This page lists significant events of 2022 in archaeology.
Excavations
February
Archaeologists begin excavation in Haverfordwest, Wales, of the site of a medieval priory containing 240 burials at the location of a former department store.[1]
July
12 – Archaeologists from The University of Manchester have excavated for the first time the 5,000-year-old Neolithic chamber tomb linked to King Arthur, the legendary ruler of Camelot. The excavation was carried out around the chamber of nine upright stones weighing more than 25 tons in present-day Herefordshire, England.[2][3]
Finds
January
24 – Archaeologists announced the discovery of thousands of prehistoric pits during an electromagnetic induction field survey around Stonehenge[4]
25 – Archaeologists announced the discovery of an intact 2,000-year-old blue glass bowl with a trim rim and a vertical stripe pattern in the Dutch city of Nijmegen in Netherlands.[5][6]
February
1 – Velia excavation reported the discovery of two well-preserved bronze Greek helmets with Etruscan design, the remains of a painted brick wall and vases at the site of Velia in Italy.[7][8]
2 – Archaeologists from the Israel Antiquities Authority announced the discovery of a 1.5-million-year-old complete homininvertebra. The fossilized bone belonging to a juvenile between the ages of 6-12 is estimated as the oldest evidence of ancient hominini in the Middle East.[9][10]
14 – Archaeologists announced the discovery of 1,000-1,200 years-old six mummified children in Peru, thought to have been sacrificed, probably to accompany a dead elite man to the afterlife.[14]
22 – Discovery of a large, well-preserved Roman mosaic, believed to date from A.D. 175–225 was announced by the researchers from the Museum of London Archaeology (MOLA) in Southwark district in London.[15][16]
March
1 – A 19th-century drontheim fishing vessel was uncovered by storms on the beach at Portrush in Northern Ireland.[17]
8 – Archaeologists conducted radiocarbon analyses and announced the dating of a curved hunting bow discovered in 2021. The bow was probably 460 years old, and its origin ranged from 1506 to 1660.[18][19]
3 – Research into the inscriptions and use of several hundred astragali – animal knucklebone gaming dice – used 2,300 years ago and found at the Maresha-Bet Guvrin National Park in southern Israel, is published.[26][27]
9 – Discovery of the nearly 4,300-year-old tomb of an ancient Egyptian high-ranked person who handled royal, sealed documents of pharaoh was announced at Saqqara, Egypt.[28][29]
20 – Archaeologists reported the rediscovery of Orconectes sheltae at Shelta Cave for the first time since 1988 in Huntsville, USA.[30]
27 – Archaeologists reported the discovery of 1,400-year-old remains of the Mayan site so-called Xiol on the outskirts of Mérida with a large central plaza and at least 12 buildings, workshops, burial places of adults and children, and an altar that served a ritual purpose.[31][32]
30 – 250 sarcophagi and 150 statuettes were displayed at Saqqara, dated back to the Late Period.[33]
30 – Discovery of a 1,800-year-old well-preserved geometric patterned floor mosaic was announced in Pergamon, Turkey.[34]
June
4 – Archaeologists from the Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) announced the discovery of a 1,300-year-old nine-inch-tall plaster head statue indicating a young Hun Hunahpu, the Maya’s mythological maize god.[35][36]
7 – Archaeologists announced the discovery of a poorly preserved single-edged sabre among the ruins of a monastery on the coast of Chalcidice, Greece.[37]
14 – Archaeologists announced the discovery of a turtle shell-shaped box, a sacrificial altar and pits full of gold, bronze and jade relics at the Sanxingdui archaeological site, China.[38]
26 – Turkish-Mongolian archaeologists announced the discovery of the ruins of a summer palace (caravanserai) thought to have been constructed by the MongolIlkhanate State ruler Hulagu Khan and decorated with swastika or "tamga" shaped roof tiles in the 1260s.[40]
July
1 – Dutch archaeologists have announced that they have discovered the remains of a nearly 2,000-year-old temple complex where Roman soldiers once paid tribute to gods and goddesses in the village of Herwen-Hemeling in the Netherlands.[41][42]
5 – Archaeologists discovered about 88 footprints have been left behind by humans at least 12,000 years ago using ground-penetrating radar (GPR).[43]
7 – Discovery of a 2.8 cm long 5.200 years old stone carving chrysalis in a semi-crypt house was announced at the Shangguo Site in Wenxi County.[44][45]
12 – Archaeologists from the British Museum unearthed a Roman mosaic dating to the 4th century AD and hundreds of objects from regularly positioned such as jewelry, cash, roof tiles and kiln bricks at Hinton St Mary in Dorset.[50]
18 – The Egyptian-French archaeological mission of the European Institute of Underwater Archeology announced the discovery of ancient Greek shipwreck with lots of treasures date back to the Ptolemaic era in Heracleion, Egypt.[57][58]
13 – Archaeologists announced that they had discovered a child skeleton in an oval-shaped pit in Tozkoparan Mound in Pertek district, Turkey.[66]
25 – Archaeologists announced the discovery of the 17 inches long Roman Periodphallic sculpture carved on a stone in El Higuerón, Spain.[67][68]
September
October
12 – Discovery of a 1,600-year-old Roman-era mosaic, measuring 20 by 6 metres (66 ft × 20 ft), under a building in Al-Rastan, Syria, announced.[69]
28 – Discovery of a second mosaic at a Roman villa site in Rutland, in the midlands of England, announced.[70]
November
8 – Discovery of at least 24 Etruscan-Roman bronze statues from the site of a thermal sanactuary announced.[71]
Events
June
Chickens were first tempted down from trees by rice at Neolithic Ban Non Wat in central Thailand, research suggests.[72][73]
10 – A wreck located in 2007 off the Norfolk coast of England by divers was disclosed to be HMS Gloucester (1654) which ran aground on a sandbank in 1682 with the future King James II of England on board.[74]
^Perry-Gal, Lee; Stern, Ian; Erlich, Adi (2022-01-02). "Gaming and divination in the Hellenistic Levant: the case study of the astragalus assemblage from Maresha, Israel". Levant. 54 (1). Informa UK Limited: 65–79. doi:10.1080/00758914.2022.2048433. ISSN0075-8914. S2CID248621338.
