Welcome to the second issue of DJA volume 7. The most important news announced in this editorial is that from 2019 onwards we will no longer be publishing under the Taylor & Francis publishing house. For eight years we have teamed up with T&F, but all good things come to an end. From now on we will be a fully Open Access journal joining the OA journal platform at https://tidsskrift.dk, hosted by The Royal Danish Library. The good news for readers of Danish Journal of Archaeology is that there will of course no longer be any payment required to access the published articles. We certainly hope that this financial incentive will enable a wider group of readers to follow us. Furthermore, the new publishing format will comply with the increasing demands of funding bodies with regard to publishing the research they support under Open Access.
Authors and their manuscripts will be subject to very similar procedures as those used in the previous six volumes. Accordingly, before being published papers will go through a rigorous single-blind peer review, as well as a critical editorial assessment of the quality of the incoming manuscripts. Once an article has been accepted for publication, a professional proofing and lay-out will follow; and we also aim to pass on the system of rolling publication from previous volumes and therefore upload the individual articles as soon as they are finalised. All the required standard features of DOI registration, OrcID and CrossRef citation are still to be found on the new site (https://tidsskrift.dk).
The change of publishing platform is also the right time to make some changes to the editorial group. Replacing members encourages dynamic relationships and brings new networks into the team. This has been a stated objective from the beginning of our collaboration, and will continue to be an objective in the future. We are therefore pleased to welcome two additional members to the editorial team, both from the National Museum of Denmark: Lasse Sørensen, Head of the Department of Ancient Cultures of Denmark and the Mediterranean; and Thomas Grane, Research Coordinator. Previous to his current position, Lasse did research into a diverse range of topics ranging from jade axes to rock festival campsites, but focused mainly on the Mesolithic/Neolithic transition and in particular on how changes in the subsistence economy owing to the introduction of farming might have occurred. As a classically educated archaeologist, Thomas has firm roots in Roman studies – especially research concerning contact and exchange between Rome and its Germanic neighbours, particularly in the North during the Roman Iron Age and Late Antiquity. In this field he has, for example, studied the value and meaning that imported goods gained in their new cultural setting. Both new editors have several publications under their belts, and are well versed in consulting and administering archaeological research in all shapes and sizes; so rest assured that you will be given strong editorial support by both Lasse and Thomas. In the wake of the arrival of the new editors, Mads Dengsø Jessen will withdraw from the editorial board at the end of 2018. He has been involved in the revitalisation of the journal since the tentative beginnings in late 2009; and during this nine-year spell he has seen more than 70 articles pass through the editorial structure and be published in the journal. On behalf of the new editorial team, we would like to thank Mads warmly for his great efforts for DJA.
The number of full-text downloads for the first half year of 2018 seems to have settled at a stable level (about 7000), and abstract page views are still rising (more than 8000 views). The journal has a reach far beyond Northern and Central Europe, with more than half its readers coming from the rest of the world (in particular from the USA, Australia and China). We aim to maintain high standards in the articles we publish, as we seek to present current Danish and Scandinavian archaeological research and debate to a widespread national and international readership.
Whereas volume 7, issue 1 was a special issue devoted to the presentation of the most recent research relating to the two important Danish cities of Odense and Copenhagen, issue 2 is characterised by a great variety of topics and the presentation of novel methods. The common denominator is high-quality research based on Scandinavian cases, which characterises DJA in its present form and will continue to be our lodestar for the forthcoming volumes. We are delighted to offer empirical, methodological and original research articles as well as discussion papers commenting on articles published in DJA. Characteristic of the methodologically focused papers is the combination of archaeology and various scientific disciplines. Chronologically, issue 2 covers subjects ranging from the Palaeolithic and Mesolithic through the Neolithic, Bronze Age and Iron Age to the Viking Age and the Middle Ages. We wish you happy reading.
Finally, we want to thank all the authors who have trusted us with the results of their research, the increasing number of readers, and all the peer reviewers that have helped us to live up to the high academic standards of Danish Journal of Archaeology. We very much hope that you will all follow us to the new Open Access platform, and that the new easy and free access will attract new readers and even more contributions.