Below are notable events in

archaeology Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landscap ...

that occurred in

1926 Events January * January 3 – Theodoros Pangalos declares himself dictator in Greece. * January 8 **Abdul-Aziz ibn Saud is crowned King of Hejaz. ** Crown Prince Nguyễn Phúc Vĩnh Thuy ascends the throne, the last monarch of V ...

Explorations

* February:

Thomas Gann Thomas William Francis Gann (13 May 1867 – 24 February 1938) was a medical doctor by profession, but is best remembered for his work as an amateur archaeologist exploring ruins of the Maya civilization. Personal history Thomas Gann was bo ...

visits the Maya ruin of Coba, and publishes the first first-hand description of the site later in the year. * Enrique Juan Palacios makes detailed description of Chinkultic. *

Matthew Stirling Matthew Williams Stirling (August 28, 1896 – January 23, 1975) was an American ethnologist, archaeologist and later an administrator at several scientific institutions in the field. He is best known for his discoveries relating to the Olmec ...

explores

New Guinea New Guinea (; Hiri Motu Hiri Motu, also known as Police Motu, Pidgin Motu, or just Hiri, is a language of Papua New Guinea, which is spoken in surrounding areas of Port Moresby (Capital of Papua New Guinea). It is a simplified version of ...

(through 1929). * Leo Frobenius makes the first detailed survey of the central Eastern Desert of

Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediter ...

. * First survey at

Tel Hazor Tel Hazor ( he, תל חצור), also Chatsôr ( he, חָצוֹר), translated in LXX as Hasōr ( grc, Άσώρ), identified at Tell Waqqas / Tell Qedah el-Gul ( ar, تل القدح, Tell el-Qedah), is an archaeological tell at the site of ancie ...

made by John Garstang. *

Louis Louis may refer to: * Louis (coin) * Louis (given name), origin and several individuals with this name * Louis (surname) * Louis (singer), Serbian singer * HMS ''Louis'', two ships of the Royal Navy See also Derived or associated terms * Lewis (d ...

and Mary Leakey discover the

neolithic The Neolithic period, or New Stone Age, is an Old World archaeological period and the final division of the Stone Age. It saw the Neolithic Revolution, a wide-ranging set of developments that appear to have arisen independently in several parts ...

site at Hyrax Hill,

Kenya ) , national_anthem = "Ee Mungu Nguvu Yetu"() , image_map = , map_caption = , image_map2 = , capital = Nairobi , coordinates = , largest_city = Nairobi , ...

Excavations

British Museum The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...

-sponsored excavations at

Lubaantun Lubaantun (pronounced /lubaːnˈtun/; also Lubaantún in Spanish orthography) is a pre-Columbian ruined city of the Maya civilization in southern Belize, Central America. Lubaantun is in Belize's Toledo District, about 42 kilometres (26 mi) n ...

under T. A. Joyce. *

Uaxactun Uaxactun (pronounced ) is an ancient sacred place of the Maya civilization, located in the Petén Basin region of the Maya lowlands, in the present-day department of Petén, Guatemala. The site lies some north of the major center of Tikal. The ...

project by Carnegie Institution led by Oliver Ricketson begins. * Alexander Keiller and

Harold St George Gray Harold St George Gray (15 January 1872 – 28 February 1963) was a British archaeologist. He was involved in the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford and later was the librarian-curator of the Museum for the Somerset Archaeological and Natural History So ...

excavate

Windmill Hill, Avebury Windmill Hill is a Neolithic causewayed enclosure in the English county of Wiltshire, part of the Avebury World Heritage Site, about 1 mile (2 km) northwest of Avebury. Enclosing an area of , it is the largest known causewayed enclosure in ...

, in England (continues to 1929). * Col.

William Hawley Lieutenant-Colonel William Hawley (1851–1941) was a British archaeologist who undertook pioneering excavations at Stonehenge. Military career Hawley joined the Royal Engineers and was a captain of the Portsmouth division of the Royal Engin ...

concludes work (begun in 1919) at

Stonehenge Stonehenge is a prehistoric monument on Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire, England, west of Amesbury. It consists of an outer ring of vertical sarsen standing stones, each around high, wide, and weighing around 25 tons, topped by connectin ...

in England, including investigation of the

Aubrey holes The Aubrey holes are a ring of fifty-six (56) chalk pits at Stonehenge, named after the seventeenth-century antiquarian John Aubrey. They date to the earliest phases of Stonehenge in the late fourth and early third millennium BC. Despite decade ...

. * Roman amphitheatre at Isca Augusta near

Caerleon Caerleon (; cy, Caerllion) is a town and community in Newport, Wales. Situated on the River Usk, it lies northeast of Newport city centre, and southeast of Cwmbran. Caerleon is of archaeological importance, being the site of a notable Roman ...

South Wales South Wales ( cy, De Cymru) is a loosely defined region of Wales bordered by England to the east and mid Wales to the north. Generally considered to include the historic counties of Glamorgan and Monmouthshire, south Wales extends westwards ...

excavated by

Victor Erle Nash-Williams Victor Erle Nash-Williams (21 August 1897 – 15 December 1955) was a noted Welsh archaeologist. On the death of his father, Albert Henry Williams, his mother, Maude Rosetta (née Nash) Williams, formally adopted the surname "Nash-Williams". ...

. *

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin Pierre Teilhard de Chardin ( (); 1 May 1881 – 10 April 1955) was a French Jesuit priest, scientist, paleontologist, theologian, philosopher and teacher. He was Darwinian in outlook and the author of several influential theological and philos ...

joins the ongoing excavations of the Peking Man Site at

Zhoukoudian Zhoukoudian Area () is a town and an area located on the east Fangshan District, Beijing, China. It borders Nanjiao and Fozizhuang Townships to its north, Xiangyang, Chengguan and Yingfeng Subdistricts to its east, Shilou and Hangcunhe Towns to ...

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

, as an advisor. * Aage Roussell and Poul Nørlund unearth 13 skeletons at

Igaliku Igaliku is a settlement in the Kujalleq municipality in southern Greenland. The town was founded as Igaliko in 1783 by the trader and colonial administrator Anders Olsen and Greenlandic wife Tuperna. In 2020, Igaliku had 21 inhabitants. The ...

Greenland Greenland ( kl, Kalaallit Nunaat, ; da, Grønland, ) is an island country in North America that is part of the Kingdom of Denmark. It is located between the Arctic and Atlantic oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Greenland is t ...

. *

Hilbre Islands The Hilbre Islands ( ) are an archipelago consisting of three islands at the mouth of the estuary of the River Dee, the border between England and Wales at this point. The islands are administratively part of the Metropolitan Borough of Wirra ...

Publications

* Nils Åberg - ''The Anglo-Saxons in England during the early centuries after the invasion''. *

V. Gordon Childe Vere Gordon Childe (14 April 189219 October 1957) was an Australian archaeologist who specialised in the study of European prehistory. He spent most of his life in the United Kingdom, working as an academic for the University of Edinburgh and th ...

- ''The Aryans: a Study of Indo-European Origins''.

Finds

* October:

Johan Gunnar Andersson Johan Gunnar Andersson (3 July 1874 – 29 October 1960)"Andersson, Johan Gunnar" in ''Encyclopædia Britannica, The New Encyclopædia Britannica''. Chicago: Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 15th edn., 1992, Vol. 1, p. 385. was a Sweden, Swedish arc ...

announces the discovery of two human molars amongst the material excavated from the Peking Man site in

by his assistant Otto Zdansky in 1921 and

1923 Events January–February * January 9 – Lithuania begins the Klaipėda Revolt to annex the Klaipėda Region (Memel Territory). * January 11 – Despite strong British protests, troops from France and Belgium occupy the Ruhr area, t ...

. * Dorothy Garrod finds '

Gibraltar 2 Gibraltar 2, also known as Devil's Tower Child, represented five skull fragments of a male Neanderthal child discovered in the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar. The discovery of the fossils at the Devil's Tower (Gibraltar), Devil's Tower Mo ...

', fossilized components of a

Neanderthal Neanderthals (, also ''Homo neanderthalensis'' and erroneously ''Homo sapiens neanderthalensis''), also written as Neandertals, are an extinct species or subspecies of archaic humans who lived in Eurasia until about 40,000 years ago. While th ...

child's skull, in excavations at the

Devil's Tower Devils Tower (also known as Bear Lodge Butte) is a butte, possibly laccolithic, composed of igneous rock in the Bear Lodge Ranger District of the Black Hills, near Hulett and Sundance in Crook County, northeastern Wyoming, above the Belle Fo ...

rock shelter A rock shelter (also rockhouse, crepuscular cave, bluff shelter, or abri) is a shallow cave-like opening at the base of a bluff or cliff. In contrast to solutional caves (karst), which are often many miles long, rock shelters are almost alway ...

Gibraltar ) , anthem = " God Save the King" , song = " Gibraltar Anthem" , image_map = Gibraltar location in Europe.svg , map_alt = Location of Gibraltar in Europe , map_caption = United Kingdom shown in pale green , mapsize = , image_map2 = Gib ...

. * Mayan settlement of El Mirador first discovered. *

Crofton Roman Villa Crofton Roman Villa in Crofton, Orpington, in the London Borough of Bromley, is a Roman villa which was inhabited between approximately 140 and 400 AD. It was the centre of a farming estate of about , with farm buildings nearby, surrounded by f ...

discovered by bricklayers in Orpington, England. * ''Leonidas'' sculpture discovered on the Acropolis of Sparta. * ''Dancing Girl'' sculpture discovered in British India. * Treasure buried by pirate

Benito de Soto Benito de Soto Aboal (March 22, 1805, Mouriera, a hamlet now a suburb of Pontevedra, Spain - January 25, 1830, Gibraltar.) Pontevedra is in Galicia in northern Spain where the language is close to Portuguese, which has confused some sources that ...

in 1828 is discovered at his home village in

Galicia (Spain) Galicia (; gl, Galicia or ; es, Galicia}; pt, Galiza) is an autonomous community of Spain and historic nationality under Spanish law. Located in the northwest Iberian Peninsula, it includes the provinces of A Coruña, Lugo, Ourense, and ...

Awards

Miscellaneous

* June - Baghdad Archaeological Museum opens. * Sir

Ellis Minns Sir Ellis Hovell Minns, FBA (16 July 1874 – 13 June 1953) was a British academic and archaeologist whose studies focused on Eastern Europe. Educated at Charterhouse, he went to Pembroke College, Cambridge studying the Classical tripos includi ...

elected to the

Disney Professorship of Archaeology The Disney Professorship of Archaeology is an endowed chair in archaeology at the University of Cambridge. It was endowed by John Disney in 1851 with a donation of £1,000, followed by a further £2,500 bequest upon his death in 1857. Disney Pro ...

at the

University of Cambridge , mottoeng = Literal: From here, light and sacred draughts. Non literal: From this place, we gain enlightenment and precious knowledge. , established = , other_name = The Chancellor, Masters and Schola ...

Births

* August 22:

Ángela Jeria Ángela Margarita Jeria Gómez (22 August 19262 July 2020) was a Chilean archaeologist. Mother of the President of Chile Michelle Bachelet, she was the wife of the Chilean Air Force Brigadier General Alberto Bachelet, who died after being tortur ...

, Chilean archaeologist and human rights activist (b. 1926) * September 24:

Aubrey Burl Harry Aubrey Woodruff Burl HonFSA Scot (24 September 1926 – 8 April 2020) was a British archaeologist best known for his studies into megalithic monuments and the nature of prehistoric rituals associated with them. Before retirement he was Pr ...

, English prehistoric archaeologist (d. 2020) * December 12: Wang Jin, Chinese prehistoric archaeologist (d. 2020)

Deaths

* July 12: Gertrude Bell, British archaeologist (b.

1868 Events January–March * January 2 – British Expedition to Abyssinia: Robert Napier leads an expedition to free captive British officials and missionaries. * January 3 – The 15-year-old Mutsuhito, Emperor Meiji of Jap ...

) * December 9: Francis Joseph Bigger, Irish antiquarian (b.

1863 Events January–March * January 1 – Abraham Lincoln signs the Emancipation Proclamation during the third year of the American Civil War, making the abolition of slavery in the Confederate states an official war goal. It proclaims t ...

)

References

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Archaeology Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landscap ...

Archaeology by year