Basic Information

He studied in 1982-1988 at the Institute of Archaeology of the Jagiellonian University in Cracow, Poland. He received his doctoral degree in 1992 based on the thesis entitled Osadnictwo kultury pucharów lejkowatych we wschodniej części Niecki Nidziańskiej (“Settlement of the Funnel Beaker culture in the eastern part of the Nida Basin”). Since 1993 he has been employed at the Institute of Archaeology of the Jagiellonian University as an assistant, since 1994 as an adjunct professor, since 2018 as an associate professor. In 2009, he was awarded the postdoctoral degree (habilitacja) based on a dissertation entitled Drugi etap neolityzacji ziem polskich (“The second phase of Neolithisation in Polish territories”).

Scientific interests, research programmes, excavations

The scientific interests concern the broadly understood problems of Neolithic and Eneolithic. In recent years, research activities have been particularly related to the following topics:
1. The beginnings of the Neolithic in the north-eastern part of the Carpathian Basin. It is a Polish-Slovakian, multidisciplinary research program, implemented since 2000, together with the University of Prešov and the Institute of Archaeology of the Slovak Academy of Sciences. It is a continuation of the research, conducted since 1994. It aims, among other things, to establish the exact chronology of the first groups of farmers in Eastern Slovakia, to reconstruct their origins, economy, transcarpathian contacts, management of stone raw materials (especially obsidian), as well as to reconstruct the spatial organization of their settlement. These goals are realized through archival inquiries, excavations and surface surveys as well as through the examining of archaeological materials obtained during the rescue research in the East Slovak Lowland. In 2015, within the framework of this research program, a monograph on an early Neolithic settlement in Moravany (okres Michalovce) was published, related, among others, to the initial stages of settling of the Upper Tisza basin by agricultural communities.
2. Processes of neolithization of Central Europe. For a number of years a program of interdisciplinary investigations and studies on the neolithization of Central Europe, with particular emphasis on its second stage, in the 5th and 4th millennium BC (which, in the sphere of material culture, is reflected, among others, by the Funnel Beaker culture) has been carried out. As a part of this program, excavations have been conducted in the western and central Lesser Poland. Their aim is to recognize the Funnel Beaker culture settlement (approx. 4000-3000 BC), both in the loess and in the “off-loess” zones. As a summary of an earlier stage of studies on the discussed issues, a monograph entitled  Drugi etap neolityzacji ziem polskich (“The second phase of Neolithisation in Polish territories”) was published in 2009. The culmination of the next stage of these studies is a monograph, written together with S. K. Kozlowski, entitled I przyszli ludzie zza Gór Wysokich. Ziemie polskie od VI do IV tysiąclecia BC (“And There Come the People From Beyond the Great Mountains. The Polish Lands From the 6th do 4th Millennium BC”). It was published in 2019.

3. Elaboration of Mesolithic and Neolithic materials from western Lesser Poland sites, discovered in recent years during rescue investigations that had preceded linear and large-area investments, such as, among others: Podłęże 17, Podłęże 22, Stanisławice 9 and Stanisławice 10, Aleksandrowice 2, Miechów 3. In 2015 a monographic study of both sites in Stanisławice was published. Currently, the most important element of this section of research activity is the implementation of the National Science Centre of Poland grant, aimed at an interdisciplinary study of the multicultural site 3 in Miechów.

Examination of flint inventories from the Stone and Bronze Age sites in Southern Jordan, as a part of the HLC Project, carried out under the direction of Dr P. Kołodziejczyk at the Institute of Archaeology of the Jagiellonian University, financed by the National Science Centre of Poland.

Selected publications

• Osadnictwo kultury pucharów lejkowatych we wschodniej części Niecki Nidziańskiej. ss.159. Kraków 1993: Instytut Archeologii UJ.
• Ceramika kultury pucharów lejkowatych ze stanowiska 1 w Kawczycach. ss. 215, 23 tabl., Kraków 1996: Instytut Archeologii UJ.
• Regional settlement patterns of the Early Phases of the Eastern Linear Pottery Culture in the Eastern Slovakian Lowland. [in:] J. K. Kozłowski (ed.), The Early Linear Pottery Culture in Eastern Slovakia: 15-43. Kraków 1997: Polska Akademia Umiejętności.
• Kaczanowska M., J. K. Kozłowski, M. Nowak. Conclusions. [in:] J. K. Kozłowski (ed.), The Early Linear Pottery Culture in Eastern Slovakia: 267-275. Kraków 1997: Polska Akademia Umiejętności.
• Drugi etap neolityzacji ziem polskich w świetle danych archeologicznych i palinologicznych. [in:] K. Wasylikowa (ed.), Rośliny w dawnej gospodarce człowieka. Warsztaty archeobotaniczne '97. Polish Botanical Studies. Guidebook series 23: 39-77. Kraków 1999: Instytut Botaniki PAN im. W. Szafera.
• Osadnicze i socjo-polityczne modele południowo-wschodniej grupy kultury pucharów lejkowatych. [in:] J. K. Kozłowski, E. Neustupný (eds.), Archeologia przestrzeni. Metody i wyniki badań struktur osadniczych w dorzeczach górnej Łaby i Wisły: 127-153. Kraków 2001: Polska Akademia Umiejętności, Akademie Ved České Republiky.
• The second phase of Neolithization in east-central Europe, Antiquity 75(289; 2001): 582-592.
• A settlement of the Early Eastern Linear Pottery culture at Moravany (Eastern Slovakia) within the context of the neolithization of the Upper Tisza Basin. [in:] E. Jerem, P. Raczky (red.) Morgenrot der Kulturen. Frühe Etappen der Menschheitsgeschichte in Mittel- und Südosteuropa: 127-143. Budapest 2003: Archaeolingua.
• Transformations in East-Central Europe from 6000 to 3000 BC: local vs. foreign patterns, Documenta Praehistorica 33 (2006): 143-158.
• Middle and Late Holocene hunter-gatherers in East Central Europe: changing paradigms of the ‘non-Neolithic’ way of life, Documenta Praehistorica 34: 2007, s. 89-103.
• Kozłowski J. K., M. Nowak red.), Mesolithic/Neolithic Interactions in the Balkans and in the Middle Danube Basin. British Archaeological Reports Int. Series 1726. Oxford 2007: Archaeopress.
• Drugi etap neolityzacji ziem polskich. pp. 717, figs.. 114. Kraków 2009: Instytut Archeologii UJ.
• Hunter-Gatherers and early ceramics in Poland, [in:] P. Jordan, M. Zvelebil (eds.), Ceramics Before Farming: The Dispersal of Pottery Among Prehistoric Eurasian Hunter-Gatherers: 324-352. University College London Institute of Archaeology Publications, Left Coast Press 2009.
• Nowak M. et al., Early Neolithic in the Upper Tisza Basin: new data from Moravany, Eastern Slovakia, Eurasian Prehistory 7 (2010): 159-219.
• Kozłowski J. K., M. Nowak. From Körös/Criş to the early Eastern Linear Complex: multidirectional transitions in the north-eastern fringe of the Carpathian Basin. [in:] J. K. Kozłowski, P. Raczky (eds.), Neolithization of the Carpathian Basin: Northernmost Distribution of the Starčevo/Körös Culture: 65-90. Kraków-Budapest 2010: Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences, Institute of Archaeological Sciences of the Eötvös Loránd University.
• Neolithisation in Polish territories: Different patterns, different perspectives, and Marek Zvelebil’s ideas, Interdisciplinaria Archaeologica: Natural Sciences in Archaeology 4(1), 2013: 85-96.
• Settlement and economic transformations in western Little Poland between 3500 and 2500 BC: internal development vs. external implantation, [in:] T.L. Kienlin, P. Valde-Nowak, M. Korczyńska, K. Cappenberg, J. Ociepka (eds.), Settlement, Communication and Exchange Around the Western Carpathians. International Workshop Held at the Institute of Archaeology, Jagiellonian University, Kraków October 27-28, 2012: 125-142. Archaeopress Archaeology, Archaeopress, Oxford 2014.
• Identity of FBC societies in the upper Vistula river basin, [in:] M. Furcholt, M. Hinz, D. Mischka, G. Noble, D. Olausson (eds.), Landscapes, Histories and Societies in the Northern European Neolithic: 185-196. Frühe Monumentalität und sociale Differenzierung 4, Institut für Ur- und Frühgeschichte der CAU Kiel, Rudolf Habelt, Bonn 2014.
• Późny etap rozwoju cyklu lendzielsko-polgarskiego w zachodniej Małopolsce, [in:] K. Czarniak, J. Kolenda, M. Markiewicz (eds.), Szkice neolityczne. Księga poświęcona pamięci profesor Anny Kulczyckiej-Leciejewiczowej: 239-283. Instytut Archeologii i Etnologii PAN: Wrocław 2014.
• Nowak M., Zastawny A. (eds.). 2015. The Baden Culture around the Western Carpathians. Via Archaeologica. Krakowski Zespół do Badań Autostrad/The Cracow Team for Archaeological Supervision of Motorway Construction: Kraków.
• Kozłowski J.K., Nowak M., Vizdal M. (eds.). 2015. Early Farmers of the Eastern Slovak Lowland: The Settlement of the Eastern Linear Pottery Culture at Moravany. Prace Komisji Prehistorii Karpat PAU 7, Polska Akademia Umiejętności, Kraków.
• Nowak M., Rodak T. (eds.). 2015. Osady z epoki kamienia oraz wczesnej epoki brązu na stanowiskach 9 i 10 w Stanisławicach, pow. bocheński. Via Archaeologica. Krakowski Zespół do Badań Autostrad/The Cracow Team for Archaeological Supervision of Motorway Construction: Kraków.
• Ubiquitous settlers, consequent farmers, and monument builders, [in:] P. Włodarczak (ed.), The Past Societies. Polish Lands from the First Evidence of Human Presence to the Early Middle Ages, vol. 2: 5500-2000: 125-170. Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology, Polish Academy of Sciences: Warszawa 2017.
• Do 14C dates always turn into an absolute chronology? The case of the Middle Neolithic in western Lesser Poland, Documenta Praehistorica 44, 2017: 240-271. DOI: 10.4312/dp.44.15
• Nowak M., Moskal-Del Hoyo M., Mueller-Bieniek A., Lityńska-Zając M., Kotynia K. 2017. Benefits and weaknesses of radiocarbon dating of plant material as reflected by Neolithic archaeological sites from Poland, Slovakia and Hungary, Geochronometria 44: 188–201.  DOI 10.1515/geochr-2015-0066
• Pelisiak A., Nowak M., Astaloș C. (eds.). 2018. People in the Mountains. Current Approaches to the Archaeology of Montainous Landscapes. Archaeopress: Oxford 2018.
• Moskal-del Hoyo, M., Wacnik, A., Alexandrowicz, W. P., Stachowicz-Rybka, R., Wilczyński, J., Pospuła-Wędzicha, S., Szwarczewski, P., Korczyńska, M., Cappenberg, K., Nowak, M. 2018. Open country species persisted in loess regions during the Atlantic and early Subboreal phases: New multidisciplinary data from southern Poland, Review of Palaeobotany and Palynology 253: 49–69. DOI: 10.1016/j.revpalbo.2018.03.005
• Kołodziejczyk P., Nowak M., Wasilewski M., Karmowski J., Czarnowicz M., Brzeska-Zastawna A., Zakrzeńska J., Radziwiłko K., Witkowska B., Kościuk J. 2018. HLC Project 2017: Jagiellonian University excavations in southern Jordan, Polish Archaeology in the Mediterranean 27/1: 379-416.
• Korczyńska M., Cappenberg K., Nowak M., Szwarczewski P., Moskal-del Hoyo M. 2019. Multi-methodological approaches to investigate large archaeological sites: The case study of the Eneolithic settlement in Mozgawa, western Lesser Poland, Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports 27: 101941,  DOI: 10.1016/j.jasrep.2019.101941
• The first vs. second stage of neolithisation in Polish territories (to say nothing of the third?), Documenta Praehistorica 46, 2019: 102-127. DOI: 10.4312\dp.46.7
• Mueller-Bieniek A., Nowak M., Styring A., Lityńska-Zając M., Moskal-del Hoyo M., Sojka A., Paszko B., Tunia K., Bogaard A. 2019. Spatial and temporal patterns in Neolithic and Bronze Age agriculture in Poland based on the stable carbon and nitrogen isotopic composition of cereal grains, Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports 27: 101993., DOI: 10.1016/j.jasrep.2019.101993
• Kozłowski S. K., Nowak M. 2019. I przyszli ludzie zza Gór Wysokich. Ziemie polskie od VI do IV tysiąclecia BC [Eng. summary: And There Come the People From Beyond The Great Mountains. The Polish Lands From The 6TH To 4TH Millennium BC]. Instytut Archeologii Uniwersytetu Rzeszowskiego, Ośrodek Badań nad Antykiem Europy Południowo-Wschodniej Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego: Rzeszów-Warszawa
• Mnich B., Mueller-Bieniek A., Nowak M., Wilczyński J., Pospuła S., Szostek K. 2020. Terrestrial diet in prehistoric human groups from southern Poland based on human, faunal and botanical stable isotope evidence, Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports 32: 102382, DOI: 10.1016/j.jasrep.2020.102382
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