Between History and Archaeology : papers in honour of Jacek Lech

The objective of this article is to discuss the role of archaeology in the search for Polish national roots. Questions regarding who we are, where the course of our history begins, have been important already during the Middle Ages. For several centuries, so-called ethnogenetic legends satisfied this curiosity. It was not until 18th century’s ‘intellectual upheaval’ and subsequent partitions of Poland that a significant change in the mentality of Polish people occurred and a new theory of the origins of our nation was formed – the Slavic, what resulted in the development of archaeology, ethnography, history of Middle Ages and Slavic researches in general. After World War II, due to the need for commemorating the 1000-year existence of Poland, the years following 1945 witnessed a return to the search for the roots of Polish national identity. This time, the beginnings of our nation’s history were marked by the year 966, the date of Mieszko I’s baptism, the first historical Polish ruler

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