1929 in archaeology

Below are notable events in archaeology that occurred in 1929.

Explorations

• Expedition under Neil Merton Judd to collect dendrochronological specimens to date habitation of Chaco Canyon.
• Blackwater Draw, New Mexico, first recognized as archaeologically significant by Ridgely Whiteman.

Excavations

• Agora in Athens.
• Amri.
• Excavations at Ugarit by Claude F. A. Schaeffer begin; first texts in Ugaritic discovered.
• New excavations of Tell Halaf, Syria, by Max von Oppenheim.
• Excavations of palaeolithic sites at Mount Carmel, including the first of the Skhul and Qafzeh hominins, by Dorothy Garrod begin (continue to 1934).
• First of the Pazyryk burials in Siberia, by M. P. Gryaznov.
• Grobiņa in Latvia, by Birger Nerman.
• Chinese archeologist Pei Wenzhong appointed field director of the continuing excavations at Peking Man Site in Zhoukoudian, China.
• Whitehawk Camp near Brighton in England by R. P. Ross Williamson and E. Cecil Curwen.

Finds

• June 22: Beam HH-39 is extracted at the Show Low site in Arizona enabling A. E. Douglass to construct a continuous dendrochronology record back to AD 700 for the Southwestern United States.
• December 1: Chinese archaeologist Pei Wenzhong unearths the first skullcap at Peking Man Site in Zhoukoudian, China.
• Jade relics at Sanxingdui in China.
• Mummy of Queen Meritamen (daughter of Thutmose III).
• Roman Amphitheatre at Chester (England) found by Hugh Thompson.
• Ruins of Kamiros on Rhodes.
• Guido Ucelli discovers the barges of Caligula in Lake Nemi.
• The Lyres of Ur in the tomb of Puabi.

Publications

• V. Gordon Childe - The Danube in Prehistory.

Births

• May 6: Rosemary Cramp, British medieval archaeologist (died 2023)
• July 17: Elin C. Danien, American scholar of ancient Maya ceramics (died 2019)
• September 23: Viktor Sarianidi, Soviet archaeologist, discoverer of the Bactria–Margiana Archaeological Complex (died 2013)

Deaths

• Rodolfo Amadeo Lanciani, Italian archaeologist (born 1845)

References