1927 in archaeology

Below are notable events in archaeology that occurred in 1927.

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 yield a human tooth that he proposed belonged to a new species that he names Sinanthropus pekinensis .
• Skeleton of Asselar man discovered by Théodore Monod and Wladimir Besnard in the Adrar des Ifoghas.
• Kents Cavern 4 maxilla found in England.
• Leonard Woolley's excavations at Ur uncover the Enheduanna calcite disc.
• "Priest-King" sculpture from the Indus Valley Civilisation found at Mohenjo-daro. ^[2]
• First location of wreckage from the VOC Zuytdorp in Western Australia.
• Pilot Percy Maitland observes stone wheel-like structures across Syria and Saudi Arabia. ^[3]

Publications

• March - The journal Antiquity is first published in the United Kingdom. In the first two issues, the editor O. G. S. Crawford dismisses the Glozel artifacts as largely fakes. ^[4]
• 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) ^[5]
• February 10 - Bridget Allchin, British archaeologist and prehistorian (d. 2017) ^[6]
• July 1 - Leo Klejn, Russian archaeologist, anthropologist and philologist (d. 2019)
• August 20 - John Boardman, British classical archaeologist and art historian (d. 2024) ^[7]
• November 4 - Ivor Noël Hume, British historical archaeologist (d. 2017) ^[8]

Deaths

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

References

1. Historic Environment Scotland. "Skara Brae (Site no. HY21NW 12)" . Retrieved 21 June 2025.
2. Kenoyer, Jonathan Mark. ""Priest King," Mohenjo-daro". Harappa.com. Retrieved 2021-06-16.
3. Hartston, William (2017). "Who built thousands of giant stone wheel-like structures in the Middle East?". The Bumper Book of Things That Nobody Knows. London: Atlantic Books. pp. 383–4. ISBN   978-1-78649-998-1.
4. Magnusson, Magnus (2007) [2006]. Fakers, Forgers & Phoneys. Edinburgh: Mainstream. pp. 144–4. ISBN   978-1-84596-210-4.
5. "Profiles". nationalgeographic.com. Archived from the original on April 20, 2006. Retrieved 17 May 2017.
6. "Bridget Allchin obituary". The Guardian. 23 August 2017.
7. Interview with Diana Scarisbrick. Apollo , May 2006 Archived 2007-01-21 at the Wayback Machine
8. "Ivor Noël Hume, Archaeologist of Colonial America, Dies at 89". The New York Times. 19 February 2017. Retrieved 10 November 2017.