Journal Policy

Publication in Ancient TL is free of charge.

Ancient TL publishes the following contributions:

• Original research article (2 peer-reviews)
• Short communication (1 peer-review)
• Spotlight review (invited, 1 peer-review)
• Letter to the Editor, including comments on previous papers published in Ancient TL (1 peer-review)
• Thesis abstract (not peer-reviewed)
• Corrigendum

A corrigendum is considered for publication when the authors notice errors in their published article. If cogent reasons demand a retraction of the article, the editor can decide to remove it from the respective issue and make the decision public.

 

Peer review

Authors are asked to suggest potential reviewers from the Editorial Board, and, eventually, from the broader research community if required. The final choice of reviewers is at the sole discretion of the handling editor. The editorial decision is based on single-blind reviews. Peer-review criteria include whether the manuscript falls within the scope of the journal, follows a valid scientific approach, and presents substantial conclusions supported by the data (if applicable). Reviewers are encouraged to provide a comment (up to 200 words) to be published along with the accepted article.

Ancient TL adheres to the ethical guidelines for peer review established by COPE:

https://publicationethics.org/files/Peer%20review%20guidelines.pdf

 

Copyright, reproduction of articles and their content

The articles are distributed under the CC-BY 4.0 license, with the option for the CC-BY-NC 4.0 license in justified cases. Unless otherwise stated, associated material is distributed under the same license. Please see

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en and https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode for details.

The authors retain the copyright. Reproduction is allowed without the confirmation of Ancient TL, but we advise to inform the authors whenever their content is re-used. The authors must also be given credit. Copyrights and distribution licences of objects and artwork cited by the authors must be treated individually. 

 

Data availability

Ancient TL follows the ‘FAIR Guiding Principles for scientific data management and stewardship’ (https://www.go-fair.org/fair-principles/) and the ‘FAIR Guidelines for Research Software (https://doi.org/10.15497/RDA00068) implying that data and software code associated with an article should be made openly available to allow for findability, accessibility, interoperability and reuse. Authors are required to make their data and software part of the original article or archive them in a data repository of their choice (see www.re3data.org for a list of reliable data repositories) including a digital object identifier (DOI). It should be stated at the end of the article if data cannot be made public. Suggestive statements about unfounded reasons regarding data and software code sharing are not supported by Ancient TL.

 

Publication ethics

Transparency, credibility, and high quality in scientific publishing necessitate appropriate ethical standards. In this context, Ancient TL ensures that editors handle manuscripts objectively, i.e., independent of gender, host institution, religion etc. while maintaining confidentiality. The same principle applies to peers who review a manuscript.

Financial support received to carry out the work presented in the manuscript needs to be disclosed in a “Financial support” statement at the end of the manuscript.  

The content of the work submitted to Ancient TL must be original, not be under consideration for publication elsewhere, not be recycled from previous peer-reviewed publications, be lawful, non-abusive, and does not breach relevant contracts, confidences, or confidentiality commitments. The submission must be approved by all authors. It must not infringe on third-party rights. The authors must have secured permission to reproduce any previously published or copyrighted material and have provided appropriate citations and copyright statements for such material. Manuscripts containing plagiarised text and manipulated citations will be rejected. Authors listed in the manuscript must have contributed substantially to the conceptualisation, design and execution of the work and/or data interpretation. The corresponding author takes the sole responsibility to include all authors to which these criteria apply. All authors share collective responsibility for the work submitted and its accuracy and scientific integrity.   

If artificial intelligence (AI), e.g., by way of large language models, was used for writing text passages, a statement should be made at the end of the main text, entitled “Declaration of the use of artificial intelligence and generative technologies in the writing process”. The declaration text may read: “During the preparation of this article, the author(s) used [insert tool used] to [describe how and why it was applied]. The author(s) carefully reviewed the final version of the article and take full responsibility of its content”.

Ancient TL attempts to use inclusive and neutral language regarding gender issues and to avoid stereotypes and discrimination. Appropriate location names (indigenous names) should be used by authors who take responsibility in this matter. 

By submitting their work to Ancient TL, authors agree with the conditions outlined above.

 

Conflict of interest

A statement on potential conflicts of interest is to be appended at the end of the manuscript entitled “Declaration of conflict of interest”. In case of no conflicts of interest, the text may read “The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest that could have biased their scientific work”.

A conflict of interest arises when secondary interests such as financial, professional, or personal relationships have influenced the objective presentation of research. Authors must disclose any potential competing interests, which can include employment, consultancy, board positions, financial relationships, intellectual property, gifts, acting as an expert witness, lobbying memberships, and personal relationships.  If there are conflicts, they must be clearly identified and described in the manuscript submitted. Editors and referees must also declare conflicts of interest such as working at the same institution , recent collaborations, co-publications within the past three years, shared grants, or personal relationships with an author. If a conflict exists, editors and referees should recuse themselves from the review process. Two members of the Advisory Board will oversee objective handling of the submission affected by conflict of interest.

 

Appeals and complaints

Problems with manuscript handling and peer-review must be addressed to the handling editor.