Prof. Waldemar Chmielewski was born on 17 June 1929 in Łódź, he died on 21 July 2004 in Warsaw. He was an archaeologist and geologist, specialising in Palaeolithic. As a student he worked at the Museum of Archaeology in Łódź, later he moved to Warsaw and took position of the Head of the Palaeolithic Department at the Polish Academy of Science to eventually become a founder and first director of Institute of Archaeology at the University of Warsaw.
At the beginning of the fifties, professor started a long-term research project in Sąspowska Valley, located in Kraków-Częstochowa Upland. He worked on it for several dozen years, conducting systematic excavations in caves and rockshelters situated in the Valley. Among one of the first excavated sites was Nietoperzowa cave, based on which W. Chmielewski wrote his doctoral thesis Civilisation de Jerzmanowice, in which he separated a new cultural unit- jerzmanowicka. Further studies included sites: Koziarnia Cave, Tunel Wielki cave, Rockshelter below Tunel Wielki, Rockshelter above Niedostępna Cave, Zachodnia and Wschodnia Sąspowska Caves, rockshelters Bramka, Iłowe, Garncarskie, przy Łące and Kamieniste. In the 1990s final test pits were opened in Zbójecka and Góralska Caves, where research inspired by Professor Chmielewski was conducted in his place by Karol Szymczak, a Ph.D. back then. In the course of excavation detailed journals, drawings of profiles and plans of excavated levels were made. Invaluable was participation of geologist professor Teresa Madeyska.
Materials acquired during the fieldwork in Sąspowska Valley were foundation of a few MA dissertations written under the guidance of W.aldemar Chmielewski at the University of Warsaw. In 1988 Jaskinie Doliny Sąspowskiej. Tło przyrodnicze osadnictwa pradziejowego, book edited by profesor, was published. So far it has been the most comprehensive work concerning results of his research, even though the publication included primarily an environmental background, the archaeological materials themselves were just briefly mentioned.