The journal Paleoanthropology makes an obvious, but bold, step forward for our field:
In this issue of PaleoAnthropology, we inaugurate a new section, titled “The Data Bank.”As its name suggests, this section will include raw data from excavations, anatomical, and archaeological analyses in the lab, or other types of raw data that colleagues are interested in sharing with the larger paleoanthropological community. Anta MonteWhite sets off this new addition to the journal with raw data files from her excavations in Europe.
The materials in this section will not be peer-reviewed. The first and obvious reason for this is that these data by themselves do not constitute a stand-alone scientific paper. A second, related reason is that the journal will publish such raw data files when they pertain to an already published body of work, not in its stead.
This is awesome, and it will be interesting to see how it works out. As I have previously commented, the nature of raw data in paleoanthropology is not an entirely intuitive matter.
