Current Anthropology began publication in January 1960 under editor Sol Tax, with support from the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research. From its beginning, it has been an international journal of general anthropology, and is considered the major scholarly periodical in anthropology for a worldwide audience covering all subdivisions of the field.
The journal is devoted to research on humankind, and thus encompasses the full range of anthropological scholarship on human cultures and other primate species. Papers in a wide variety of areas, including social, cultural, and physical anthropology as well as ethnology and ethnohistory, archaeology, prehistory, folklore, and linguistics are all published in Current Anthropology. This allows for open communication across the subfields of anthropology. The journal publishes articles, reports, interviews, book reviews, and discussion and commentary. Current Anthropology also serves as an informational clearing house for international writers. The major articles in each issue are published with "CA treatment," where multiple commentaries along with the author’s replies are published with the article itself. This allows a forum for discussion and debate.
The readership of the journal can participate in the editorial policy through an informal body of professional Associates, which now number more than 2,000 from more than 100 countries.
From the guide to the Current Anthropology. Records, 1957-1987, (Special Collections Research Center University of Chicago Library 1100 East 57th Street Chicago, Illinois 60637 U.S.A.)
