Certain chapters of the history of European archaeology can be very useful for revealing the complicated link between historiography and archaeology in the past and not only, since they might help to discern their future relationship. This paper will focus on a series of particular aspects namely the ones of the Romanian archaeology at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th which appear to illustrate a functional relationship between the archaeology and historiography. Another related topic is also in what respect such an approach might be useful in providing a common solid ground for understanding the history of archaeology in Europe. There is a two-way direction relationship between historiography and archaeology: the first influences the excavation program; on a certain level, it indicates to the archaeologist where to look and what to look for. In its turn, archaeology modifies, in time, the historians discourse, by contradicting long established axioms or by bringing some light in spaces governed mainly by suppositions and imagination. As the Romanian archaeology offers classic examples to illustrate each of the cases above, I will point out some of the most relevant. But the peculiar interest of my example is not residing just in emphasising what I consider to be a functional partnership between historiography and archaeology. I consider it also a good example of a local synthesis of two distinct archaeological traditions, French and German, adopted almost simultaneous (the French model for institutions, legislation and national discourse relying on "antiquités nationales", and the German model for the field research, data publication and academic formation). Adapted to the local context, those two models of organising the archaeology brought their contribution to the process of constructing and enforcing the national identity and the national feeling in modern Romania, without excluding collaboration with foreign archaeologists that sometimes represented "enemies" countries. The paper will underline some characteristics of a particular "national" archaeology, analysed at a certain moment of its development, in order to discern possible examples of "good practice", models to be fallowed, bearing in mind that, in fact, many models of European archaeology, are the result of a synthesis process.
