Submissions

Author Guidelines

Initial Submissions:
To facilitate initial manuscript submissions and review, authors may use any standard formatting and bibliographic practices. For the initial review, please submit a single PDF document containing the combined text, figures, tables, and supplemental materials. Please use the line numbering feature in word to facilitate the review process.

Please ensure that you remove all author identifiers from your manuscript (e.g., authors names, headers, file names, acknowledgement, etc.) before you submit it to assist in the double blind peer review process.

Reviewers: Please submit a list of potential reviewers (include email contact) with expertise in this area of research with a short explanation of their qualifications as well as a list of individuals who you believe would not be unbiased reviewers (with a short justification).

Preparing your article for final submission

Organization: Once your paper has been assessed for suitability by the editor, it will be double blind peer reviewed by independent, anonymous referees. Typically revisions are requested by reviewers. Once the you have revised your manuscript and it is accepted for publication, it needs to be submitted in the below format.

Your paper should be assembled as follows for final submission:
1."Title Page Information" as a separate file with all identifying elements including author names, affiliation, and contact information; declaration of interest statement; funding statement; and author bios. Acknowledgments should be in a separate file. All these will be combined with your main text prior to copyediting and proofing.
2. "Main Article Text" includes abstract; keywords; main text; list of Supplemental data; references; figure and table captions as a list.
3. Table(s) with caption(s) on individual pages; figures on individual pages; appendices and supplemental data (as appropriate).
Word Limits: Please include a word count for your paper. A typical paper for MCJA should be between 7,500 and 12,000 words, inclusive of references and, if possible, include no more than 3 full page tables and 5 figures.

Style Guidelines: When preparing the paper for submission use these instructions as well as examining recently published MCJA articles for guidance.

General Formatting: Papers should be submitted in Word, 12 pt. Arial, double-spaced, with 1” margins. Turn on line numbering so that the copyeditor can more easily reference the text. (In Word, go to Layout, select Line Numbers, and select Continuous). Figures and tables should be saved separately from the text. Figures and tables including their captions should be sized to fit within a 5 x 7” page layout.

References: MCJA reference formatting follows American Antiquity with the exception that the year and reference title follow immediately after the author.

For example:
Alt, Susan M. (2001) Cahokian Change and the Authority of Tradition. In The Archaeology of Traditions: Agency and History Before and After Columbus, edited by Timothy R. Pauketat, pp.141–156. University Press of Florida, Gainesville.

Alt, Susan M. (2002) Identities, Traditions, and Diversity in Cahokia's Uplands. Midcontinental Journal of Archaeology 27:217–236.

Ambrose, Stanley H., Jane E. Buikstra, and Harold W. Krueger (2003) Gender and Status Differences in Diet at Mound 72, Cahokia, Revealed by Isotopic Analysis of Bone. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 22:217–226.

Seeman, Mark F., Kevin C. Nolan, and Mark A. Hill (2019) Copper as an Essential and Exotic Hopewell Metal. Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports 24:1095–1101. DOI:10.1016/j.jasrep.2018.12.019.

Submissions Checklist

All authors of a manuscript should include their full name and affiliation on the title page of the manuscript. Where available, please also include their ORCiD identification. One author should be identified as the corresponding author and with their email address provided. All editorial interaction will be directed to the corresponding author.

Research Accessibility
Make your research more accessible by including concise keywords, descriptive titles, and a well-constructed abstract as well as providing an ORCiD identifier to maximize search engine optimization.

Funding Details
Please supply all relevant details (e.g., grant number) required by your funding and grant-awarding bodies

Financial Disclosure Statement
Acknowledge any financial interest or benefit that has arisen from the direct applications of your research.

Biographical Note
Please supply a short (~150 words) biographical note for each author.

Data availability statement
If there is a data set associated with the paper, please provide information about where it is located and how it can be accessed.

Supplemental online material
Supplemental material that supports (and is pertinent to) your paper can be submitted for archiving and access on the MCJA web site.

Figures should be TIFF, PDF, Adobe Illustrator (.ai), or JPEG files of adequate resolution. We cannot use GIF/JIF, HTML, or Bitmap (.bmp) files. PNG files may be usable, but send samples for approval. Most figures published in the print version of your article will be in grayscale/black and white, however, if color versions of figures are provided, they can be displayed in the online digital copy of the journal.

Adequate resolution for “grayscale” images (such as photographs) is generally 300 dpi/ppi (dots/pixels per inch) at 5 x 7" for interior use; where possible, aim for images that are a minimum of 1500 x 2100 ppi. If a detail is to be enlarged, the detail must be 300 dpi at size of reproduction. If you are scanning a drawing that is only in black and white (no shades of gray), please aim for 1200 dpi. The overall size of the scan is your best guideline for its resolution. If a scan is smaller than 200 kilobytes (KB), it is unlikely to be of adequate resolution. High-quality grayscale tifs are often over 2 megabytes (MB) in size. Color scans can be significantly larger.

Tables should present new information rather than duplicating what is in the text. Readers should be able to interpret the table without reference to the text. Please supply editable files in Word designed to fit onto a single published page.

Third-Party Material: You must obtain the necessary permission in writing from the copyright holder to reuse third-party material in your article. Email permissions for inclusion of statements of personal communication are sufficient.

Copyright Notice

Once you article is revised, copyedited, and accepted for publication MCJA editorial staff will send the authors a copyright form to sign and submit prior to publication.

Privacy Statement

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