Volume 89 (2011)

Cover story

Human corpses as time capsules: new perspectives in the study of past mass disasters

Looking at the corpses of past natural catastrophes can change completely the conception of how to study human bone remains. The recovery of the Herculaneum victims of the 79 AD Vesuvius eruption was an opportunity for me to adopt a new approach in the study of human skeletons and their context of discovery. During two years of field work, my first aim was to investigate the effects of pyroclastic surges on people and things. The conservation of skeletons and their replacement by fiberglass casts were also provided. This "field laboratory"has developed into a palaeoforensic investigation of the mass disaster caused by the 79 AD natural event...

The Journal of Anthropological Sciences (JASs) is the official publication of the Istituto Italiano di Antropologia (ISItA). It is the continuation of the Atti della Societa' Romana di Antropologia (from 1893 to 1910) and Rivista di Antropologia (until 2003).

The JASs publishes original articles, notes and reviews concerning all aspects of evolutionary anthropology (primatology, human paleontology, prehistory, biology and genetics of extinct and extant populations), with particular attention towards interdisciplinary approaches. Each manuscript is subjected to review by specialists.

Starting from the volume 90 (2012) the JASs has adopted a more stringent data sharing policy. Authors of JASs papers will be asked to make their primary datasets available using the the online database Anthro-DigItdata , so that they can be reanalyzed without any form of limitation.
 

Other Indexing sources: Anthropological literature, Anthropology Index online, Biological Abstracts, BIOSIS Previews, Index Copernicus, PrimateLit and SCOPUS (Elsevier).
 

2010 ISI-Reuters Impact Factor (SSCI) 2.000 (ranked 7/75 in Anthropology, 2010).
 

2011 European Reference Index for the Humanities (ERIH): rated 'INT2'.