Documenta praehistorica XL

Almost fifty years ago (1964) a group of enthusiasts around the eminent Slovenian archaeologist Professor Josip Korošec at the University of Ljubljana established a new journal entitled A Report on the Research of the Neolithic and Eneolithic in Slovenia (Poročilo o raziskovanju neolita in eneolita v Sloveniji). Profes-sor Korošec was the first editor and published the first two volumes, which were dedicated to the results of the excavations in the Ljubljansko barje region. After Professor Korošec passed away, the journal was edited by Professor Tatjana Bregant for the next twenty years (3rd to 21st Volumes). In this period, the journal became a respectable publication in Slovenia and the former Yugoslavia for topics relating to the Paleolithic, Neolithic and Eneolithic periods. A number of palaeoenvironmental and palaeoeconomic studies were also published alongside the archaeological topics.

Since the 22nd Volume, the editor has been Professor Mihael Budja, and the editorial policy has shifted from regional to global scale, and for its 25th anniversary the journal changed its title to Documenta Praehistorica. The journal started to publish selected papers that had been presented at the international conference established at that time entitled ‘The Neolithic Seminar’, which has been organised annually by the Department of Archaeology at the Faculty of Arts in Ljubljana for the past twenty years. The Seminars attracted leading researchers from the field and soon became a hub for discussing theoretical concepts, interpretative models and the results of interdisciplinary research studies and projects in Europe and Asia. A ‘Ljubljana school’ of Neolithic studies was formed within this intellectual milieu by a group of researchers who applied and developed ideas discussed at the seminars and in the journal. The papers in Documenta Praehistorica address studies that range from cultural and typological topics to archaeometry, from paleoclimate to paleoeconomy, from demography to archaeogenetics, and from symbolism to identity.

Since 1999, Documenta Praehistorica has had international members on the editorial board alongside Slovenian researchers, and since 2005 it has been enriched by a new web editor and a technical editor. With the formation of the journal’s web page in 2001 the published papers can also be accessed on-line.

Documenta Praehistorica is the only international journal to focus on interdisciplinary research based on Neolithic studies. The main strength of the journal is that it provides an opportunity for the publication of diverse approaches, theories and specific case studies, while maintaining a coherent editorial policy in addressing significant topics and studies relating to the Neolithic and Eurasian prehistory in general. Documenta Praehistorica has thus emerged as a central hub where the richness of different approaches, theories and ideas in contemporary Neolithic studies is easily recognisable.

The editorial board

Ljubljana, November 2013