1927 in archaeology

The year 1927 in archaeology involved some significant events.

Explorations

Excavations

• Large scale excavations begin at Peking Man Site in Zhoukoudian, China under Canadian paleoanthropologist Davidson Black with support from the Rockefeller Foundation.
• The Swedish Cyprus Expedition begins 3½ years of excavations under Einar Gjerstad.
• Excavations at Skara Brae begin under V. Gordon Childe (completed in 1930).^[1]
• Excavations at Tepe Gawra begin by an American team under Ephraim Avigdor Speiser.
• Pločnik archaeological site discovered in southern Serbia, with findings of the Vinca culture (5500 BC).
• Excavations begin at Garðar Cathedral Ruins.

Finds

• Davidson Black's excavations at Peking Man Site in Zhoukoudian, China yielded a human tooth that he proposed belonged to a new species that he named Sinanthropus pekinensis
• Leonard Woolley's excavations at Ur uncover the Enheduanna calcite disc.
• First location of wreckage from the VOC Zuytdorp in Western Australia.

Publications

• March - The journal Antiquity is first published.
• Alan Gardiner's Egyptian Grammar: Being an Introduction to the Study of Hieroglyphs is first published.

Other events

• Work begins on draining Lake Nemi to recover the Nemi ships.
• December - An international commission declares most artefacts from the excavations at Glozel to be forgeries.

Births

• January 14 - Rodolphe Kasser, Swiss philologist and archaeologist (d. 2013)^[2]
• February 10 - Bridget Allchin, British archaeologist and prehistorian (d. 2017)^[3]
• November 4 - Ivor Noël Hume, British historical archaeologist (d.2017)^[4]

Deaths

• January 21 - Gen. Sir Charles Warren, British Biblical archaeologist (born 1840)

References