Ethical Principles & Publication Policy

Peer review policy
The Tempus Pontem: Azerbaijan Journal of Archaeology and Anthropology (TP: AJAA) operates a strictly anonymised peer review process. At least two referees review each manuscript. All manuscripts are reviewed as rapidly as possible, and an editorial decision is generally reached within 4 weeks of submission. Editors are not obliged to reject any reviewers who oppose assessing the manuscript.

The Editor or members of the Editorial Board may submit their manuscripts for possible publication in the journal. In these cases, alternative members of the Board will manage the peer review process, and the submitting Editor/Board member will have no involvement in the decision-making process.

Ethical principles
TP: AJAA strictly adheres to internationally recognised academic integrity and ethical scholarship standards. Accordingly, the journal does not accept submissions that violate the following ethical principles:
— The articulation or promotion of pseudoscientific theories or unsubstantiated hypotheses that lack scholarly rigour;
— The advocacy of racist ideologies or claims of gender-based superiority;
— The theoretical legitimization of territorial disputes, armed conflicts, or acts of aggression;
— The incitement of ethnic, national, or religious hostility or division;
— The denigration or delegitimisation of civilisations—including nomadic cultures, cultural communities, or traditional societies;
— Any form of plagiarism or self-plagiarism, including the unattributed reuse of previously published material.

Submissions that include content generated by artificial intelligence (e.g., ChatGPT, DeepSick, etc.) are strictly prohibited. Articles incorporating AI-generated text, in whole or in part, will be rejected.

Authorship
All the authors in a manuscript are responsible for the technical information communicated. For this reason, all authors must read and approve the final version of the manuscript before signing the consent and declaration form. All named authors must have actively contributed to the conception, design, analysis, and interpretation of the data and the drafting of the paper. They must have critically reviewed its content and approved the final version submitted for publication. Participation solely in the acquisition of funding or the collection of data does not justify authorship.

It is a requirement that the corresponding author(s) have been accredited as appropriate upon submission of the manuscript. Contributors who do not qualify as authors should be mentioned under Acknowledgements.

Acknowledgements
Under Acknowledgements, contributors to the article, specifications of the source of funding for the study, and any potential conflicts of interest can be specified. Suppliers of materials should be named, along with their location (town, state/county, country).

Funding
The TP: AJAA requires all authors to acknowledge their funding consistently under a separate heading.

Declaration of conflicting interests
The TP: AJAA encourages authors to include a declaration of any conflicting interests. Authors must identify and declare any personal circumstances or interests that may be perceived as inappropriately influencing the representation or interpretation of reported research results. If there is no conflict of interest, please state, "The authors declare no conflict of interest." Any role of the funding sponsors in the study's design, in the collection, analysis, or interpretation of data, in the writing of the manuscript, or in the decision to publish the results must be declared in this section. If there is no role, “The founding sponsors had no role in the design of the study; in the collection, analyses, or interpretation of data; in the writing of the manuscript, and in the decision to publish the results” must be stated.