1880 in archaeology

Explorations

• William Matthew Flinders Petrie travels to Egypt and conducts a survey of the Great Pyramid of Giza.

Excavations

• Nicolay Nicolaysen excavates the Gokstad ship in Norway.
• Heinrich Schliemann begins excavation around the Tomb of Minyas at Orchomenus (Boeotia).

Finds

• The foundations of a convent, first erected in 670, discovered at Minster in Kent.
• Varvakeion Athena.
• The mandible of a Neanderthal child is discovered in a secure context in Šipka cave in the Austro-Hungarian Empire associated with cultural debris including hearths, Mousterian tools and bones of extinct animals.

Publications

• Marcelino Sanz de Sautuola and Juan Vilanova y Piera publish their initial findings on the paintings in the Cave of Altamira, suggesting to initial scepticism that they are of the Paleolithic period.The Journal of Hellenic Studies begins publication.

Births

• April 11 – Julio C. Tello, Peruvian archaeologist
• April 17 – Leonard Woolley, British archaeologist of Mesopotamia