2013 in archaeology

The year 2013 in archaeology involved some significant events.

Excavations

• May
  • Excavations conducted at the Sobibór Museum in Poland unearth an escape tunnel made by victims of the Holocaust in the Sobibor extermination camp.^[1]
  • Excavation of Portuguese carrack Esmeralda, wrecked off the coast of Oman in 1503, by David Mearns begins.^[2]
• Excavation of abandoned Bradford Park Avenue football stadium in England begins.^[3]
• Excavation and recording of the large-scale military terrain model of the Battle of Messines (1917) on Cannock Chase in England is conducted.^[4]
• Excavations of the Roman site at Bloomberg London, beginning in 2010 and including discovery of the Bloomberg tablets, end.
• Excavations conducted in Kaarina found ruins of oldest church building in Finland.^[5]

Exploration

• September - Service tunnel network beneath Hadrian's Villa at Tivoli, Italy.

Finds

• February 4 - DNA evidence confirms that bones found in 2012 at the site of Greyfriars, Leicester, are those of King Richard III of England (k. 1485).^[6]
• April - Burial of 5 Celtic warriors at Buchères in France discovered.^[7]
• May - Happisburgh footprints, the oldest hominin footprints outside of Africa, dating to more than 800,000 years ago, are discovered on the beach at Happisburgh, Norfolk, England.^[8]
• June - Chactún, a Mayan ruin, is discovered in Campeche, Mexico.^[9]
• July
  • A substantial and well-preserved section of the Willington Waggonway, an 18th century wooden railway on Tyneside in England, is found.^[10]
  • The unexpected discovery of Pacific walrus bones among 19th-century human burials in St Pancras Old Church graveyard in London (in advance of High Speed 1 railway works) is reported.^[11]
• August - A 500-kg bronze statue of Apollo is found by Palestinian fisherman Joudat Ghrab.^[12] Dated between the 5th and the 1st century BC, the statue is seized by Hamas officials after briefly appearing on eBay.^[12]
• September - Wreck of Lake freighter SS Scotiadoc (sank 1953) located in Lake Superior.^[13]
• November - The Seaton Down Hoard of 22,888 Roman coins is found by metal detectorists in Devon, England.^[14]
• A grave and first remains of what will be identified as the oldest human burial in Africa – a 3-year old named Mtoto by archaeologists – from 78,000 years BP are located in Kenya.^[15]
• Wreck found in Nelson's Dockyard, Antigua, subsequently thought to be French ship Beaumont (1762).^[16]
• A draft of the Olive Branch Petition found in the attic of the Morris-Jumel Mansion among papers that had been donated in the early 20th century.^[17][18]

Events

• A wreck found off the coast of modern-day Sweden is identified as the Danish flagship Gribshunden (sank 1495).^[19]
• Experimental archaeology: Construction of Campus Galli, a replica Carolingian monastic community in Meßkirch, Baden-Württemberg, Germany, according to period techniques, begins.

Deaths

• 6 June: Malcolm Todd, English archaeologist of the Roman Empire (b. 1939)
• 24 June: Mick Aston, English archaeologist notable for his work with Time Team (b. 1946)^[20]

See also

• List of years in archaeology