The history of archaeological researches on the iron age in Biebrza River basin

Maciej Karczewski - Uniwersytet w Białymstoku. Instytut HistoriiThe Biebrza River basin is a very unique area according both to the biology and archaeology. The forthills and the barrows discovered there were described for the first time in 1848 by Professor Józef Jaroszewicz. At the end of 19th and at the beginning of the 20th century the greatest service to the archaeological researches in the Biebrza River basin did a local landowner Zygmunt Gloger and his friend Count Ludwik de Fleury, the member of Imperial Moscow Archaeological Society. Acting together and separately they discovered a great number of new archaeological sites in this area. A new part of the history of archaeological researches in the Biebrza River basin started after the First World War. Roman Jakimowicz, an archaeologist from Warsaw, became the Conservator of Prehistoric Monuments of the north-eastern part of Poland. He inspected and described many archaeological sites at the Biebrza River basin and some of them - for example the forthill in Wizna - preserved from destruction. At the same time another archaeologist, Józef Jodkowski, was the director of the Museum in Grodno. He did not lead any researches in the Biebrza River Basin himself but he was an author of an archaeological poll pertaining to this area. After the World War II all archaeological data discovered in the Biebrza River basin were published by a historian, Aleksander Kaminski. He collected information on twenty sites: six forthills, nine cemeteries and barrows in two villages and three sites of other kinds. At the same time archaeologists from Warsaw and Bialystok: Jerzy Antoniewicz and Danuta Jaskanis continued archaeological researches in the Biebrza River basin. George Antoniewicz inspected forthills in Wizna and Pienki Grodzisko. Danuta Jaskanis excavated one of two barrows in the village Okopy. The great increase in the number of new archaeological sites took place in the last three decades of 20th century. They were discovered during surface researche especially those called 'Polish Archaeological Record'. At the some time only a few sites were excavated and none of them were published.4113