introduction to the catalog of the Tenth All-Russian Archaeological Congress was written by a German archaeologist in Dorpat, Tartu province, Professor Richard Hausmann (1842– 1918)—the 1890s’ foremost specialist in the early Iron Age archaeology of the eastern Baltic region.

The third phase of the first period of archaeological investigations in Latvia, at the beginning of the twentieth century, was marked by great activities of German specialists. R. Hausman’s publication, Prahistorische Archaologie von Estland, Livland, Kurland (Dorpat 1910) was the first elaborate chronology of prehistory that met European standards for archaeological science at the beginning of the twentieth century. A. Bielenstein, the famous ethnographer and ethnologist, at the end of the nineteenth century (1899) described the Latvian hillforts. A bibliography of the archaeology of Livland, Estland, and Curland until 1913 was published by A. Buchholtz and A. Sprekelsen (Rīga 1914). The first scientific typological and chronological survey of the prehistory of the eastern Baltic area, including Latvia, Die baltischen Provinzen Kurland, Livland, Estland, was published by Max Ebert (1913).

The second period in the history of archaeological investigations in Latvia refers to the years of the independent Republic of Latvia (1918–1940). Max Ebert, who worked at Albertus University in Koenigsberg, and Francis Balodis, who was on the staff of the Saratow University in Russia, became the first professors and heads of the Department of Archaeology in the faculty of Philology and Philosophy during the first years of the independent Latvia. Francis Balodis became the head of the department in 1924, after his return from Saratow. These two famous, academically educated specialists were the founders of the National School of Latvian archaeologists. In later archaeological investigations the best specialists were students Voldemārs Ģinters, Eduards Šturms, F. Jākobsons, Elvīra Šnore, Rauls Šnore, Ādolfs Karnups, and Pēteris Stepinš. The large-scale excavations at the Lettgallian, Semigallian, and Liv hillforts of the tenth through the thirteenth centuries were organized by these archaeologists. Excavations of barrows and cemeteries of the Iron Age and early Middle Ages increased artifact collections. New specialists focused interest on the new discoveries from the late Iron Age via investigations of hillforts, cemeteries, the material culture of native peoples, and their social life and ideology. Investigations of Stone- and Bronze Age monuments began with the excavations of the Sārnate peat bog settlement and the Neolithic sanctuary on the littoral of the Baltic Sea, the Ģipka lagoon. Excavations of the Stone Age monuments in the inner regions of the Lake Lubāna Wetland were carried out (Iča). The first publications of the new investigations appeared in the popular periodical Senatne un Māksla (Antiquity and Art), which was edited by Francis Balodis between 1936 and 1940. The investigators were full of good ideas for carrying on the work of the first generation of Latvian archaeologists, but they were interrupted by the first Soviet occupation in 1940. Because it was feared that archaeology would encourage nationalist tendencies (and therefore lead to revolt against occupation), the KGB persecuted many archaeologists during World War II and the period following the war. The Russians sought to crush local identity, as Stalin was doing throughout the USSR. Francis Balodis emigrated. V. Urtāns—who was to become one of the best archaeologists of the second generation of Latvian archaeologists—was arrested and sent to the Siberian gold mines. Ernests Brastinš, the famous topographer and investigator of Latvian hillforts, was deported from Latvia and was later sentenced to death.

The beginning of the third period in the history of archaeology in Latvia was dramatic as it included changes in the political situation in Latvia during two different occupation regimes: Soviet and German Nazi. For several years the departments of the History of Latvia at the University in Rīga were closed. Latvian archaeologists of the second generation graduated from the university at the end of the German Nazi occupation or at the beginning of the Soviet occupation. At the end of the war senior archaeologists F. Balodis, Voldemārs Ģinters, and Eduards Šturms emigrated to Sweden and Germany. After the war, in 1946, two other specialist archaeologists—R. Šnore and Ā. Karnups—were