<figure><img src="image_1.png" /><figcaption>Janusz Krzysztof Kozłowski
1938-2025</figcaption></figure>
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Professor Janusz Krzysztof Kozłowski
has passed away

On January 17, 2025, Professor Janusz Krzysztof Kozłowski, archaeologist and prehistorian, maestro and eminent academic, passed away. It is a struggle to find words that would appropriately describe the enormity of his impact on science.

Prof. Janusz Krzysztof Kozłowski graduated from the Institute of Archaeology at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków in 1957. He then (from 1961) held an internship at the Institut de Paléontologie Humaine in Paris. He defended his PhD in 1961 at the Jagiellonian University, where he also obtained a habilitation degree in 1967. In 1975, he was awarded the title of Associate Professor. In the following years, he received the title of Doctor Honoris Causa from the University of Bordeaux and the Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest.

Professor Janusz Kozłowski began working at the Jagiellonian University in 1956, taking up the position of assistant, adjunct, assistant professor and, in 1984, professor. In 1972, he became Director of the newly created Jagiellonian University Institute of Archaeology, serving this function until 1978. For several years, he was the head of the then Department of Polish Archaeology, and then created the Department of American Archaeology in 2006.

There is no doubt that Prof. Janusz Kozłowski was one of the most outstanding Polish archaeologists. The range of research conducted by the Professor is extensive, covering the entire Stone Age. It is difficult to find anywhere in the world an archaeologist who would be a recognised authority in all three periods of the Stone Age – the Palaeolithic, Mesolithic and Neolithic – and,

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in a nutshell, a scientist whose knowledge would span the life of mankind over the past 3 million years. As a rule, it is usually only possible to focus on just one of these sub-periods successfully. In Prof. J. Kozłowski's case, his widely recognised and repeatedly quoted works refer to each of them.

The Professor's research on the Palaeolithic and the resulting publications on the entry of *Homo sapiens* into Europe are of particular significance. One might care to mention here the excavations carried out under the direction of the Professor in the Balkans and Greece. One of the professor's tasks was to describe the complex picture of early colonisation in the Carpathian Basin and the Balkans, and to define the Polish cultural complexes involved in these processes.

Another direction of pioneering research, led by Prof. J. Kozłowski over many years, concerns the origins of the early agricultural economy outside the Middle East. Recently, these works have been extended to the Greek islands, increasing the knowledge of the Mesolithic and Neolithisation processes there. The many breakthroughs include research conducted by the Professor on the issue of the Neolithic of north-east Africa, with particular emphasis on Egypt. The excavations in Upper Egypt and the Fajum oasis conducted from 1976 to 1989 contributed to a fresh outlook on the beginnings of the prehistoric period.

The archaeology of the Americas occupies a separate space in the academic achievements of Professor J. Kozłowski. The professor was undoubtedly the European precursor of this kind of work, which started during the 1960s by conducting field research in Cuba. His successes in this field translated into the possibility of creating at the Jagiellonian University Institute of Archaeology the Department of American Archaeology, the only such unit in Poland. Currently, studies on Guatemala and the United States of America are being continued by the Professor's students. They have gained global publicity, which is the best proof of their master's rank.

The list of the Professor's publications is impressive. He is the author, co-author or editor of 56 books published in many countries and of about 480 academic articles. For many years, the Professor's academic achievements have ranked first among the employees of the Jagiellonian University Faculty of History.

In acknowledgement of his research, Prof. J. Kozłowski was often invited to give lectures as a visiting professor at such academic institutions as: Bordeaux University, College de France, Chaire Francqui (Belgium), Harvard University, Kansas University and the Università di Ferrara.
Besides of that has received a host of other prestigious awards and dis-
tinctions: the “Europa Prize” from the British Academy in 1992, the Laur
Jagielloński in the field of humanities in 1997, the College de France Medal in
2000, the Franqui Foundation Medal (Belgium) in 2001, the Erasmus Majew-
ski – Polish Academy of Science (PAN) award in 2006, Honorary Professor of
the Jagiellonian University in 2014, Outstanding Citizen Award from the City
of Kraków in 2016.

Prof. J. Kozłowski was a world-renowned authority in his chosen fields. He has promoted 21 PhD students (including 5 at foreign universities), some of whom went on to become professors or associate professors themselves. Prof. Janusz K. Kozłowski was an active member and director of II Department of the Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences (PAU), a delegate of the PAU's Board for International Cooperation, a correspondent member of the Deutsches Archaeologisches Institut, a foreign member of the Instituto Italiano di Preistoria e Protostoria, a member of the Comité Executif and Praesident of UISPP (International Union of Prehistoric and Protohistoric Sciences), a member of the Conseil International de Philosophie et des Sciences Humaines UNESCO (as Vice-President between 2003-2006), a member of the Academia Europea (since 2012), honorary member of the British Prehistoric Society, vice president of the Union Academique Internationale in 2006-09, and in 2010 its elected president, a foreign member of Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Chairman of the Executive Agency for Social Science and Humanities (for the agenda of the European Research Council) during the 2012-2015 term of office.

Testimony to the Professor's unquestionable authority was his invitations
to serve on the editorial boards of numerous international scientific journals.
Among the most important are the French "L'Anthropologie," the American
"Geoarchaeology," "Diogenes" (UNESCO, Paris), "Acta Archaeologica Aca-
demiae Scientiarum Hungaricae," "Archaeology, Ethnology and Anthropol-
ogy of Eurasia" (Novosibirsk), "Eurasian Prehistory" (published by Harvard
University and our Institute), and others.

Polish archaeology has just lost its ambassador...

Paweł Valde-Nowak
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