1927 in archaeology

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.
• 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.
• 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.
• Kent's Cavern 4 Maxilla found in England.
• Leonard Woolley's excavations at Ur uncover the Enheduanna calcite disc.
• First location of wreckage from the VOC Zuytdorp in Western Australia.
• Pilot Percy Maitland observes stone wheel-like structures across Syria and Saudi Arabia.

  Publications

• March - The journal Antiquity is first published.
• Alan Gardiner's 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
• February 10 - Bridget Allchin, British archaeologist and prehistorian
• July 1 - Leo Klejn, Russian archaeologist, anthropologist and philologist
• November 4 - Ivor Noël Hume, British historical archaeologist

  Deaths

• January 21 - Gen. Sir Charles Warren, British Biblical archaeologist