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The year 1978 in archaeology involved some significant events.

Excavations

  • New excavations at Brahmagiri by Amalananda Ghosh.
  • Excavations begin at Bontnewydd Palaeolithic site in Wales.
  • New excavations begin at Holyhead Mountain Hut Circles on Holy Island, Anglesey, off the coast of Wales.
  • Comprehensive excavations at Alepotrypa cave in Greece begin.
  • Excavation of Proto-Elamite levels of Susa in Iran.

Finds

  • February 21 - The remains of the Great Pyramid of Tenochtitlan.
  • March - Pictish stone depicting a bearded figure at Rhynie, Aberdeenshire, Scotland.
  • Bactrian Gold hoard.
  • A new Shapwick hoard of Roman copper coins in England.
  • Cherchen Man in China.
  • A fossilized partial human cranium is among hominid remains found in Apidima Cave in southern Greece; in 2019 it is announced as dating to more than 210,000 years BP, making it the earliest example of Homo sapiens outside Africa.
  • First discovery of European lion remains at Tiryns in Mycenaean Greece.
  • Wreck of a Basque whaling galleon, probably the San Juan, off Saddle Island, Labrador.

Publications

  • Lewis R. Binford - Nunamiut Ethnoarchaeology.
  • Mounir Bouchenaki - Cités antiques d'Algérie.
  • Kenneth Dover - Greek Homosexuality.
  • Richard A. Gould (ed.) - Explorations in Ethnoarchaeology.
  • Keith Muckelroy - Maritime Archaeology.
  • Paleontologist Björn Kurtén's short novel Dance of the Tiger, dealing with the interaction between Cro-Magnons and Neanderthals, is published in Sweden as Den Svarta Tigern.

Events

  • Theban Mapping Project is established.
  • September - Thousands march through Dublin to Wood Quay to protest against the building of civic offices on the Viking site.

Deaths

  • August 19 - Sir Max Mallowan, English archaeologist (born 1904).
  • August 24 - Dame Kathleen Kenyon, English archaeologist of the Neolithic Fertile Crescent and college principal (born 1906).
  • October 8 - Bertha Cody, Native American archaeologist (born 1907).
  • November 8 - Terence Mitford, British archaeologist of the Near East (born 1905).

References