About the Journal

Focus and Scope

Buried History is the annual journal of the Australian Institute of Archaeology (the Institute). It is an open access journal publishing papers subject to double-blind peer review, unless the content of the paper reveals the identity of the author(s). It does not charge article processing fees and so expects authors to format submissions according to instructions to reduce editorial workload. 

The intended readership includes both academic researchers and those with an informed interest in ancient history, archaeology and heritage, especially teachers. Articles are therefore expected to use clear English and to explain obscure terminology. Illustrations and diagrams are encouraged while discipline-specific jargon and abbreviations are discouraged.

Buried History publishes peer-reviewed papers, as well as reports, reviews and brief communications, including personal tributes. Papers should reflect the broad geographical, theoretical and methodological scope of international research, and must make an original contribution by way of material, methodology or interpretation. Reports, which may include updates on Institute research associated with either its current fieldwork or museum collections, are also published. In addition to summarising and reflecting on the content, occasion and conclusions of the piece under consideration, reviews are expected to also engage with the arguments presented. The passing of people who have made a significant contribution to archaeology in Australia or the Institute may be remembered in tributes.

The geographical scope of Buried History relates to the history and archaeology of the Mediterranean, Western Asia, and North Africa. Its subject matter also includes historiography, epigraphy, archaeology and the biblical text, and the history of archaeology and historical research, publication and exhibition in a broader geographical context, including Australia and New Zealand. Buried History continues to fulfil the Institute’s founders’ aim to draw attention to archaeology as it illuminates the culture and context of the biblical narrative.

Buried History began in 1964 as a quarterly publication reporting on biblical archaeology and activities at the Institute. During the 1990s it was a semi-annual journal and offered content on international archaeological and epigraphical subjects. In 2000 it became a refereed annual journal and has been published as an online platinum open access journal from 2023. The hard copy continues to be available.

License Agreement

All articles are published open access and are licensed under the CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 International licence agreement. Under this licence authors retain copyright, and unrestricted reuse of the content is allowed, as long as proper attribution is given to the original author of the work. Further information regarding this can be found at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/.

Copyright

Copyright of any article published by Buried History is retained by the author(s) unless specified in the article.

Journal Editorial Policies

Originality of article statement

Articles submitted to Buried History must not be under consideration for publication elsewhere and nor should they have been published in another place prior to submission. By submitting, authors are agreeing that the submission is original, except for material in the public domain or identified in the paper by citation and reference. Co-publication of an article, as agreed with another publisher and journal, may be considered at the discretion of the Editor, who may seek advice from the Editorial Board.

Buried History may accept submissions of papers that have been loaded onto preprint servers or personal websites, have been presented at conferences, or other informal communication channels. These formats will not be deemed prior publication. Authors must have retained the copyright to such postings. Authors should acknowledge any prior posting of their paper in the submission.

Authorship and author consent policy

All listed authors must have made a significant contribution to the article and have approved all its claims. Authors are required to include an authorship statement in their article after any acknowledgements to outline how each author contributed. Buried History considers authors of an article to have:

  • made substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work, or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; and
  • drafted the work or revised it critically for important intellectual content; and
  • made final approval of the version to be published; and
  • agreed to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

For suspected and incorrect authorship, Buried History will follow COPE guidelines.

Ethics approval

Buried History is committed to ensuring the highest standards of integrity in all aspects of its publication activities and expects that all authors submitting a contribution will have secured all relevant ethics or institutional review board approvals for their research. Where an ethics approval is required, a statement declaring this must be included in the article, along with the name of the ethics or institutional review board granting the approval. Where ethics or institutional review board approval has been waived, a statement declaring this must be included in the article, along with the name of the ethics or institutional review board granting the waiver status.

Consent for publication

Authors of all articles involving human subjects, including any images, videos, and any other personal and identifiable information must have secured informed consent to participate in the study and to publication before submitting to Buried History, and a statement declaring this must be included in the submission. Authors also declare that by submitting to Buried History details of ethical approvals will be made freely available to the Editor(s) upon request.

Peer review

All submissions to Buried History are initially assessed by an Editor to determine if they meet the scope and aims of the journal. Submitted papers considered suitable for peer review are assigned to two or more independent experts, who assess the article for clarity, validity and sound methodology.

Authors may be invited to recommend, or ask for the exclusion of, specific individuals from the peer-review process. The journal does not guarantee to use these suggestions. All reviewers must be independent from the submission and must declare all competing interests.

Buried History operates a double-blind peer-review process, meaning that authors and reviewers remain anonymous for the review process. A version of the paper without author identification must be submitted. The review period is expected to take about four to eight weeks, although this may vary depending on reviewer availability. Where author(s) are apparent from the content of the paper, the review will effectively be an anonymous reviewer review. After completing their review, reviewers may make themselves known to the authors with the agreement of the Editor. 

Reviewers are asked to recommend the paper be accepted as written, or with minor or major revisions, or be rejected, and to provide formative feedback, especially if a paper is deemed unsuitable for publication in the journal. Based on the reviewer reports, the Editor will decide about publication. Overall editorial responsibility rests with the journal’s Editor, who is supported by an expert, international Editorial Board.

Reviewer policy

Reviewers are required to declare any conflicts of interests and competing interests when invited to review a paper. Should conflicts of interests and competing interests become apparent during the review, reviewers must declare any and all conflicts of interests and competing interests when returning their review for the Editor’s consideration. After receiving advice from the Editorial Board, the Editor may decide to reject a review because of any conflicts of interest and the reviewer will be informed of this decision. The Editor’s decision is final.

Editor policy

Editorial staff of Buried History have the responsibility to establish and maintain guidelines for selecting and accepting articles submitted for publication that are ethically rigorous. The Buried History Editorial Board have responsibility to ensure the independence of the Editors and provide agreed-upon support, so that the quality of publications is not compromised.

Editors must declare any and all conflicts of interests and competing interests when assessing an article. Where an Editor cannot be involved with a submission due to a competing or conflicting interest, another Editor or Editorial Board member will be assigned in place to manage the peer review process of the submission and make acceptance decisions for publication. 

When members of the Buried History Editorial team and Board submit their own papers to the journal, the authors will be removed from all editorial tasks for that paper and another member of the team will be responsible for overseeing peer review. Any competing interest must also be acknowledged within the submission and any resulting publication.

Editorial Board

The Editorial Board (the Board) will provide scientific and scholarly input, oversight, contacts and moral support to Buried History. The Board shall comprise people who possess subject expertise across the spectrum of Buried History’s aims and scope, and who are committed to open access, data sharing and innovation in scientific and scholarly publishing.

The Editorial Board will preserve and enhance Buried History’s reputation as a trusted source of information in any way possible, including:

  • Advising on appropriate reviewers,
  • Reviewing manuscripts and participating in peer review where appropriate,
  • Demonstrating confidentiality and objectivity regarding the manuscripts and the peer review process,
  • Promoting the journal to their peers, colleagues and students, with the aim of growing the publication's community of authors and readers,
  • Encouraging students and colleagues to read and contribute,
  • Supporting the journal by contributing original research content where applicable,
  • Offering critiques and advice to the journal, drawing upon their particular expertise,
  • Acting as Editor for special issues, such as thematic series, where conflicts of interest may exist, and
  • Fostering this positive cultural climate for all authors, reviewers, users and staff of Buried History, to discuss, debate and encourage a critical thinking to real world problems with the aim of benefitting humanity.

Competing interests

For Buried History a conflict or competing interest can occur when personal interests, personal relationships or duties to others compete with obligations, and are likely to be compromised, or may appear to be compromised, by personal gain or gain to immediate family. Authors must declare any and all conflicts of interest and competing interests that may relate to the submitted article, including all financial and non-financial competing interests. This must be stated in the article after the main text and acknowledgements, under the heading ‘Competing interests’. Where there are no conflicts of interests or competing interests, authors must clearly declare this under the same heading. The Editor may decide to reject a submission after considering any and all conflicts of interest and the reviewer will be informed of this decision. The Editor’s decision is final.

Textual overlap and suspected plagiarism

All authors are responsible for the content written and published in their articles. In cases where unacceptable textual overlap and suspected plagiarism is found, Buried History Editors will follow COPE’s guidelines. Editors also have access to use iThenticate plagiarism detection software.

Buried History defines plagiarism as the presentation of another person’s thoughts or words or artefacts or software as their own. Any quotation from another person’s published or unpublished works must be clearly identified as such by correct citation and referencing.

Self-plagiarism is defined as the presentation of a person’s own thoughts or words or artefacts or software where it has been previously published as a new publication, without clear identification as such by correct citation and referencing. 

Buried History Editors make every effort to ensure that published content does not infringe any person’s rights, or applicable laws. To avoid such cases and for best practice, authors should be transparent and ensure proper and correct referencing and citation.

Article 

Buried History lodges all content, indexes, and metadata in an open access commercial repository to ensure article permanency as far as possible. Authors may deposit their published articles in selected repositories (also known as self-archiving), but must ensure appropriate credits are given and reference the CC-BY licence it was originally published under. Buried History would prefer that authors link to the paper’s URL in the bhjournal.au repository.

Corrections and retractions

When corrections and retractions are necessary to maintain the integrity of published content, Buried History will publish erratum, corrigendum, addendum and retraction articles, but will not make alterations to the version of record initially published, other than to provide a URL link to the erratum, corrigendum, addendum or retraction article. Buried History and Editors will follow COPE guidelines where corrections and retractions may be required.

Misconduct and grievance procedure

In the event of any suspected allegations of publication and/or research misconduct, Buried History Editors will follow COPE guidelines. This can result in Buried History Editors contacting the author’s institution, raising concern over findings, and can lead to sharing article and submission information to other third parties, including but not limited to: author(s); institution(s); ethics committee(s); other journals and publishers.

Research misconduct 

Any research that involves humans, animals or plants, must have been carried out within the appropriate ethical framework, as above. Should research submitted to Buried History be suspected of not having taken place within an appropriate ethical framework, the Editors may reject the article and inform the author’s institution and any other third parties where applicable. In addition, where misconduct has been proven, Buried History will follow COPE retraction guidelines.

Publication misconduct

In the event of any suspected allegations of publication misconduct concerning any submission or publication, Buried History will follow COPE guidelines.

Appeals and complaints

Buried History follows the COPE code of conduct when dealing with any appeals and complaints. In the first instance, contact should be made with the Editorial office and Editor. Further information including contact information can be found in the Buried History information page.

Advertising policy

Buried History does not currently place any advertising on its webpage or in the journal.