the next step on the academic ladder and entering an increasingly more competitive academic arena : more and more academic development and maturity is expected from recently graduated students . The phrase ‘ publish or perish ’ seems very applicable to this current situation , as up and around three publications seems to have become the norm against which a CV will be evaluated , for instance , during a Ph . D . -application .
This experience and / or academic trackrecord is , however , often hard to obtain while studying for your degree ( s ). This period should instead be spent developing your interests and yourself as a person , and to a lesser degree on building an extensive list of academic publications , conference presentations and similar activities . A certain pressure thus exists to publish one ’ s research at an early stage . By trying to facilitate this difficult ( and often first ) step towards publishing in an academic language through a system of teaching referees and anonymous , international reviewers , we hope to stimulate and support innovative junior archaeologists to publish their own research and make it available for a broader scientific community .
That experiencing and reflecting can both be ‘ bitter ’ trajectories is something potential authors — and we ourselves as junior editors in the same academic field — have encountered during the last cycles of peer-review for this postponed second volume . This illustrates the exact reason why our initiative , just like the long-running Tijdschrift voor Mediterrane Archeologie 1 and recently initiated Kleos ( Amsterdam Bulletin of Ancient Studies and Archaeology ) 2 , fulfils an important role by stimulating and facilitating student publication in an accessible way . Specifically , the opportunity to receive constructive reviews by specialists in a junior archaeologist ’ s own field provides a certain moment of reflection that is usually restricted to a single instance of feedback and rewriting on one ’ s first version of a thesis . The writing of a short , focused article appears to be a different exercise entirely . ‘ Aller Anfang ist schwer ’, is the way in which these important , but now and then difficult , first steps on the academic ladder can be aptly phrased in German .
1 The small alleys , stenopoi , running from east to west in the middle of each house block are excluded from the analysis , as they were mainly used for drainage and not for passage ( Robinson and Graham 1938 , 33-39 ; Nevett 1999 , 55-56 ). Another hypothesis is that the alleys serve as light sources , allowing light to enter the houses through windows placed along the walls ( Graham 1958 , 322 ). 2 The small alleys , stenopoi , running from east to west in the middle of each house block are excluded from the analysis , as they were mainly used for drainage and not for passage ( Robinson and Graham 1938 , 33-39 ; Nevett 1999 , 55-56 ). Another hypothesis is that the alleys serve as light sources , allowing light to enter the houses through windows placed along the walls ( Graham 1958 , 322 ).
As we conclude our ‘ noble ’ moment of reflection , we again remember Confucius who not only tells us that life can at times be bitter , but also that beauty is everywhere around us . We believe this is reflected in the fine collection of papers bundled into this volume .
Contents We are very happy and proud to present to you in this second volume papers that focus on various regions , timespans and themes of research , and work between and across the traditional archaeological ‘ specialisations ’ offered by the Leiden University Faculty of Archaeology ; worthy of the name INTER-SECTION .
The first contribution is by Cathelijne Nater and offers a detailed spatial evaluation of burial practices at the cemetery of Reusel ( Noord-Brabant , the Netherlands ) from the 10th-13th centuries CE , focusing on grave orientation and morphology . By discussing her findings in the light of differentiation on the basis of social status and gender , Nater comes to the conclusion that the site-specific pattern and inter-site variation in burial customs in this period to some extent resulted from the freedom to which local communities could ” give their own interpretation to Christian rituals ”.
Tom de Rijk ’ s study is also set in the Netherlands and focuses on the Roman cavalry helmet that was excavated at Matilo ( Leiden , the Netherlands ). De Rijk takes the unique opportunity to thoroughly evaluate this extraordinary find in the same light as the archaeological layers in which it was retrieved , ” possibly liminal and in situ ”. In this way , de Rijk contributes to a better understanding on the questions ” if this helmet should be seen as a ritual deposition ” and ” whether the concept of liminality can be applied to the Matilo mask ”.
The next contribution stays in the field of contextual depositional analyses of archaeological evidence , specifically discussing how remains of arthropods ( i . e ., invertebrate insects and spiders ) can provide additional depositional information in archaeological contexts . In his contribution , Sander Aerts evaluates and elaborates upon Michael Schiffer ’ s classic work Formation Processes of the Archaeological Record and proposes a conceptual model linking arthropods assemblages to cultural formation processes , potentially leading to a better understanding of stratigraphy and deposition by allowing for the identification of “ ‘ invisible ’ stratigraphies and functions ”.
2016 | INTER-SECTION | VOL II | p . 3