2020 in archaeology

Excavations

• January 29 – NZR V class steam locomotive no. 127 is recovered from the Oreti River in New Zealand by the Lumsden Heritage Trust.
• February – Mexico and Spain plan to search for the remains of Nuestra Señora de Juncal ship, which sank off the coast of Mexico in 1631.
• March – Excavations at Richborough Castle in England start to uncover the Roman amphitheatre hidden under a mound here.
• June 27 – Excavation of a Viking ship burial at Gjellestad near Halden in Norway located in 2018 begins.
• July:
• * Divers find an 11,000-year-old mining site for red ocher pigments at La Mina, a site inside a water-filled cave beneath Yucatán Peninsula, Quintana Roo, Mexico.
• * A shipwreck which was found near Ma'agan Michael carrying amphorae with Christian and Muslim symbols, and dated back to the 7th century, has been excavated by the University of Haifa since 2016.

  Finds

• January
• *23 – A cave with paintings of people and animals is discovered about north of Mount Catherine, Sinai Peninsula, dating back to the Chalcolithic Period, circa 5th–4th millennium BCE.
• *30 – 16 tombs with about 20 sarcophagi are found at Al-Ghoreifa area in Tuna el-Gebel, Egypt, dating back to the 26th Dynasty.
• February
• *12 – 83 ancient tombs are found in Om al-Khilgan, Dakahlia Governorate, dated back to 4,000 B.C.
• *17 – Carvings depicting animals are found at Cave Font Major, Catalonia, dated back to 15,000 years ago.
• *21
• ** A sarcophagus is discovered in an ancient temple in the Roman Forum, which might belong to Rome's legendary founder, Romulus.
• ** A lost city is found at Türkmen-Karahöyük, Konya Plain, which might be related to Tarḫuntašša, and its king Hartapu.
• March
• *10 – Ancient capital of the Mayan Kingdom of Sak Tz’i is found at Lacanjá Tzeltal, Chiapas, Mexico.
• *11 – Discovery of site of railway roundhouse at Birmingham Curzon Street railway station in England during construction work for High Speed 2 is announced.
• *13
• **A mantis petroglyph is discovered in the Teymareh rock art site, Khomeyn, Iran, dates back in the range of 40,000–4,000 years ago.
• **A ballcourt is discovered at Etlatongo, Mexico, dating to 1374 BCE.
• *16 – Two small stone 'plaquettes' are found in the Leang Bulu Bettue cave, Sulawesi, Indonesia, date to a time between 26,000 and 14,000 years ago.
• *17 – A bone circle of at least 60 mammoths is discovered at Kostenki, Russia, dating back to 25,000 years ago.
• *31
• ** A 5,000-year-old cultic area dedicated to Ningirsu is discovered in Girsu, Iraq.
• ** Ancient cairns used to bury neolithic tribespeople are discovered in the Cwmcelyn valley in Blaenau Gwent, Wales, dating back over 4,500 years ago.
• April
• *26 – Rock art depicting scenes of animals is discovered in the area of Wadi Al-Zulma in North Sinai, Egypt.
• May
• *11 – Discovery of wreck of off Pearl Harbor is announced.
• *17 – A tomb at Oxyrhynchus, dating back to the 26th Dynasty of Egypt, along with stelae and bronze coins from the Roman era, is discovered.
• *20
• ** Discovery of underground rooms below the 1,400-year-old mosaic floor of Byzantine structure in the Old City of Jerusalem is announced by Israel Antiquities Authority.
• ** The skeleton of a 300.000-year-old female straight-tusked elephant with a weight of 6.8 tonnes in Lower Saxony, Germany, is revealed.
• *25 – The discovery of 3,000 years old cave paintings in Kui Buri District, Prachuap Khiri Khan Province, Thailand is announced.
• *26 – Remains of a 200-year-old English sailing ship are discovered in a coral reef off the coast of Quintana Roo in Mexico.
• *27 – Discovery of a well-preserved Roman mosaic floor in a vineyard at Negrar in the Veneto of Italy is announced.
• *29 – Remains of at least sixty mammoths are found at an airport construction site in Mexico.
• June
• *3 – A 3,000-year-old Maya ceremonial platform almost long and wide has been discovered near the San Pedro River in Tabasco, Mexico.
• *9 – A 6th millennium BC megalithic monument is discovered in Dumat al-Jandal, Saudi Arabia.
• *21 – Discovery of high-status mummy burials at Taposiris Magna in Egypt is publicised.
• *22 – Discovery of Durrington Shafts, a series of 10 m-deep neolithic pits in a 2 km -diameter circle surrounding Durrington Walls within the Stonehenge World Heritage Site in England, is announced.
• July
• *11 – Discovery of an Iron Age skeleton, apparently a victim of foul play, near Wendover in England on the route of High Speed 2 is announced.
• *13 – Remains of the palace of Axayacatl and a house belonging to Hernán Cortés are found by Raúl Barrera Rodríguez and José María García Guerrero of the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia in Mexico City.
• *21 – Prehispanic remains are found at the Cerro de Peña in Santa Cruz Huehuepiaxtla, Puebla, Mexico.
• *22 – Stone tools found in Zacatecas, Mexico, suggest that people lived in North America 26,500 years ago.
• *23 – Archaeologists in Jerusalem discover a 3,000-year-old warehouse.
• *24 – Russian scientists are working to retrieve the well-preserved skeleton of a woolly mammoth from Pechevalavato Lake in the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug in northern Siberia.
• *27 – A 3rd-century woman statue was discovered in Perge, Anatolia.
• *28 – Statues of Sekhmet, Ptah and Hathor were found in Mit Rahina, Egypt, date back to the reign of Ramses II.
• *29 – A 1st-century Roman fort was uncovered at Burscough, England.

  Events

• January 9 – A gold bar found in Mexico City in 1981 is confirmed as made of material appropriated during the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire and presumably abandoned by the Spanish at the time of La Noche Triste in 1520.
• February 22 – 3,900 pre-Columbian copper coins from Guerrero and Michoacán will be returned to Mexico from the United States.
• March 6 – Bones first located in 1885 in the wall of St Mary and St Eanswythe's Church, Folkestone in England are announced as identified as almost certainly those of Anglo Saxon princess Eanswith, the earliest identified burial of an English saint.
• May – Staff at Vindolanda Museum by Hadrian's Wall in England sorting material held since 1993 during the shutdown imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom find a leather toy mouse from the auxiliary fort.
• July 8 – The Portable Antiquities Scheme in England and Wales records the 1.5 millionth small artefact found by a member of the public, a lead bulla of Pope Innocent IV from Shropshire.
• July 29 – Identification of the likely source of the sarsen stones at Stonehenge in England at a location 24 km to the north is reported.

  Deaths

• February 6 – Wang Jin, Chinese prehistoric archaeologist
• March 14 – Ofer Bar-Yosef, 82, Israeli Palaeolithic archaeologist
• March 16 – Pilar Luna, 75, Mexican underwater archaeologist
• April 8 – Aubrey Burl, 93, British prehistoric archaeologist
• June 13 – Pepe el Ferreiro, 78, Spanish archaeologist
• July 2 – Ángela Jeria, 93, Chilean archaeologist and human rights activist.