1950 in archaeology

Explorations

• Spring: Explorations at Timna in Yemen by Wendell Phillips of the American Foundation for the Study of Man.

Excavations

• Excavations at Stonehenge in the south of England by R. J. C. Atkinson, Stuart Piggott and J. F. S. Stone.
• Excavations at Wharram Percy in the north of England by Maurice Beresford begin.
• Excavations at Beitin, West Bank.
• Excavations at Gordion in Turkey by the University of Pennsylvania Museum under Rodney S. Young begin.

Finds

• March 1 - A hoard of Roman coins is discovered at Hordley Grange, Shropshire, England.
• May 8 - A bog body known as "Tollund Man" is discovered in Denmark.
• The Upchurch Hoard is discovered in Upchurch, Kent, England.
• A third premolar is discovered in materials sent back to Sweden by Otto Zdansky from his excavations of the Peking Man site at Zhoukoudian, China in 1921 and 1923.
• Balfarg, a prehistoric site in Fife, Scotland, is discovered through air photography.
• Three Roman mosaic pavements are found at Harpham in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England.
• Stabiae is rediscovered.
• The Garima Gospels at Abba Garima Monastery in Ethiopia first become known to Western scholars.

Events

• January 1 - Commencement date of the Before Present time scale.

Publications

• T. C. Lethbridge - Herdsmen and Hermits: Celtic Seafarers in the Northern Seas.
• V. E. Nash-Williams - The Early Christian Monuments of Wales.

Births

• January 25 - Phil Harding, English field archaeologist
• Wafaa El Saddik, Egyptian Egyptologist

Deaths

• January 27 - Herbert Eustis Winlock, American Egyptologist who worked for the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art