The Society for the American Journal of Archaeology

My first encounter with the AJA was as an undergraduate, and I immediately thought of field archaeology as a career. Instead, I have stewarded the archaeological collection and archives of the Yale-French excavations at Dura-Europos. As a curator, I rely on the AJA for authoritative information and measured interpretation across a broad range of current scholarship. As a member of the Society for the AJA, I gladly support this vital publication and its future.

Throughout my career, the AJA has played a major role in my understanding of Mediterranean and Near Eastern archaeology. The scholarship is top-notch—sophisticated, deep, important, and innovative. To study its pages is to see the history of the field and to encounter its central topics, methods, theories, and debates. I am pleased to support the journal, which remains a leading forum for archaeological research among a global community of scholars.

Among the more respected archaeological journals in the world, the AJA is known for the range of its articles and reviews, and its disciplinary scope. Clear presentation of evidence, accuracy, and reasoned argument are all hallmarks of this preeminent international journal. I am pleased to have been able to support it for many years, and I urge others to do likewise.

The American Journal of Archaeology is quite simply the leading archaeological journal in the English-speaking world. No other publication in Old World archaeology, material culture, and the history of ancient art comes close. Its high peer-review, editing, and production standards, range, and top-quality articles and book reviews are both exemplary and literally peerless. To keep up, one reads the AJA. It's that simple.

As a volunteer archaeologist, I read the American Journal of Archaeology to learn more about how archaeologists define the questions they want to answer and the methods they use to address them. The AJA is a trusted source of information about changes that are occurring in the practice of archaeology, including greater reliance on interdisciplinary approaches to interpreting finds. The exhibit reviews look critically at how museums can best engage with the public to broaden understanding of, and support for, archaeology’s contributions to our world.

Whether you read it online or in print, the American Journal of Archaeology is an essential item for the archaeologist’s toolkit. I began subscribing as an undergraduate and still look forward to every new issue; it keeps me au courant with important and timely research. Being a member of the Society for the AJA is a small payback for decades of stimulating reading.

As a life member of the Archaeological Institute of America I am pleased to support our publishing efforts by also being a member of the Society for the American Journal of Archaeology. It has been an honor for my research colleagues and me to disseminate the work of the Pompeii Forum Project through the pages of the AJA.

The AJA has been a staple of my scholarly life since graduate school. Its articles and reviews epitomize professional standards of scholarship and fieldwork, setting a high bar for scholars worldwide. I am proud to be a member of the Society for the American Journal of Archaeology and, through the Society, to help in a small way to ensure the journal’s publication well into the future.

I first subscribed to the AJA almost 30 years ago. It was at the time the flagship journal of Mediterranean and Near Eastern archaeology; it still is. The impact of the journal has been immense, and as an author, reviewer, and a member of the Society for the AJA, I feel privileged to have been a small part of its continued success.

I have used the AJA to start my publishing career, to mark significant turning points in my early development as a scholar, and, as a senior scholar, to support young and developing scholars as they make their opinions of cutting-edge scholarship known.

The ultimate goal of archaeology is not digging up ancient remains but making that material accessible to others through publication in journals such as the AJA. I am a member of the Society for the AJA because I consider it to be the premier journal for the fields of classical and Mediterranean archaeology.

I am proud that, as a member of the Society for the AJA, I have been able to help our journal in becoming what it is today—one of the most distinguished archaeological journals in the world. It is indeed difficult to imagine the field of Mediterranean and Near Eastern archaeology without it.