Journal of Roman Archaeology

Journal of Roman Archaeology. The Journal of Roman Archaeology is a peer-reviewed annual publication devoted to the archaeology of Ancient Rome, the Roman Republic, the Roman Empire, and related societies across the Mediterranean Sea, Europe, North Africa, and the Near East. Founded in the late 20th century, it publishes excavation reports, material studies, numismatics, epigraphy, architectural analysis, and historiographical debate engaging scholars associated with institutions such as University of Oxford, University of Cambridge, University of Michigan, University of California, Berkeley, and the British Museum. Contributions frequently intersect with research on figures and events such as Julius Caesar, Augustus, Hadrian, Constantine I, and crises including the Marcomannic Wars, the Crisis of the Third Century, and the Fall of the Western Roman Empire.

History

The journal emerged in an environment shaped by earlier outlets like American Journal of Archaeology, Britannia, Papers of the British School at Rome, Revue Archéologique, and collections from the Institute of Archaeology, Oxford. Early editors drew on networks tied to excavations at Pompeii, Herculaneum, Bath, Vindolanda, and at provincial capitals such as Trier, Leptis Magna, Carthage, and Antioch. Founding editorial practices reflected methodological shifts inspired by scholars connected to Mortimer Wheeler, Sir Ian Richmond, John Wilkes, Sheppard Frere, and later figures like Richard Hobbs and Mary Beard. Over successive decades the journal responded to intellectual movements exemplified by debates between proponents of approaches associated with Processual archaeology and advocates influenced by Hermeneutics and scholars working with sources such as the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum, the Codex Theodosianus, and the Tabula Peutingeriana.

Scope and content

The journal publishes archaeological reports, synthetic studies, and reviews covering material culture including ceramics, numismatics, epigraphy, architecture, funerary archaeology, landscapes, and urbanism. Articles analyze artefacts from sites such as Ostia Antica, Leptis Magna, Ephesus, Jerusalem, and Aphrodisias and engage with textual witnesses like Tacitus, Livy, Cassius Dio, Suetonius, and Pliny the Younger. The journal regularly features specialist work on topics linked to institutions and events such as the Roman Senate, the Praetorian Guard, the Roman road network, the Antonine Wall, the Limes Germanicus, the Battle of Actium, and provincial administration in Britannia and Dacia. Interdisciplinary contributions draw on methods developed at laboratories and projects affiliated with British School at Rome, American Academy in Rome, École Française de Rome, German Archaeological Institute, and the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.

Editorial board and publisher

The editorial board has historically included scholars appointed from universities and museums such as University College London, University of Leeds, University of Southampton, Princeton University, Yale University, University of Bologna, Sapienza University of Rome, École Normale Supérieure, and the Smithsonian Institution. Editors and board members have included well-known archaeologists and classicists connected to names like R.R.R. Smith, David Soren, Kathleen Coleman, Andrew Wilson (historian), Luca Giuliani, and Peter Richardson (archaeologist). Publishing arrangements have linked the journal to academic presses and learned societies with associations to Cambridge University Press, university departments, and excavation trusts such as the American School of Classical Studies at Athens and the Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies.

Abstracting and indexing

The journal is abstracted and indexed alongside periodicals listed in databases and services including Scopus, the Web of Science, JSTOR, Artstor, and specialized indices maintained by the British Library and national bibliographies. Its presence in indices supports discoverability for researchers working with bibliographic resources like the Oxford Bibliographies, the Thesaurus linguae Latinae, and catalogues of institutions such as the Fitzwilliam Museum and the Ashmolean Museum.

Impact and reception

The journal is cited in monographs and edited volumes produced by presses including Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press, Brill, Routledge, and Bloomsbury Academic, and in field-shaping studies by scholars at institutes such as the Institute of Classical Studies, Warburg Institute, and the British Academy. Reviews and scholarly reception have engaged with its contributions to debates on topics tied to Romanization, the Barbarian invasions, late antique transformations like the Reforms of Diocletian, and material approaches to identity in provincial contexts including Hispania Tarraconensis, Gallia Narbonensis, Mauretania Tingitana, and Pannonia. The journal’s articles have been influential in excavation reports that re-evaluate sites such as Cologne (Roman) (Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium), Silchester, and Sutri, and in methodological discussions prompted by finds associated with the Portus complex and the Hadrianic Villa.

Category:Archaeology journals