Learn where to find journal articles on the library webpage, and how to discover these on databases.
These databases cover content from specialist journals that relate to the sub-fields of anthropology that you work on in your degree: archaeology, evolutionary anthropology, linguistic anthropology and social anthropology. Content includes: ethnography, fieldwork, cultural heritage, conservation, museum and material culture studies.
Anthropological Fieldwork Online brings the fieldwork underpinning the great ethnographies of the early 20th century into the digital world. This fully indexed, primary source database unfolds the historical development of anthropology from a global perspective.
Anthropology Plus is the world's most comprehensive index of journal articles and edited works for: social, cultural, physical, biological and linguistic anthropology, ethnology, archaeology, folklore, material culture and interdisciplinary studies. It covers materials from the early 19th century to today.
This database indexes and provides online access to publications from the American Anthropological Association. Please note: we do not have access to all AAA journals, nor all years.
The BIAB online database contains datasets covering publications from AD 1695 to the present day on archaeology and the historic environment, historic buildings, maritime and industrial archaeology, environmental history, and the conservation of material culture - with a geographical focus on Britain and Ireland.
eHRAF Archaeology focuses on in-depth descriptive documents of mostly prehistoric archaeological traditions from around the world. The information is organized by tradition, region, subregion and subsistence type and is indexed at the paragraph level by Human Relations Area Files anthropologists using unique subject identifier codes from the Outline of Cultural Materials (OCM).
eHRAF World Cultures contains ethnographic collections covering all aspects of cultural and social life from historical to contemporary time periods. The contents are organized by regions, subregions, and cultures and cover over 300 cultures. The material is indexed at the paragraph level by Human Relations Area Files anthropologists using unique subject identifier codes from the Outline of Cultural Materials (OCM).
The role of the traditional ethnographer is changing as the perspectives and epistemologies of indigenous peoples have taken on central significance in the discipline, challenging earlier representations and implicit “us versus them” constructs. In order to create a platform for indigenous voices to address issues from indigenous perspectives, the third volume of the ethnographic film series is dedicated to indigenous filmmakers.
Volume 4 provides a space for visual anthropologists of today to showcase and disseminate their most compelling work. The focus is on curating award-winning titles from contemporary ethnographic film festivals.
Ethnologue lists every known living language that is still in use today - 7,151, to be exact. It is the most authoritative resource on world languages.
The International Bibliography of the Social Sciences (IBSS) is an essential online resource for social science and interdisciplinary research. IBSS includes journal articles and to books, reviews and selected chapters dating back to 1951. It is unique in its broad coverage of international material and incorporates over 100 languages and countries.
JSTOR is a digital library of academic journals, books, and primary sources.
NB: This database can be browsed on campus without signing into the Overton site. Off campus, users need to register on the Overton registration page with their @bristol.ac.uk email address. Overton allows users to discover policy documents in 180 countries and explore their links to each other and to the academic research that has informed them. Overton indexes work from governments, universities, IGOs, NGOs, research funders, publishers and think tanks to understand their role in the policymaking landscape. Users can track the evolution of ideas all the way from academic and think tank research to government reports and legislation.
Use Policy Commons to discover and follow high-quality policy research from 210 countries and territories produced by world’s leading policy experts, charities, think tanks, IGOs and NGOs. Includes publications from inactive organisations that may not be available elsewhere. For help with searching see https://coherentdigital.net/resources2-1
Covers literature and criticism, history, the visual and performing arts, cultural studies, education, political science, gender studies, etc. Contains current full text scholarly journals which cover these fields and a significant collection of recent scholarly books.
Vast database of full-text handbooks, videos and case studies of qualitative and quantitative research methods. Also includes a research project planner, with step by step help on each stage of the research process, for all types of dissertation or research project.
Search the world’s leading scholarly journals, books, and proceedings in the sciences, social sciences, and arts and humanities.
Includes: Science Citation Index; Social sciences Citation Index; Arts and Humanities Citation Index; Arts and Humanities Citation Index; Conference Proceedings Citation Index - Science; Conference Proceedings Citation Index - Social Science & Humanities.
For topics with a multidisciplinary or transdisciplinary reach, you may need to search databases from related disciplines: biology, medicine, psychology, economics, policy studies, sociology.
If you need help on which databases to use for your research, please do get in touch!
Comprehensive database for the traditional areas of biology that combines content from the BIOSIS Previews database with fully indexed cited references from BIOSIS (from 2006) and content from all the Web of Science databases (prior to and post 2006).
PubMed contains references to journal papers from Medline and life sciences journals.
Scopus includes references to journal articles, conference proceedings and books relating to science, technology, medicine, social sciences and arts & humanities.
International literature in sociology and related disciplines in the social and behavioral sciences.
UK’s national thesis service providing records of all doctoral theses awarded by UK Higher Education institutions and free access to the full text of as many theses as possible. Please note: UK theses not available on EThOS can be requested via the Inter-Library Loan service.
An index of scholarly research on history, literature and culture from 400 to 1500AD. Geographical coverage includes North Africa, the Middle East and Europe.
Includes citations to dissertations and theses from 1861 to the present day. Full-text is available for most dissertations added since 1997. The official digital dissertations archive for the Library of Congress, it also includes UK & Ireland content.
Use academic databases if you want to do a quick and thorough search for a topic across many digital journals and books. They will allow you to do a more in-depth and focused search compared with Library Search or Google Scholar.
Some databases include full-text versions of articles and others only have bibliographic details. When the full text is not available, try the Get It @Bristol Univ button to see if there is a link to the full text in the library.
Subject-specific database like Anthropology Plus and AnthroSource, cover the most current and comprehensive bibliographies of research in anthropology and archaeology journals.
Multi-disciplinary databases, like Web of Science, are excellent for finding anthropology and archaeology materials, including those that intersect with other disciplines and areas in science, social sciences, arts and the humanities.
A self-help tutorial on effective research with databases.
This guide lists the key journals that relate to specific sub-fields in anthropology and explains how to access these to conduct searches for relevant literature.
