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 (1872).^[1]

Excavations

• At Avebury in Wiltshire, England, by Harold St George Gray.^[2]
• 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]
• 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 (died 2001)
• December 17: Willard Frank Libby, American developer of radiocarbon dating (died 1980)

Deaths

• May 31: Sir John Evans, English archaeologist (born 1823)
• Frank Calvert, English archaeologist (born 1828)

References