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VI/2/2015
INTERDISCIPLINARIA ARCHAEOLOGICA
NATURAL SCIENCES IN ARCHAEOLOGY
homepage: http://www.iansa.eu
Editorial IANSA 2/2015
The IANSA Journal goes on… (2010–2015)
Ondřej Mlejnek
Welcome to the second issue of IANSA for 2015. It’s
been fve years since we started to publish this journal, so
this anniversary deserves a little bit of a look back from
whence we came. In the beginning few people believed that
we could successively run an English-language, scientifc,
open-access, archaeological journal in central Europe. There
were many objections, such as: it’s not possible to receive
the number of submissions necessary for each issue, because
if someone has a high-quality paper, written in English, he
would rather send it to some American or West European
international journal with a high impact factor. Or: it’s not
possible to get money for this project when there is a general
lack of any in science. However, fve years later – and we
are still here! Since that time we have published about
82 scientifc papers and many editorials, book reviews and
obituaries, in a total of eleven issues. We have launched
an international Advisory Board composed of highly-
respected scholars from fve different countries. Authors can
communicate with editors via our online editorial system -
which has been upgraded just recently. And, what’s more,
we have been enlisted in many important journal databases,
such as: Scopus, DOAJ (Databases of Open Access
Journals), Czech National Databases of Scientifc Journals,
and Ulrich’s Periodicals Directory. Next year we would like
to send in our application for the Web of Science. We hope
we will be able to fulfl our main aim: that of presenting
the results of the cooperation between central and eastern
European archaeologists and natural scientists at least over
the next fve years, but we hope for much longer than that.
In this issue you can fnd a total of fve scientifc papers,
two thematic reviews, a book review and also, as usual, a
back-story section. Lenka Varazinová Suková
et al.
have
tried to trace post-depositional processes at the Mesolithic
site of Sfnx in Jebel Sabaloka (Sudan) and on the basis
of their results they have suggested alternative methods of
excavation at these kinds of sites. Anna Maria Mercuri
et al.
have documented a climate development on the edges of the
Sahara Desert in the Early and Middle Holocene relating
the examples of the Jefara Plain in Libya and Gobero Lake
in Niger. As proxy data, results of palynological analyses
were used and compared with the archaeological evidence.
Jaromír Beneš
et al.
describe the results of the excavation of
the Neolithic longhouse number 8 in Hrdlovka (northwest
Bohemia). This paper contains also a 3-D reconstruction of
this house, which is available in the electronic version of our
journal. David Parma
et al.
publish a case study based on
the excavation in the inundation zone of the Svratka River
in Brno-Přízřenice (South Moravia). A 50-cm-thick dark
horizon representing so-called “dark earth” was unearthed in
a section. This horizon, dated to a period from the Neolithic
to the Bronze Age, was analyzed by pedological and
micromorphological methods and the results are published
in this paper.
In a frst thematic review, Peter Poschlod describes the
changes of climate in central Europe during the Holocene and
their impact on the man-made landscape, habitat and species
diversity through time. Michal Preusz
et al.
present in a
second thematic review the conclusions on fndings of exotic
spices at archaeological sites dated to the Middle Ages and
Early Modern Age in the Czech Republic. Archaeobotanical
data are compared with written sources and thus a general
description of the use of exotic spices during this time is
presented in this paper. In the book reviews section, Petra
Spěváčková has reviewed an anthropological publication by
Simon Hillson, published by Cambridge University Press,
with the title “Tooth Development in Human Evolution and
Bioarchaeology”. Finally, the Look into a Region (Back-
story) section is this time devoted to the Czech and Slovak
chapter of the “Computer Applications and Quantitative
Methods in Archaeology” international organization.
Ladislav Šmejda describes a history of digital archaeology in
the Czech Republic and Slovakia and also presents the main
research directions explored so far, as well as discussing the
potential for future progress in this feld of archaeology.
Volume VI ● Issue 2/2015 ● Pages 129–130
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IANSA 2015 ● VI/2 ● 129–130
Ondřej Mlejnek: The IANSA Journal goes on… (2010–2015)
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As you can see, the contents of this general issue is really
rich and varied and we wish you pleasant reading. You can
also look forward to the next issue of our journal, which
will be devoted to the Migration Period and to the recently
excavated burial site in Prague – Zličín that has been dated
back to the ffth century AD.