The Malta Convention and Contemporary Polish Archaeology

Abstract

The last decades of the twentieth century saw the introduction of environmental impact assessments that demanded by the national law for all, or at least larger scale, developments, in the spirit of the holistic vision of human environment. In many countries it also became gradually understood that there was a requirement to cover the costs of necessary archaeological prospection and mitigation activities from the total budget of the development. This rule, explicitly included in the Lausanne Charter of 1990 (ICOMOS 1990) and in the Malta Convention of 1992 (EAA 2000), followed by the adequate EU directives, has radically changed the character of archaeology in many countries.