warmly thank and express our gratitude to our donors. Should you wish to support AP Journal, you can do so either directly or indirectly, by buying a hard copy of any of the existing volumes:
•          Direct donation via PayPal on our web page.
•          Purchase of the hard copy. There is a fixed price of 10€ per copy plus shipping. Just ask us.

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