… OF SHERDS AND SOIL AND SEALING LAYERS, OF COBBLING AND COINS…

Summary. From 1985 to 1987 an experiment was conducted alongside an excavation to examine the effect of trampling on cobbled layers, and to see if the movement of small objects could change their stratigraphic relationships. An experimental area was excavated and backfilled with soil and a cobbled layer containing plastic markers, flower pot sherds and coins. The area, part of a path, was subjected to daily trampling, and was excavated after seventeen months, using normal excavation methods; all the soil was dry sieved. The results show varying recovery rates and horizontal movements for different types of object, and demonstrate the need for further investigation of the causes and implications of differential movement of buried objects.     

The Joint Polish--German Commission for the Revision of School Textbooks and Polish Views of German History

The Joint Polish–German Commission for the Revision ofSchool Textbooks was set up in 1972, bringing together historiansfrom Poland and the Federal Republic of Germany in view of reopeninga scholarly dialogue after decades of almost complete noncommunication.Until the late 1980s, the commission played a prominent roleas a forum for cross-national discussions on Polish-German Beziehungsgeschichte,and most of the leading Polish experts in German history participatedin its proceedings. For the development of Polish historiographyon Germany the work of the commission seems to have been relevantin at least two respects. The commission's regular conferenceson controversial or methodologically complex issues of Polish-GermanBeziehungsgeschichte contributed, on the one hand, to defininga new agenda for Polish historiography on Germany. The interestin explicitly comparative approaches to German and Polish historyincreased, and the focus shifted from specifically ‘Polishinterests’ in German history to more general issues. Onthe other hand, these conferences provided Polish historianswith the opportunity to make their research more visible toGerman historians (even outside the field of specialised EastEuropeanists)—a fact that encouraged Polish historiographyon Germany to pursue more ambitious tasks.