In the last decades of the 20th century a new term has arisen in English-language archaeological literature: environmental archaeology. It is used to designate a separate branch of the liberal arts, but it has seldom been recognized by naturalists. The achievements of environmental archaeology are essential to ecology and environmental protection because many significant contemporary processes occurred thousands of years ago.
Evolution of the ecologic idea reaches back to biblical times. The author distinguishes four stages of the history of this idea: description of the beauty of nature, the first anxiety after the creation of the first industrial centres, the origins of perception of the arriving Apocalypse and the planned activity to avoid it. The author presents the characters of two men who influenced the development of the ecologic idea: St Francis of Assissi and Walenty Roździeński. The latter has postulated in his verses already in the XVII c. the development of Polish Mining and Metallurgy according to the requirements of environmental protection.