1908 in archaeology

The year 1908 in archaeology involved some significant events.

Stela at Seibal, photographed by Teoberto Maler, as published in 1908.

Excavations

• At Avebury by Harold St George Gray.^[1]
• First excavations at Samaria begin by a Harvard expedition.
• Sakçagözü excavated by John Garstang.
• Ulugh Beg Observatory is discovered in Samarkand by Russian archaeologist V. L. Vyatkin, which had 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.^[2]
• 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.

Births

• November 25: Jia Lanpo, Chinese prehistorian (died 2001)
• December 17: Willard Frank Libby, developer of radiocarbon dating (died 1980)

Deaths

• Frank Calvert - English archaeologist (b. 1828)

References