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50th Documenta Praehistorica: a few notes
On the occasion of the publication of the fiftieth volume of the journal, it is a privilege to 
contemplate its development. Three events have been of decisive importance over the de-
cades. The first was the founding of the journal by Professor Josip Korošec. The second event 
was a system of stable funding introduced by Professor Tatjana Bregant, who became editor 
of the journal after Professor Korošec's passing. The third represents the editorial concept, 
with which the journal was embedded in an international scientific research environment, 
and the programme, in which the journal presents and discusses interdisciplinary research 
approaches and relevant explanations of prehistory worldwide.
The journal was first published in 1964. The first two volumes were published by the Depart-
ment of Archaeology of the Faculty of Arts of the University of Ljubljana. The first editor was 
Professor Josip Korošec. The journal focused on presenting the results of the first five-year 
research programme of the Department of Archaeology on the Neolithic and Eneolithic sites 
in Ljubljana marshes. It was no coincidence that the journal was titled Report on Neolithic 
and Eneolithic Research. A new editor, Professor Tatjana Bregant, added the subtitle Cul-
ture of the Ljubljana Marshes to the third volume. With the new excavations and research, 
the content expanded and the editors changed the subtitle of the fourth volume and the title 
of the fifth volume again. The journal thus became Report on Palaeolithic, Neolithic and 
Eneolithic Research in Slovenia (1976) with the subtitle Pre-Metal Cultures in Slovenia. 
Under this title the journal published for the first time interdisciplinary palaeoenviromental 
studies and modern 14C calendar chronologies.
The 22nd volume was published bilingually in 1995 with the subtitle Neolithic Studies until 
2017. Professor Mihael Budja became the editor and connected the journal with the Neo-
lithic Seminars, international scientific conferences organized annually at the Department 
of Archaeology. Selected papers were published in the journal in Slovenian and English. 
The journal thus transcended the national framework and became part of the international 
scientific milieu. With the 25th volume in 1998, the journal was renamed Documenta Prae-
historica and printed only in English with Slovenian abstracts. It was co-financed by the 
Ministry of Culture (until 2001) and the Ministry of Science and Technology of the Republic 
of Slovenia, and edited and published by the Department of Archaeology and the Ljubljana 
University Press, Faculty of Arts (i.e. Znanstvena založba Filozofske fakultete), and in recent 
years by Ljubljana University Press. It is a Diamond Open Access journal, publishing one 
volume per year. The journal maintains presentations, discussions and analyses of modern 
interdisciplinary approaches focusing on paleoclimate dynamics, archaeogenetics, paleo-
demography, archaeometry, biochemistry, 14C modelling, social and cultural processes in 
prehistory.
Mihael Budja