A New Find: Archaeology

Archaeology is a new find. I only recently stumbled across this magazine and added it to my reading list. I read a lot of magazines, and am always looking for new, high quality magazines to enjoy and share with others. This magazine certainly falls into the category of high quality.

Archaeology is a bi-monthly publication of the Archaeological Institute of America. It has a cover price of $4.99, which is well within the normal range for magazines of this type. I expect to pay anywhere from four to ten dollars for a good magazine.

Archaeology covers all aspects of the science and art of archaeology. It is filled with insightful, intelligent and well researched articles. The writing style is intelligent, and clear. This isn’t one of those journals that develops an overly academic, specialized language. Too many scientific journals become so enamored of technical language that they become inaccessible to normal readers. This magazine has not fallen prey to that flaw.

The magazine has several sections that can be enjoyed each issue. I will discuss a few of them.

Letters:
Nearly every magazine has a letters section. This one is great fun to read. It’s placed right up front, and helps to jog the memory to articles from previous issues. The editors do a fine job of choosing which letters to print. And, when needed the editors respond to readers letters. I always enjoy magazines that have that sort of policy. It shows that the publication cares about the input of their subscribers.

From the President:
This section is a brief message from the President of the A.I.A. It addresses an issue or topic of current import. Often something that has been in the news, and on people minds. Recently this section addressed the problem of Iraqi artifacts being stolen or damaged.

Archaeology News:
This portion of the magazine is great fun. It is filled with short, informative pieces about current archaeological finds, trends within the science, and important people in this field of knowledge. This section is often filled with color photographs, often with captions that help identify objects that may be unfamiliar to the lay person.

Review:
The review section looks at books and museums in the field. The reviews are in depth, well written, and well thought out. They are a great resource for help in making decisions concerning which books to read. These days a lot of books are published dealing with archaeology. It’s not always easy to decide which ones will be worth your time and effort. These reviews make those decisions much easier.

Articles:
The articles encompass every aspect of archaeology. They discuss the newest finds, current trends in research, changes in archaeological theory, historical occurrences, and the people who work in the field every day. These articles are well written, scholarly, and greatly researched. As I stated above, the writing is always clear, concise, and easy to digest. These articles really make the world of archaeology come alive for the normal person. We can’t all be Indiana Jones, but by reading this magazine we can all develop a love and understanding of the important field of archaeology.

The magazine often includes feature articles about people who have played an important role in this science. These articles are fascinating. They are generally packed with useful information. I enjoy them greatly.

Archaeology also devotes a great deal of time to the important task of debunking pseudo-archaeology (a section of pseudo-science which is damaging to our knowledge of the world; other magazines that debunk pseudo-science are SKEPTIC, and the SKEPTICAL INQUIRER, I heartily recommend both of these magazines as well). The task of debunking pseudo-science is never an easy one. When the magazine tackles this job, its writers bring great erudition, research and the force of logic to bear upon the subject. They do a very good job of this. This fact alone would be enough for me to recommend this magazine.

Archaeology is packed with wonderful photos. Many of these photographs are in full color. The inclusion of these wonderful, illustrative photographs helps to clarify the articles. Often when an artifact is described, one cannot picture it fully and clearly. The pictures help to rectify this problem. My understanding of this subject is greatly helped by these photographs.

The magazine also contains the odd cartoon here and there. Frankly, they could be left out. They tend to be unfunny, and merely take up space. There is no need for this stab at humor in such a serious journal. I honestly can’t understand why they would bother. These cartoons simply take up space that could be used for more short, informational pieces.

The magazine’s layout is, over all, fine. Some pages do seem a bit jumbled, but this is clearly a function of the sheer amount of information being conveyed. The “news” section is the worst offender in this category. However, it doesn’t seem that this could be helped. Each page in this section tends to contain several short articles, and each article generally has at least one illustration or photograph. With all of this information, a busy layout can be forgiven. Over all this is not a real problem.

The cover is another matter. It is badly designed. The title is run across a bar at the top of the page, with a photo beneath. The fonts are plain, and often very square. The cover actually looks quite cheap, and quickly designed. This magazine could find more readers with a more dynamic cover, designed to catch the eye. I wish it were designed more like the covers of Nature, or Scientific American.

Despite those few flaws that I have pointed out, Archaeology is a fine magazine. I enjoy it very much, and believe that anyone interested in this subject will also like it. Its virtue’s far outweigh its few flaws. You should definitely give this magazine a try.

A final note: after finding this magazine in a local book store I have noticed that it has disappeared from that store’s shelves. I have been forced to hunt down copies at other stores. It seems that this is one of the harder magazines to find in my area. I hope that you can more easily locate it where you live.