This volume of papers on archaeological research into prehistoric settlement, economy and natural environment is inspired by Janusz Kruk's Studia osadnicze nad neolitem wytyn lessowych [Settlement Studies on the Neolithic of the Loess Uplands]. On the fortieth anniversary of ist publication, we discuss the influence the book has exerted since the 19705, especially the effect it has had on the development of archaeology in Poland and in other European countries. Janusz Kruk's book, and his other scholarly achievements, centre on the reconstruction of dynamic, mutually conditioned relationships between the environmental, economic and settlement systems in the Neolithic. The original element of this model of research into changes in prehistoric communities assumes active human influence on natural environment, with deforestation of quite extensive dry areas of loess uplands as its most spectacular form.weiterlesen