The course, character and conditions of the excavations conducted in 1948-1966 in Pomerania as part of the program research on the origins of the Polish State were discussed in the paper. Their effects and significance for the development of archaeology in this region of Poland were evaluated.
Anna Kulczycka-Leciejewiczowa is among the foremost researchers of the Neolithic in the Vistula and Oder basins in the history of archaeology. She studied the Neolithic in Poland, especially the culture of the Danubian communities. From 1957-1965 she worked at the Archaeological Museum in Cracow, and after that, until 2004, at the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology, Polish Academy of Sciences (previously IHKM PAN), first in Warsaw, and later in Wrocław. She obtained her doctoral degree in 1976 and was awarded a professorship in 1998. Her most important excavations were at Zawarża and Strachów; she also excavated at Malice and Samborzec. Among her publications are: a synthesis on the Danubian communities in the Polish lands in the second volume of Prahistoria ziem polskich (1979) and four monographs Osadnictwo neolityczne w Polsce południowo-zachodniej. Próba zarysu organizacji przestrzennej (1993); Strachów: osiedla neolitycznych rolników na Śląsku (1997); Zawarża: osiedle neolityczne w południowopolskiej strefie lessowej (2002) and Samborzec. Studium przemian kultury ceramiki wstęgowej rytej (2008).
Leon Kozłowski (1892-1944), the outstanding prehistorian, soldier, and politician, was connected with Kraków from the beginning of his studies until he obtained his postdoctoral degree. He studied natural sciences and then archaeology at the Jagiellonian University while being also an unofficial assistant at the Archaeological Museum of the Academy of Arts and Sciences in Kraków. The Academy appointed him to explore Lusatian cemeteries near Tarnobrzeg, to excavate a Palaeolithic site in Jaksice (former Miechów district), megalithic graves in Kuyavia, and the Mammoth Cave in the Polish Jura. He collected materials for the Academy during a scientific expedition to the Crimea and the Caucasus organized by Robert Rudolf Schmidt (1882-1950) from the University of Tübingen. During the First World War, Kozłowski joined the Polish Legions and was thus involved in the struggle for Polish independence. He moved to Warsaw to write his doctoral thesis based on the collection of the Erazm Majewski Museum and then defended it in Tübingen. After he gained his postdoctoral degree in Kraków, he took the chair of prehistory in Lwów/Lviv and his contacts with the Jagiellonian University and the Academy of Arts and Sciences in Kraków came to a close. It was only in 1935 that he was elected a corresponding member of the Academy.
Zdzisław Lenartowicz, painter by profession and archaeologist by avocation, conducted archaeological studies at the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th century. He was a discoverer and the first researcher of many archaeological sites located within today’s Świętokrzyskie province (former Kieleckie and Radomskie provinces). Archaeology owes to him mainly the discoveries of extraordinary, multi-cultured sites in Złota near Sandomierz and unearthing the settlement of miners working in the mine of striped flint in Krzemionki, located on the Gawroniec hill near Ćmielów. Lenartowicz was a self-educated archaeologist, which was actually a rule among Polish researchers of his generation. At the beginning, he made many mistakes during excavations and also dispersed the remains extracted from the sites. After some time, though, Lenartowicz made considerable progress and thanks to contacts with more experienced archaeologists he gradually improved his skills. Additionally, he started to publish independent reports of the results of his methodically conducted excavations on subsequently discovered sites, including i.a. in Ludwików near Łopuszno and in Glinka near Ćmielów. At the beginning of the 20th century the 60-year old researcher was ousted from field work but still he deserves our memory and recognition as a man who contributed to an important part of Polish archaeology of the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries.
This paper explores themes Dawid Kobiałka raised in his polemic discussion, “Against Gandalf the Grey: towards a Sherlockian Reading of the History of Archaeological Thought,” specifically the role excavation plays in the discipline, thereby shaping narratives of surface and appearance, parallels between archaeology and detective fiction, and ultimately of scholarship. By digging below the surface of these narratives and dissecting their history, revealing the relations between archaeology and such disciplines as history and philology, and some of the metaphors held in common by any number of scientific disciplines, we come to critically examine the metaphysical assumptions of both the discipline itself potential “radical” approaches to it.
The times of the Second Polish Republic were a particularly important period in the development of Polish archeology, because after Poland regained independence, the first state institution was established to organize the protection of archaeological monuments throughout the country. It was the State Group of Prehistoric Monuments Conservators functioning in the years 1920–1928. Their activities in the Kielce voivodeship brought particularly interesting results. Conservators and delegates of the State Group of Prehistoric Monuments Conservators did a lot in the field of inventory and protection of archaeological monuments in the Kielce region, undertaking surface and excavation rescue research, as well as popularizing archeology among the inhabitants of the region. The result of their activities was the registration, discovery, and exploration of many archaeological sites, including such valuable ones as a complex of multicultural sites in Złota near Sandomierz and in Książnice Wielkie, and a unique complex of striped flint mines in Krzemionki near Ostrowiec. The sites discovered at that time in the Kielce voivodeship are still the subject of interest and research to Polish archaeologists.
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