Editor's Lair

It is my continued pleasure to introduce this Summer 2013 issue of Lithic Technology and to offer a brief update on some of our projects. First, I wanted to take this opportunity to remind readers and potential authors of some of the kinds of papers that Lithic Technology is open to printing. Since I have been the editor (and for quite some time before), the vast majority of our submissions have been full-length research articles and book reviews. Indeed, these are certainly the lifeblood of any academic journal. However, we would also like to print a few other types of scholarship. One such category is the short research report, which generally provides a brief description (under 4,000 words) of the results of an archaeological analysis or experimental project. These are efficient ways of reporting interesting analytical results and making one's data available for others to examine. A second category is the review paper, which offers a synthetic discussion of some important issue for those of us who study stone tools. I cannot overestimate the importance of this type of paper for my own work and I recognize the investment of labor in constructing a good review paper to be a significant act of intellectual generosity. Thus, I urge our readers to keep us in mind for these types of papers, which are relatively common in other archaeological journals but which have been rare in ours.

Along these lines, I would like to re-invite our readers to consider submitting regionally focused review papers. This was an initiative started some time ago by the previous editor, George Odell, and which I would like to continue. Regional reviews of current lithic research constitute both important resources for scholars and stimuli for new trajectories of research. If you think you would like to write such a paper, I would look forward to hearing from you. Likewise, if you expressed interest in doing so in the past (either to me or to George), please feel free to contact me about this continued possibility.

Finally, I want to reiterate my call to knappers to consider sending papers to Lithic Technology. Such papers could take many forms. For example, we would be happy to print both previews and reviews of knapping events, especially those that cover multiple events. We would also consider papers discussing technical issues emerging from knapping activities. While we would be especially interested in such discussions framed within experimental protocols, we are also open to papers that might be more anecdotal in nature. Knappers comprise an important community in contributing to archaeological research on stone tools and are also a major segment of our readership. I am anxious to include more scholarship on such topics in print here.

The short version of my message here is that Lithic Technology thrives on your contributions and that we are grateful for all of the submissions we receive. Thank you very much for your continued interest in the journal and please keep us in mind for your papers in the future.