and his research and publications ensured that the department in Poznan became a strong archaeological center in both the interwar and the postwar period. Thanks to the efforts of Kostrzewski, the Poznan Prehistoric School was established, and by the end of 1926, he was the dominant figure in archaeologyin Poland, as the head or the founder of most Poznan archaeological institutions.

In 1934, Kostrzewski initiated and led the excavation of a Lusatian culture fortified settlement, biskupin, in Poland. Biskupin became an example of modern archaeological research and the use of new preservation methods, as well as a training site for new staff. A wide information and promotional campaign launched by Kostrzewski generated considerable interest in the excavations from within Poland and from abroad. In 1936, he began excavating the strongholds of the early Piasts in Gniezno, Poznan, and Klecko.

During World War II, Kostrzewski changed his name to avoid detention. This was a period of intense work, and his Kultura prapolska (Pre-Polish Culture), published in 1947, was one of his greatest achievements. Two years after the Polish edition, a French translation appeared (Les origines da la civilisation polonaise, préhistoire-protohistoire), which was an outstanding synthesis of the whole problem of Polish tribal and early Piast culture while, at the same time, being an original introduction to the celebration of the millennium of the Polish state. The work was characterized by a broad and comprehensive approach to the problems it raised as well as by an innovative application of the achievements of other branches of science, such as ethnography and history.

After the war, in March 1945, Kostrzewski again became the head of the prehistoric section in the Wielkopolskie Museum and assumed a teaching position at the university. At the suggestion of the Institute for the Research on Slavic Antiquities, the excavations in Biskupin were resumed in 1946. His postwar academic career was marked by his anti-German attitude, and Kostrzewski struggled to prove the Polish origins of the so-called regained territories (the northern and western parts of today’s Poland). In 1950, because he was a scholar who did not want to comply with the indoctrination and ideologization of public and academic life resulting from communist rule in Poland, he lost his position as head of the university department and retired. In 1956, during the period of considerable political freedom after Stalin’s death, he again became the head of the Archaeology Department. He retired finally in 1960, and because he had educated a large group of active archaeologists, he can be considered the proper founder of the Poznan school of prehistory.

Over his long professional career Kostrzewski showed interest in all periods of Polish prehistory. By studying all of its history, he developed the most accurate typological and chronological descriptions of successively identified cultures and leading groups of monuments. His research involved classifying and describing source materials, and he intentionally did not try to include a discussion of economic and settlement relations or relationships with the natural environment. Neither did he directly refer to the discoveries of the natural scientists. For him, the basic unit of study was an archaeological culture and a local group. Each culture, after sublimation, became a real and independent unit that was capable of unrestricted migration, making its own relations, transferring its own features, or mixing with other cultures.

Kostrzewski’s main works were typically idiographic in character, and he himself was a typical empiricist, rarely explaining the theoretical and methodological assumptions he referred to. He was also interested in the problem of the continuity of settlement patterns in a given territory. In his work, he took a positivist approach and adopted intuitive antinaturalism. For Kostrzewski, induction was the fundamental procedure used in obtaining valid knowledge.

He supported the theory of autochthonism of the Slavs, based on the premise that from the time of the Lusatian culture (late Bronze Age to the early Iron Age) until the early Middle Ages there is an observable continuity in settlement patterns and in cultural development. He also emphasized the cultural unity of the region and attributed it to Slavic forefathers. His main concern was to formulate an approach that would