Editorial Process and Instructions for Contributors

If you are interested in submitting to this journal, please read the Aims and Scope and the Publication Ethics sections. Once you decide to submit your article, please read through and comply with the Guidelines for Contributors. Should you have any queries, consult the Editorial Team.

Submission is tantamount to stating by the author the originality of his/her work.

All submissions should be made online through the Editors Panel. Authors (at least the primary or corresponding author in the case of multi-author texts) should use their account, if they have one, or register as a new user, then select the journal and submit the manuscript and related materials by following the instructions. In special cases, the Editorial team may decide to accept a submission via traditional e-mail communication.

IMPORTANT: We pride ourselves on our editorial processing of both text and images. Therefore, our submission guidelines are broader than most and we kindly request source material for processing in some cases.

Instructions for uploading files

Manuscript files: Please upload in .doc or .docx format. A complementary .pdf file is welcome, especially if fonts or other special marks are used, for editorial processing only. All other textual material should be in .doc or .docx format, tables may be submitted as Word or Excel files.

For detailed instructions of text and illustration preparation, see the guidelines below.

Technical preparation of the text files:

Manuscripts should be 1.5-spaced, margins equal to 2.5 cm, no full justification. The following order should be kept: title, abstract, keywords, text with notes (footnotes and endnotes accepted), reference list (including abbreviations, if used), figure and table captions. Please note that we use an author-date referencing system: footnotes are discouraged and should be kept to a minimum; they are to be used for providing additional information, not for bibliographical references, which appear in parentheses in the body of the text.

The preferred font for all textual materials is Times New Roman. If additional fonts are required, they must be Unicode-compliant; please upload fonts that you wish the editors to consider and, generally, consult with the editors prior to submission of the manuscript.

A two-level heading hierarchy of the article is recommended. Use titles for all sections. Level one titles should be in capital bold letters (TITLE), level two for subdivisions in lowercase bold letters (Title). Any lists (bulleted or not) should be indented. Transcriptions and translations should be separated by a line and indented on both sides; italics should be used.

There should be no identifying material contained in the manuscript or supporting materials, in order to facilitate the double-blind review process that requires manuscripts to be sent out anonymously for peer review. The author’s name, professional standing and affiliation, ORCID number (if available), and e-mail address, as well as the same for co-author(s) will be requested separately as part of the online submission process.

Acknowledgments (including financing and institutional partners), should be submitted as a separate file, to be added to the manuscript after the review stage. If image credits reveal the authors’ identity, they should be kept out of the anonymized manuscript. In such a case, a list of captions with the credits should be submitted as a separate file. Figure captions should include proper acknowledgment of the author and copyright owner, as well as the authorship of amendments made to the images. These should be written out for each illustration and table.

The abstract should focus on the primary conclusion of the article, mentioning methodology and sources as required; it is good practice to contain references to all your keywords in the context of the argument presented in the article. Please do not exceed about 200 words (500–1000 characters with spaces).

Please provide 4–8 keywords.

Figure files

Please upload:
– photo files (B&W and color) in at least 300 dpi, .jpeg, .tiff or .png format (for excavation documentation we welcome original photo camera files in .raw or similar formats).
– scanned documentation (photo negatives, ink drawings, etc.) as .tiff files, scanned as RGB (if colored) or GREYSCALE (if black and white); BITMAP mode is not suitable. Slides must be scanned at a resolution of 2400 dpi and ink drawings at min. 1200 dpi.
– digital illustrations (plans, maps, drawings of artifacts, etc.) in the original .cdr or .ai format (including Autocad and Archicad files), as well as in a .pdf or .jpg format for review purposes, editorial processing and comparison.

For more on image submission standards, see below.

Preliminary Assessment

Manuscripts submitted to the Journal are evaluated on their academic merit and significant contribution to the field, assessing their scientific reliability and clarity of presentation. The Chief Editor makes decisions concerning matter relevance, consulting as needed with members of the Editorial Board and Advisory Committee.

All submissions are first evaluated by qualified English-language editors and approved for peer evaluation. Texts not up to standard are returned to authors for improvement with a detailed list of issues to address and an invitation to resubmit for another evaluation. At PAM we consider this pre-stage evaluation extremely important as we respect the time and effort that our reviewers put into evaluating papers for publication in the journal.

Review

Each submission is subjected to peer review (two independent Reviewers, double-blind; see reviewing procedures). In case of two conflicting assessments, a third review is solicited.

The Authors receive feedback in the form of the anonymous review files and are expected to provide a revised version of the manuscript addressing the issues indicated. If revisions are suggested by the reviewers, the editorial decision to accept the manuscript is made following assessment of the revised submission. The Editors retain the right to reject the submission if the revision is inadequate.

Editorial Revision

The Editors request and/or provide extensive editing, copyediting, and language revision to aid the Authors in meeting the journal’s goals of clarity of presentation and language. All manuscripts accepted by the Editors for further consideration undergo editorial and language editing. The process, developed by the journal in response to over a quarter of a century of experience in publishing academic texts in English frequently written by non-native English speakers, ensures language correctness in terms of grammar and style, as well as adherence to international standards of content structure for scientific academic texts in the humanities and social sciences.

The corrected manuscript with questions and suggestions from the Editors is sent back to the Authors for approval and discussion in two editing rounds.

The final decision regarding acceptance is always with the Editors.

Manuscript Acceptance and License Agreement

A manuscript is considered accepted for publication once it has passed review by the Editors and Editorial Board, been successfully peer-reviewed, and a publication agreement has been signed by all contributing authors.

The agreement will be sent to the corresponding author by e-mail following acceptance of the final draft (typically with the first proofs) and should be returned signed forthwith to pam.pcma@uw.edu.pl.

See a draft of the agreement:

Proofs

Following the review and editing stages, the final versions of the manuscript and images are sent to typesetting. At first proofs stage, a .pdf copy of the page proofs is sent to the author for checking and corrections. In the case of multi-author texts, the primary (or corresponding) author is responsible for making sure that all corrections are returned and (s)he accepts the proof. Changes at this stage should be limited to the correction of typographical and factual errors. The .pdf file with corrections (alternatively, a list of errors to be corrected) should be returned within 10 working days of receipt of the first proofs. Otherwise, it will be assumed that the proofs have been approved as is.

The second proofs are sent to the (corresponding) author if requested on return of the first proofs. At this stage, the corrections must be limited to critical ones. They are to be returned within 5 working days from receipt. Otherwise, it will be assumed that the proofs have been approved without further changes.

Publication and Distribution

Articles are published online in the “ahead-of-print” mode independently and assembled into a volume in December. The issue with its own Table of Contents is made available online on the journal’s website.
The paper version is printed once a year (following assembly of the online version in December). It has a limited distribution, mainly to academic libraries and research institutions, through a worldwide book exchange program run by the PCMA UW. Copies may be acquired from the publisher, University of Warsaw Press.

Articles are distributed free of charge, immediately upon publication of the annual volume of the journal. Articles from the current issue and back issues (starting from volume 24/1) are posted on the journal website pam-journal.pl. From volume 24 all articles receive DOI identification.

Journal content can also be downloaded freely from: www.pcma.uw.edu.pl/en/publications; www.ceeol.com; www.bazhum.muzhp.pl; DOAJ; Scopus.

Contributing authors receive a PDF copy of their contribution once it has been published. Authors are encouraged to disseminate their work, in the form of these files or as links to the website, for academic, non-commercial purposes (academic media, institutional repositories, and the like).

Manuscript Turnaround and Publication Schedule

The PAM journal is released annually in December. The annual volume always consists of the regular issue containing current submissions. Additionally, one or more special, thematic issues co-edited by guest editors are released as fascicles of the same volume. In some years, only the regular issue appears and no thematic issues are produced. Articles are first published online independently on a rolling “ahead-of-print” basis and are collected into issues in December, when the volume is made available online with its own Table of Contents on the journal’s website. A limited print run is released once a year after the online version is assembled.

Ideally, the publication process follows this schedule:

4 weeks from submission – decision to proceed with the reviewing process (involves formal acceptance, technical review, Q&A sessions with the relevant Editors).
4 to 8 weeks – reviewing stage including review and editorial processing, terminating in a comprehensive evaluation sent to Authors from the Chief Editor.
4 to 6 weeks – copyediting, language correction and bibliographic editing
8 weeks – layout, proofs, production, terminating in an “Ahead of print” presentation on the journal’s repository.
Average manuscript turnaround time: 24 weeks.

Author Guidelines

Detailed instructions concerning preparation of text, images and references are provided below.

Text

LANGUAGE. We accept texts written in English (standard American English conventions preferred), French and German; the editors provide English language editing, but reserve the right not to accept texts that need major revision and editing.

AFFILIATION AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS. Authors are requested to state their affiliation and contact information as per publication time. For fieldwork reports, please state affiliation both as per publication time and when the described research took place. Expedition directors are requested to list the function and affiliation for all team members (as a separate list); please consult the editors regarding this item.

Expedition and project directors, as well as individual authors, are reminded to include, in the form of a separate paragraph, information on sponsoring institutions financing their research and local partners (archaeological authorities, museums, universities, etc.), if applicable.

QUOTATIONS. Please use quotation marks in the following form: “ and ”. In English, both parts of the quotation marks should be upper index, e.g. “word”. Please do NOT use inverted commas/apostrophes as quotation marks.

Brief quotes do not need to be italicized; longer quotations will be set as a separate paragraph and indented.

ITALICS. To be used for book titles, foreign (that is non-English) words not subsumed into the English language (a tricky issue at best), e.g. in situ, Veneridae, and transliterations. Common abbreviations, even those of Latin origin, should not be italicized, for example: cf., etc., et al.

TRANSLITERATION AND TRANSLATION OF FOREIGN TEXTS. Transliterations and translations of inscriptions etc., that are not a part of a sentence in the text, should be given in italics, in a separate, indented paragraph, e.g.:
       Ana atta lakumma Utunapisztim;
      Minatuka ul szana, kima jatima atta,
      U atta ul szana, kima jatima atta.

PLACE-NAMES. For unfamiliar names use diacritics. Arabic names are written without following the consonant assimilation rule when Latinized in Latin-spelled languages, e.g. al-Tafila instead of at-Tafila, Kom el-Dikka and not Kom ed-Dikka. Exceptions can be made for time-approved place-names that have come to designate archaeological cultures or periods, e.g., Umm an-Nar.

NUMBERS. Cardinal numbers from one to ten should be spelled out and figures be used for larger numbers. Figures should be used in series and in mathematical, technical, scientific, or statistical usage. This includes measures of distance, volume, area, etc. The abbreviations of such measures are not followed by periods (e.g. 5 km, not 5 km.). Ordinal numbers should not be superscripted: 1st, 2nd, etc. Write out common fractions.
For percent and degrees, use standard symbols (% and º).
Use Arabic numbers in all figural references.

SIZES. Write either e.g. 2 m x 3 m or 2 m by 3 m; please be consistent in your choice throughout the whole text.
Sizes of structures are given in meters, e.g. 8.80 m, 0.50 m, usually rounded to two decimal places.
Sizes of artifacts are given in centimeters, e.g. 5 cm, 0.55 cm, etc.
Keep in mind that decimal fractions should be spelled with a dot, rather than a comma, e.g. 1.55 cm.

COMPASS POINTS. Write out compass points, e.g. northwest(ern) corner, south(ern) extension, east-west wall.

INDENTED LISTS. Please avoid automatically bulleted or numbered lists. Number or bullet them by hand.

HISTORICAL AND ARCHEOLOGICAL DATES. For centuries and millennia, use Arabic numbers, e.g. 2nd millennium.
Words: century, millennium, etc. should not be capitalized.

ABBREVIATIONS: BC, AD, BP, bc, bp should be spelled without periods. Consistency is the overriding rule.
When mentioning halves or quarters of centuries, millennia, etc., write the first part in full, then use a number for the century/millennium, e.g. second half of the 3rd century BC.
For time spans, such as dates of research, use the following formula: 9 May–25 June 2009.

RADIOCARBON DATES. Include the laboratory code, sample number, and relevant publication information. Uncalibrated ages should be expressed as years BP, calibrated ages as calBP, calAD and calBC. The most recent available international calibration curve should be used when citing calibrated dates. Include the name and version number of the computer program used to calibrate the dates, as well as the website address of the program.

ARCHAEOLOGICAL TERMS. All archaeological terms, like stratum, locus, room, level, phase, are written out and capitalized when preceding a specific reference.

ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL PERIODS. Write out archaeological time periods when they stand alone, e.g. Late Bronze Age, but abbreviate when they are followed by a specific subdivision, e.g. LBA II. Be consistent.
The word “period” following the name of the historical period should not be capitalized.
When citing archaeological periods, give time ranges as per your argument; this may be within the text at the first reference, or as a textual footnote.
The numbers of the Egyptian Dynasties should be written out: Eighteenth Dynasty, Twenty-first Dynasty, etc.

ABBREVIATIONS. Use standard abbreviations consistently.
Figures: abbreviated as Fig. (singular) and Figs (plural); please note the plural form has no full stop at the end.
Number: abbreviated as no. (singular) and nos (plural); please note the plural form has no full stop at the end.
Editor: abbreviated as ed. (singular) and eds (plural); please note the plural form has no full stop at the end.
Avoid using c. or ca.; write “about” or “approximately” instead.

References and Reference list

CITATIONS AND NOTES. Publications that have influenced the content of the author’s work should be cited following the author–date referencing system in the text as well as footnotes. Text citations (in parentheses) are incorporated into the text body. Works are cited by the author’s last name and year of publication, followed by a colon (:), page number (without the preceding abbreviation “p.”), plate, figure or table number preceded by the proper abbreviation, capitalized (Fig., Pl., but Table), e.g. (Smith 2008: 15), (Smith 2009: 72–74, Fig. 4), (Smith forthcoming). There is no space after the colon in figure or plate references, e.g. (Kowalski 1939: Fig. 12:23a,b,c).

For publications with more than three authors, please give the first name followed by “et al.” (not italicized), e.g., Torkaski et al. 2013.

References to more than one publication in a single parenthesis are separated by semi-colons, e.g. (Sarnowski, Kubińska, and Toma 2000; Wesson and Teller 1909: 100). Please arrange references by dates from oldest to youngest.

Page ranges follow the style illustrated here (also for citation of numbered items): 150–154, Pl. 32:3–9; always write out the full numbers. Please do not use f. or ff.

Number notes sequentially in the text using superscript numbers. Citations within the notes follow the same rules as applied to the body of the text.

A comprehensive list of references to all works cited in the article (including those in figure captions) should be provided at the end of the article (under the heading “References”). Do not include publications that you used preparing the article, but did not cite. Include items that are “forthcoming” (scheduled publication, publisher known) and “in preparation” (only in justified circumstances). A notation of “personal communication” may be included in the body of the text (e.g., Sara Debor, personal communication, 2018).

The end list of references uses APA style 6th edition (see here, for a handy guide).

SERIES. Give the title of the series after the title of the book, in italics all except for the number, inside parentheses, after the equal sign, e.g., (=BAR IS 1577).

CITING ENGLISH TITLES. Words that are not proper nouns (names etc.) are not capitalized either in book or in article titles (e.g., Early Makuria Research Project. The vessel assemblage from Tanqasi).

JOURNAL AND SERIES NUMBERS. Write in Arabic numerals (e.g., PAM 28, BAR IS 1577); Roman numbers are used for volume numbers of multi-volume works (e.g., Deir el-Bahari III).

ELECTRONIC SOURCES. Provide author, date, relevant title (article, journal, book, unpublished work, etc.), website address and date accessed. If a hardcopy of the cited item is available, it should be cited rather than the digital version (this applies also to PAM articles).

When citing web pages, please give the full URL and the date of access: e.g. http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2011-01/uoc-att010311.php?fb=1 (accessed: 5.05.2011). Do not cite web addresses that are no longer accessible at the time that a manuscript is submitted.

Do not provide DOI numbers in the list of references.

PAGE NUMBERS. Give inclusive page numbers of articles in journals or books.

REFERENCES TO CLASSICAL LITERATURE. Use standard abbreviations (see https://oxfordre.com/classics/page/abbreviation-list/) in the text. These should be written out in a separate list at the beginning of the reference list, indicating the edition used.

BIBLIOGRAPHIC ABBREVIATIONS. Wherever possible, please abbreviate the names of journals and series, etc.; please, list the full titles of the items you have abbreviated at the end of your reference list; e.g., AJA – American Journal of Archaeology, BAR IS – British Archaeological Reports International Series.

TRANSLITERATION. All titles appearing in the reference list must be transliterated into the Latin alphabet using ISO standards. Use ISO 9 (e.g., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_9) for the Cyrillic and ISO 233 (e.g., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_233) for the Arabic script.

TRANSLATIONS OF FOREIGN BOOKS: when citing, please add information on the original edition’s title and year of publication: e.g. Author (year of publication of the cited translation). Title [original title, translator]. Place of publication: Publisher. English translations of titles are requested for languages other than French, German, Italian, and Spanish.

Linking to Digital Content

PAM Authors are encouraged to store and share their research data online as supplementary open content and to refer to existing datasets in repositories or databases. The journal offers an opportunity to link to digital content in a number of ways:

with stable numeric identifiers within the text, with live links to stable URIs;
with traditional references in the Author-Date format.

Citing datasets and individual files in repositories

Datasets and individual files uploaded to repositories like RepOD Repository for Open Data or Zenodo can be easily cited using the journal’s regular referencing system (Author-Date).

According to good practices of data citation, in the List of References the citations of datasets and single files should contain the following elements:

Author (Year). Title. Version, if provided. Data Repository or Archive: Global Persistent Identifier.

Example of dataset citation:

“Marble finds from the site were studied in detail (Gwiazda 2022).”

Referenced as:

Gwiazda, M. (2022). Marmora Bizantina dataset. Zenodo repository: http://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7421480

Example of citing an individual file:

“Imitations of these solidi are attested (Zapolska 2024).”

Referenced as:

Zapolska, A. (2024). Imitation of a Late Roman solidus from Northern Jutland – research paper. V1. RepOD: https://doi.org/10.18150/FGGIGX. Map_scandinavian_imitations_ver01.jpg

Conversely, repositories like RepOD enable linking datasets to related publications by entering publication titles in dedicated metadata fields. Authors are encouraged to update these fields following publication in PAM.

Citing online database and gazetteer entries

Stable, unique numeric identifiers to entities such as places, objects, texts or names are well suited for in-text citation. Use of such short IDs permits to keep the flow of the text without cluttering it with long hyperlink strings while maintaining easy access to links to the database content.

Among databases that assign such numeric identifiers are, for instance, Trismegistos, Pleiades, or the Database of Medieval Nubian Texts. For in-text citations with live links, we suggest the following guidelines:

The in-text, human-readable anchor phrase should consist of the following: abbreviated database name + type of entity + unique numeric identifier. The anchor phrase should link to the URI, which will remain live in the online version of the publication.

Examples:

“The research was conducted in the town of Larisa (TM Geo 1224) on 3–4 May 2023.”

“The temple is located at Deir el-Bahari (Pleiades ID 512504673).”

“The stela (DBMNT Text 488) is currently housed in Berlin.”

PAM publishes the live links only in the online version.

The citations in the References section should follow the examples below, providing the name of the Author and date when the entry was last edited, if available:

TM Geo 1224. Larisa. Trismegistos Places. http://www.trismegistos.org/place/1224 (accessed 06.03.2024)

Pleiades ID 512504673. Becker, J. (2022). Deir el-Bahari: a Pleiades place resource. Pleiades: A Gazetteer of Past Places. https://pleiades.stoa.org/places/512504673 (accessed 06.03.2024)

DBMNT Text 488. Database of Medieval Nubian Texts. https://www.dbmnt.uw.edu.pl/texts/488/ (accessed 06.03.2024).

SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL IN THE LCP DATABASE. In partnership with the ASOR Levantine Ceramics Project database, PAM offers Authors of papers devoted to ceramics additional digital space provided by the LCP for including supplementary, detailed descriptions and illustration material. Authors are encouraged to upload materials to the LCP and to cite LCP entries by adding the category (Ware, Petro-fabric, Vessel, Kiln/Workshop) and ID number in parentheses with a hyperlink to the stable URLs of database entries. e.g., LCP Ware ID28; LCP Petro-fabric ID28; LCP Vessel ID28; LCP Kiln/Workshop ID28. An example sentence might look like this: This ware was identified as LCP ware "Southern Phoenician Persian-Hellenistic Sandy Cooking Ware" (LCP Ware ID28).

PAM publishes the LCP links only in the online version, and the authors should submit materials to the LCP before submitting the final (reviewed and revised) versions of their manuscripts, so the link can be included in the online version of the publication.

The references to LCP entries should be included in the list of references in the following format:

LCP Ware ID28. Monnickendam-Givon, B., Berlin, A.M., Stone, P.J., and Shapiro, A. (2023). Southern Phoenician Persian-Hellenistic Sandy Cooking Ware. The Levantine Ceramics Project. https://www.levantineceramics.org/wares/28-southern-phoenician-persian-hellenistic-sandy-cooking-ware (accessed 08.05.2023)

Figures and tables

All figures must be submitted in separate files, not inserted in the text document (for instructions on preparation of illustrations, see below). The name of the file should be the number of the figure in the text.

All figures must be mentioned in the text. Ideally in the PAM layout, figures are inserted in the text as close as possible to where they have been cited. The online version is in full color (although black and white images may be preferred in the printed version for various reasons). References to figures in the text are italicized and should be set in square brackets, e.g. [Fig. 1], [Figs 3:b–c, 5:a]; additional information (e.g. “bottom”, “left” etc.) should not be in italics, e.g. [Fig. 2 top]. If a figure is mentioned more than once, subsequent references should be preceded by the word “see”, e.g. [see Fig. 2].

All tables inserted in the text should be numbered [Table 1, Table 2, etc]. Each table must be captioned and must be mentioned in the text [in square brackets]. Keep tables as simple as possible. Explanatory material should be included either in the caption or as a note appended to the table.

Figures and tables should have concise captions explaining the contents and including information on copyright holders and authors, e.g. original and processing, digitizing, etc. (Copyright holder*** Courtesy of ***/photo ***, drawing ****, digitizing ****)
Typical caption: Fig. 1. Burial in the northern chamber of Grave 1; personal ornaments visible in the bottom left corner (PCMA UW/photo J. Kowalski, processing J. Michalski). Please note that Figure (Fig.) is the only illustration designation used, and the graphic material is not differentiated into Maps, Plates, etc.

The figures you submit will be scaled down to one of the following sizes: full page – 132 mm x 175 mm; 1 column – 65 mm at the base (at min. 300 dpi resolution). Please remember this while selecting the figures, as it may influence the clarity of the illustrations (especially in the case of maps, plans, etc.).

The publisher has the right to reject any (photo)graphic material or other digital illustration material that is of insufficient quality to be reproduced in the publication according to the publisher’s own expertise and judgment. We remind you that scans of field documentation are not suitable material for publication. Also, figures (photos, drawings, etc.) inserted in a text document are not of publication quality and can only serve for comparison.

Image formats and sizes

PHOTOS. Please submit original files from the photo camera in the highest available resolution (formats TIFF, JPEG, RAW, etc.).
All photos need to have a min. resolution of 300 dpi and min. size at the base (at 1:1): 132 mm (full page) or 65 mm (1 column). The max. height of figures is 175 mm.

SCANS. Slides must be scanned at a resolution of 2400 dpi and saved as TIFF files. Ink drawings etc. must be scanned at 1200 dpi resolution, as RGB (if colored) or GREYSCALE (if black and white); BITMAP mode is not suitable.

DRAWINGS. All digital illustrations (plans, maps, drawings of artifacts, etc.) should be sent as appropriate graphics software files: .cdr or .ai; we prefer illustrations made in AUTOCAD or ARCHICAD to be submitted as .cdr or .ai files. Also accepted are .pdf files made for publication. Complementary .pdf or .jpg files of the drawings must be submitted as well got review purposes and checking accuracy. They may be suitable for publication if the standards listed below are followed.

LINE DRAWINGS. Parameters for Corel Draw and Illustrator files are as follows:
Line thickness: no less than 0.1 mm.
Color mode: CMYK, for black C=0 M=0 Y=0 K=100.
When using different shades of grey, make sure they differ by at least 10% (e.g. K=10%, K=20%, K=30%).
Arial font; size: scale 6 pt, other descriptions on plans, maps, etc: 7–9 pts.

Standard graphic elements for plans and drawings:

Online Submission