The Archive of the Archaeological Museum in Kraków keeps records spanning more than 170 years (since 1850) of archaeological research, including excavations, and the history of various archaeological institutions. They provide information to numerous archaeologists every year.

Archive records prove indispensable to researchers who start excavation at sites already explored in the past. They also preserve precise drawings, photographs or descriptions concerning artefacts that have been lost and now are known solely from the literature. Moreover, the records can be useful in contemporary archaeology; for example, they help to locate graves from the First and Second World Wars.

Archaeological sources include the Polish Archaeological Record, a project implemented in Poland since the 1970s when the whole country was divided into rectangles, each with an area of 20 square kilometres. Archaeologists have been given the task of exploring these sectors through surface survey and careful study of uncovered artefacts and the literature. The project relies on archaeological archives as well, because they contain information, often obtained many decades ago, about finds that have since been forgotten.

This paper presents diverse archive records and shows the ways of using them in archaeology. It also discusses the most frequent problems encountered by archaeologists studying the archives.

Acknowledgements: Studies financed by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education, Poland (National Programme for the Development of Humanities, No 11 H 16008784). Project „Central and Eastern European Visual Heritage”.