Journal rankings · indicator year 2018
Choose a field to open its ranking, or a journal to find its row in its subfield’s list.
Subfield ranking · 2018
Anthropology journal rankings 2018
38 ranked journals · Subfield in Social Sciences
Anthropology has 38 ranked journals in 2018. The median OJR rose 0.19 on 2017 to 1.24, above the world average of 1.00; Q1 starts at OJR 2.53. The top three are American Ethnologist, Current Anthropology, and Journal of Human Evolution.
Ranks and citation indicators: 2018. Journal access status and listed APC: source snapshot September 23, 2026.
Journals whose main subfield sits in this category and that published at least 30 citable documents (articles, reviews and conference papers) in 2015–2017, the window the 2018 score is computed on.
The OpenJournalRank Indicator (OJR) is a free, publicly available metric of a journal’s field-normalized citation impact, computed from open OpenAlex citation data. It compares citations to a journal’s papers from the previous three years with the world average for papers of the same subfield, year and type, so 1.00 is the world average and values can be compared across fields. It is computed with the NCI3 method.
The middle OJR among ranked journals in this category: half score higher, half lower. 1.00 is the world average for papers of the same subfield, year and type.
The dot is this category, the solid tick is the median of all ranked journals and the dashed line is the world average.
Share of ranked journals in this category that are fully open access, so every paper is free to read. Hybrid journals, which sell subscriptions and open single papers for a fee, are not counted.
Median list price of the article processing charge, in US dollars, among ranked journals in this category that list a price above zero. Journals with a listed APC of $0 and journals with no known price are left out of this median. The At a glance table below gives a second median that includes the $0 prices.
Subfields of Social Sciences (22)
38 ranked journals
Filters
Rank is the position by OJR within the list on screen; 1 is the highest. | OJR is field-normalized 3-year citation impact: 1.00 is the world average for papers of the same subfield, year and type, so values compare across fields. The badge is the journal’s quartile in this list. | Citations per paper over a two-year window, counted from OpenAlex. It is not field-normalized, so compare it only between journals of the same field. ▲ or ▼ is the change from 2017. This is OpenJournalRank’s own count, not Clarivate’s Journal Impact Factor. | Citable documents (articles, reviews and conference papers) published in 2015–2017, the window the 2018 OJR is computed on. A journal needs at least 30 to be ranked. | Share of the journal’s 2015–2017 papers that are free to read in any open-access form. The green OA tag next to a title marks a fully open-access journal. | List price of the article processing charge in US dollars. “$0 listed” means the listed price is zero; a dash means no price is listed. | The line is the journal’s OJR from 2009 to 2018. | Compare |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1American EthnologistWiley · United States | 8.83Q1 | 5.15 1.19 up from 2017 | 145 | 11% | $3,400 | ||
2Current AnthropologyUniversity of Chicago Press · United States | 5.78Q1 | 4.83 2.25 up from 2017 | 291 | 30% | — | ||
3Journal of Human EvolutionElsevier BV · United Kingdom | 3.95Q1 | 3.55 0.59 down from 2017 | 400 | 49% | $3,990 | ||
4Journal of Archaeological Method and TheorySpringer Science+Business Media · Netherlands | 3.86Q1 | 3.57 0.15 up from 2017 | 126 | 41% | $3,190 | ||
5Journal of Social ArchaeologySAGE Publishing · United Kingdom | 3.52Q1 | 1.92 0.25 down from 2017 | 45 | 33% | $3,650 | ||
6Azania Archaeological Research in AfricaRoutledge · United Kingdom | 3.18Q1 | 1.52 0.54 up from 2017 | 122 | 26% | — | ||
7African Archaeological ReviewSpringer Science+Business Media · United Kingdom | 3.01Q1 | 1.39 0.51 down from 2017 | 95 | 28% | $3,390 | ||
8Social AnalysisOABerghahn Books · United States | 2.73Q1 | 0.84 0.29 down from 2017 | 102 | 16% | — | ||
9World ArchaeologyRoutledge · United Kingdom | 2.70Q1 | 1.84 0.29 down from 2017 | 149 | 46% | — | ||
10Evolutionary Anthropology Issues News and ReviewsWiley · United States | 2.53Q1 | 2.56 1.08 down from 2017 | 114 | 27% | $5,000 | ||
11The Journal of African HistoryCambridge University Press · United Kingdom | 2.37Q2 | 1.00 0.40 up from 2017 | 82 | 10% | $3,550 | ||
12Journal of African Cultural StudiesTaylor & Francis · United Kingdom | 2.34Q2 | 0.92 0.33 down from 2017 | 101 | 23% | — | ||
13Canadian Journal of African Studies / Revue canadienne des études africainesTaylor & Francis · Canada | 1.89Q2 | 1.17 0.69 up from 2017 | 185 | 9% | — | ||
14American AnthropologistWiley · United States | 1.85Q2 | 1.72 0.93 up from 2017 | 393 | 12% | $3,400 | ||
15International Journal of Historical ArchaeologySpringer Science+Business Media · Netherlands | 1.50Q2 | 0.61 0.15 down from 2017 | 162 | 21% | $3,290 | ||
16Lithic TechnologyTaylor & Francis · United Kingdom | 1.35Q2 | 0.67 0.46 down from 2017 | 65 | 16% | — | ||
17Wicazo Sa ReviewUniversity of Minnesota Press · United States | 1.32Q2 | 1.30 1.00 up from 2017 | 55 | 0% | — | ||
18PaleoAmericaTaylor & Francis · United Kingdom | 1.28Q2 | 1.52 0.46 down from 2017 | 101 | 12% | — | ||
19Annual Review of AnthropologyAnnual Reviews · United States | 1.24Q2 | 5.38 0.48 up from 2017 | 91 | 54% | — | ||
20Journal of Anthropological ResearchUniversity of Chicago Press · United States | 1.23Q3 | 0.84 0.05 down from 2017 | 65 | 16% | — | ||
21Post-Medieval ArchaeologyTaylor & Francis · United Kingdom | 1.03Q3 | 0.56 0.10 up from 2017 | 86 | 33% | — | ||
22Archeological Papers of the American Anthropological AssociationWiley · United States | 1.01Q3 | 1.38 0.59 up from 2017 | 48 | 8% | $3,090 | ||
23L AnthropologieElsevier BV · France | 0.99Q3 | 0.46 0.02 down from 2017 | 103 | 18% | $3,000 | ||
24ArchaeologiesSpringer Science+Business Media · United States | 0.98Q3 | 0.57 0.04 down from 2017 | 57 | 54% | $3,290 | ||
25Archaeological DialoguesCambridge University Press · United Kingdom | 0.92Q3 | 1.17 0.07 down from 2017 | 72 | 39% | $3,550 | ||
26Historical ArchaeologySpringer Science+Business Media · United States | 0.86Q3 | 0.52 0.18 up from 2017 | 153 | 10% | $2,190 | ||
27PaléoFrance | 0.85Q3 | 0.35 0.05 up from 2017 | 63 | 100% | — | ||
28Journal of African Diaspora Archaeology and HeritageTaylor & Francis · United States | 0.67Q3 | 0.43 0.07 up from 2017 | 38 | 0% | — | ||
29Journal of Lithic StudiesOAUniversity of Edinburgh · United Kingdom | 0.64Q3 | 0.55 0.15 up from 2017 | 157 | 100% | — | ||
30Plains AnthropologistTaylor & Francis · United Kingdom | 0.62Q4 | 0.67 0.46 up from 2017 | 85 | 0% | — | ||
31KIVATaylor & Francis · United Kingdom | 0.57Q4 | 0.61 0.02 up from 2017 | 85 | 3% | — | ||
32General AnthropologyWiley · United States | 0.38Q4 | 0.45 0.32 up from 2017 | 33 | 7% | $3,090 | ||
33Journal of world historyWorld History Association · United States | 0.33Q4 | 0.17 0.01 up from 2017 | 230 | 5% | — | ||
34BritanniaCambridge University Press · United Kingdom | 0.29Q4 | 0.27 0.14 down from 2017 | 93 | 20% | $3,550 | ||
35eTropic electronic journal of studies in the tropicsOAJames Cook University · Australia | 0.19Q4 | 0.19 0.13 up from 2017 | 111 | 100% | — | ||
36Annales Histoire Sciences Sociales (English edition)Cambridge University Press · France | 0.16Q4 | 0.05 0.04 down from 2017 | 95 | 36% | — | ||
37Lithics: The Journal of the Lithic Studies SocietyPublisher not listed | 0.14Q4 | 0.12 0.03 down from 2017 | 276 | 0% | — | ||
38The 80th Annual Meeting of the Society for American ArchaeologyPublisher not listed | 0.01Q4 | —no 2017 value | 3,404 | — | — |
Subfields of Social Sciences, with Anthropology highlighted.
- Sociology and Political Science1,315
- Education714
- Political Science and International Relations321
- Communication74
- Gender Studies61
- Health52
- Safety Research51
- Public Administration50
- Urban Studies49
- Law47
- Linguistics and Language47
- Transportation47
- Library and Information Sciences42
- Demography40
- Anthropology38
- Geography, Planning and Development29
- Cultural Studies9
- Development4
- General Social Sciences3
- Human Factors and Ergonomics1
- Archeology0
- Life-span and Life-course Studies0
Journals
Citations made in 2018. Corpus-wide, 81.5% of core-journal articles and reviews published that year have at least one matched reference; the share varies by journal and field.
13 additional Anthropology journals with metrics are unranked under this release’s eligibility rules: a journal needs at least 30 citable documents in 2015–2017, at least 80% of them with a subfield, and a positive world-average expectation. Ranks are within the whole category; filters hide rows without re-ranking. OJR excludes self-citations.
At a glance
Indicator year: 2018. Publication window: 2015–2017. How these summaries are calculated
- Ranked journals
- 38
- Window papers (baseline)
- 51,045 +15.2% from indicator year 2015
- Median OJR
- 1.24 +6.4% from indicator year 2015
- Rising journals (2025)
- 2
Window papers are the baseline paper population: citable papers (articles, reviews and conference papers) from 2015–2017 in all journals of the world-average baseline, including non-core journals, counted by each paper’s own subfield. They are not the papers of the ranked journals alone.
| Measure | Year series | 2000 | 2001 | 2002 | 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009 | 2010 | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ranked journals | 24 | 27 | 26 | 29 | 30 | 29 | 29 | 30 | 33 | 35 | 34 | 34 | 36 | 37 | 36 | 37 | 40 | 41 | 38 | 37 | 37 | 38 | 37 | 38 | 36 | 37 | |
| Window papers (baseline) | 22,731 | 23,854 | 24,889 | 25,805 | 26,822 | 27,939 | 29,189 | 30,667 | 32,410 | 34,308 | 36,950 | 38,915 | 40,591 | 41,376 | 42,782 | 44,295 | 47,379 | 49,734 | 51,045 | 50,925 | 50,830 | 51,203 | 50,651 | 48,994 | 47,124 | 47,101 | |
| Median OJR | 1.32 | 0.80 | 0.935 | 0.92 | 0.9430 | 1.0913 | 0.9426 | 1.182 | 0.84 | 1.04 | 1.13 | 1.29 | 1.123 | 1.0911 | 1.178 | 1.16 | 1.35 | 1.05 | 1.24 | 1.11 | 1.090 | 1.121 | 1.033 | 1.089 | 1.005 | 1.031 |
How to read these rankings
- OJR, the OpenJournalRank Indicator
- A field-normalized 3-year citation impact, computed from OpenAlex with the NCI3 method. It divides the citations a journal’s papers received by the world average for papers of the same subfield, year and type, so 1.00 is the world average and 2.00 means twice as many citations as expected. Because it is normalized, it can be compared across fields. Read the methodology
- Quartiles
- Q1 to Q4 split the ranked journals of the list you are viewing into four equal groups by OJR. A journal’s quartile depends on the list: the same journal can be Q1 in its subfield and Q2 among all journals.
- Impact factor (2-year)
- Citations per paper over a two-year window, counted from OpenAlex. It is easy to compare with familiar impact factors but is not field-normalized, so compare it only within a field. It is not Clarivate’s Journal Impact Factor. Why it differs from the Journal Impact Factor
- Rank ranges
- Each rank in the latest year carries a likely range from 1,000 resamples of the journal’s papers. Where two journals’ ranges overlap, the data cannot tell them apart, so treat neighbouring ranks as ties.