1908 in archaeology
Below are notable events in archaeology that occurred in 1908.
Explorations
- January: Skeleton Cave (Arizona) rediscovered, containing remains of Yavapai massacred in the Battle of Salt River Canyon.
Excavations
- At Avebury in Wiltshire, England, by Harold St George Gray.
- At Knap Hill in Wiltshire, the first excavation of a causewayed enclosure, begun by Ben and Maud Cunnington.
- First excavations at Samaria begun by a Harvard expedition.
- Sakçagözü excavated by John Garstang.
- Ulugh Beg Observatory is discovered in Samarkand by Russian archaeologist V. L. Vyatkin, having been partly destroyed in 1449.
Publications
- A. Hadrian Allcroft - Earthwork of England: Prehistoric, Roman, Saxon, Danish, Norman, and Mediæval.
- Joseph Déchelette begins publishing his Manuel d'Archéologie Préhistorique, Celtique, et Gallo-romaine.
Finds
- 3 July: Phaistos Disc.
- 3 August: "La Chapelle-aux-Saints 1", a 56,000- to 47,000-year-old Neanderthal adult male skeleton, is found at La Chapelle-aux-Saints in central France by Amédée and Jean Bouyssonie and L. Bardon.
- A 40,000-year-old Neanderthal boy skeleton is found at Le Moustier in southwest France by Otto Hauser.
- Venus of Willendorf found by Josef Szombath.
- The largest ever coin hoard is found, 150,000 13th century silver pennies in Brussels.
Births
- November 25: Jia Lanpo, Chinese prehistorian
- December 17: Willard Frank Libby, American developer of radiocarbon dating
Deaths
- May 31: Sir John Evans, English archaeologist
- Frank Calvert, English archaeologist