iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Dr Freddie Foulds @drfrederickfoulds.bsky.social · 16/09/2025

Another new paper out in the wild, this time exploring tranchet technique at the Lower #Palaeolithic site of #Boxgrove and the transmission of complex knapping via social signalling. doi.org/10.1017/S095...

doi.org

Turning-the-edge, Tranchet, and Social Signalling at Boxgrove | Cambridge Archaeological Journal | Cambridge Core

Turning-the-edge, Tranchet, and Social Signalling at Boxgrove

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Dr Freddie Foulds @drfrederickfoulds.bsky.social · 27/08/2025

Exciting possibilities for lithic imaging with the new RTI superdome that's just been installed at Durham. It will be interesting to see what kind of images can be produced of the experimental battering damage that we've been creating on replica handaxes...

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Reposted by Dr Freddie Foulds

Lithic Studies Society @lithicstudiessoc.bsky.social · 18/01/2025

Join our innovative community from around the world. As a member you will get: • Free or reduced ticket prices to many of our events • Access to members-only events • Our Journal • Networking opportunities Plus much more You can join for only £15 per year via the link here www.lithics.org/joining/

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Reposted by Dr Freddie Foulds

Mark Grabowski @markgrabowski.bsky.social · 13/01/2025

JHE Update: First, we are profoundly grateful for the outpouring of support from the human evolution community for the collective decision to resign. While Andrea and I intended to continue handling our existing manuscripts for 3 months following resignation and were continuing to do so ... (1/3)

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Dr Freddie Foulds @drfrederickfoulds.bsky.social · 02/01/2025

Interesting start to 2025 seeing the Editorial Board of JHE resign en masse. I support their exceptionally difficult decision in the face of what can only be described as a profiteering company blatantly trying to make the largest amount of money from the smallest degree of intellectual oversight.

Journal of Human Evolution: Resignation of the Editorial Board
For over four decades, the Journal of Human Evolution (JHE) has been the flagship journal in paleoanthropological and human evolution research. The longstanding success of JHE rests on the exemplary scholarship of its authors supported by extensive labor on the part of the Editorial board (EB). Elsevier has steadily eroded the infrastructure essential to the success of the journal while simultaneously undermining the core principles and practices that have successfully guided the journal for the past 38 years. While the EB has accommodated the reduction of services to the journal since the early 2000s, the pace has accelerated over the last 10 years to a point that is no longer tenable.
Journal history: Journal of Human Evolution, founded in 1972, was reorganized in 1986 to provide greater scholarly attention to and control of the review, revision, and publication of research in the journal. Recognizing that research in human evolution represents a globally diverse community of scholars, two editors-in-chief from different countries took the helm, a structure that has been in place ever since. These editor-scholars purposefully established a working EB of Associate Editors—not an 'editorial board' in name only, without editorial oversight as had led to the initial foundering of JHE—but a group of active scholars expertly capable of handling submissions covering a wide range of topics in a field that is highly interdisciplinary and demands a mix of both broad and fine-scaled expertise. Thirty eight years later, JHE has an impact factor of 3.1 and Scopus cite score of 6.3, both the highest in the field, and has maintained an acceptance rate of ~50%; excellence that results from a set of sustained core principles.
JHE’s core principles: Since 1986, JHE has been guided by this set of core principles and structures: 1) the journal is overseen by two editors-in-chief who are committed to journal quality and in…

scholarly decisions, including recruitment and retention of the expertise necessary to oversee the review process. Elsevier’s control of the process has already resulted in reduction of the EB through non-issuance of contracts and attendant lack of access to the paper management system; and in the failure to advance the Early Career Review Board and Fellowship, which was created and approved by the EB in September of 2023 to help support professional development of early career scholars.
In November of this year, Elsevier indicated it would no longer support the dual-editor model that has been a hallmark of JHE since 1986. When the editors vehemently opposed this action, Elsevier said it would support a dual-editor model by cutting the compensation rate by half.
In parallel, the editors have been raising concerns for years about the cost of Open Access (OA) in JHE and the impact on submissions.1 Elsevier’s APC charges in JHE ($3990 excluding taxes on the JHE website) remain out of reach for much of our authorship, with Elsevier outsourcing its production process to low-quality companies while charging publication fees well in excess of discipline-comparable Elsevier-published journals (e.g., International Journal of Paleopathology: $1910; Journal of Archaeological Sciences: Reports: $2265; Palaeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology: $3110; Journal of Anthropological Archaeology: $3270;), compared with broad based open access journals such as Scientific Reports (IF: 3.8; APC:$2590), and compared with production costs for nonprofit publishers. Given these high charges, and the negligible number of Elsevier OA agreements, especially in the US, the net effect is that only a small portion of JHE authors can afford to make their science widely and publicly accessible, which runs counter to the journal’s (and Elsevier’s) pledge of equity and inclusivity.
Despite high APC charges and reduced and out-sourced production, the work of copyediting nonetheless falls to the ed…

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Dr Freddie Foulds @drfrederickfoulds.bsky.social · 04/12/2024

This brilliant synthesis of the work into revising the terrace stratigraphy of the Little Ouse River & what it can tell us about the Palaeolithic archaeology of central East Anglia just came out last Friday. I helped with the work at Santon Downham as part of it. doi.org/10.1016/j.qe...

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Redirecting

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Dr Freddie Foulds @drfrederickfoulds.bsky.social · 15/11/2024

Highly recommend getting yourself on one of James' courses if you're interesting in learning the ins and outs of flintknapping.

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Dr Freddie Foulds @drfrederickfoulds.bsky.social · 15/11/2024

My other account (@judgefredd.bsky.social) is gaining #archaeologist followers, so this is a separate account to split academic posts out from my hobby related content. By way of an intro, I'm a #Palaeolithic #archaeologist at Durham working on social traditions in #Acheulean #handaxe manufacture.

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