1953 in archaeology

Below are notable events in archaeology that occurred in 1953.

Excavations

• German excavations at Uruk, Iraq resume.

Finds

• Banpo, a group of 6,500-year-old Neolithic settlements on the eastern outskirts of the Chinese city of Xi'an.
• "Cave of Letters" at Nahal Hever in the Judaean Desert (with correspondence from the Bar Kokhba revolt of ca. 132–136 CE) identified.
• al-Khader Phoenician arrowheads.
• Jerusalem ossuaries found stored in a cave on the Mount of Olives near Jerusalem by Franciscans.
• The Narsaq stick is found in Greenland, the first example of Viking Age runic inscriptions found in the country.
• 1st century Roman leather bikini briefs found in the City of London.

Events

• November 21: Piltdown Man is shown to be a hoax (first presented by Charles Dawson in 1912).

Publications

• O. G. S. Crawford - Archaeology in the Field (Dent).
• B. H. St.J. O'Neil - Castles: an introduction to the castles of England and Wales (HMSO).
• Gordon R. Willey - Prehistoric Settlement Patterns in the Virú Valley, Perú (Bureau of American Ethnology).

Births

• Mensun Bound, Falkland Islands-born maritime archaeologist
• Arlen F. Chase, American archaeologist whose work focuses on Mesoamerica

Deaths

• March 24: Félix-Marie Abel, French biblical archaeologist (b. 1878)

References