1928 in archaeology

Explorations

• American astronomer and University of Arizona professor A. E. Douglass participates in a National Geographic Society research project under Neil Merton Judd exploring Chaco Canyon. Using his newly invented technique of dendrochronology, Douglass dates Chetro Ketl and dozens of Chacoan sites.
• Tell Arpachiyah in Iraq explored by Reginald Campbell Thompson.

  Excavations

• September: John Garstang conducts first excavations at Et-Tell.
• September-October: Porlock Stone Circle on Exmoor in England surveyed by Harold St George Gray.
• Italian archaeologist Luigi Maria Ugolini begins excavations at Buthrotum in Epirus.
• V. Gordon Childe begins excavations at Skara Brae.
• Stuart Piggott begins excavations at Butser Hill.
• Marthe and Saint-Just Péquart begin excavation of Mesolithic sites on the Breton island of Téviec.
• The first excavations begin at Yinxu, China led by Li Chi of the Chinese Institute of History and Philosophy.
• Chinese archeologist Pei Wenzhong joins the continuing excavations at Peking Man site in Zhoukoudian, China.
• Excavations at Beit Shemesh.
• Gertrude Caton Thompson begins excavations at Great Zimbabwe.
• Dorothy Garrod excavates cave sites in Judea and south Kurdistan.
• A Deutsche Orient-Gesellschaft and University of Pennsylvania team led by Oscar Reuther begins excavations at Ctesiphon.
• John Winter Crowfoot begins excavations of early Christian churches at Jerash in Transjordan.
• Mortimer Wheeler begins excavations at Lydney Park.

  Finds

• Continuing excavations at Peking Man Site in Zhoukoudian, China led by Davidson Black uncover more fossils of a new species he dubs Sinanthropus pekinensis.
• Ruins of Ugarit.
• First traces of Mal'ta–Buret' culture found in Siberia.
• First inscriptions of Byblos syllabary excavated by Maurice Dunand.

  Publications

• V. Gordon Childe - The Most Ancient East: the oriental prelude to European prehistory.
• O. G. S. Crawford and Alexander Keiller - Wessex from the Air.

  Miscellaneous

• Davidson Black founds the Cenozoic Research Laboratory for the research and appraisal of fossils unearthed at Peking Man Site in Zhoukoudian, China
• Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum inaugurated in San Jose, California

  Births

• February 2: Stanley South, American archaeologist; author of Method and Theory in Historical Archaeology
• March 8: Björn Ambrosiani, Swedish archaeologist
• April 26: Charles Thomas, Cornish prehistorian
• September 27: Margaret Rule, British maritime archaeologist

  Deaths