2002 in archaeology

Explorations

 * First expedition to Sub Marine Explorer in the Pearl Islands by James P. Delgado.

Excavations

 * March – Part of the podium of the Temple of Apollo in Mdina, Malta is discovered and subsequently excavated.

Finds

 * February – Remains of oldest known European early modern humans at this time found in Peștera cu Oase, Romania.
 * May 1 – Horncastle boar's head, an early 7th-century Anglo-Saxon ornament, probably part of a helmet crest, discovered in the eastern English town of Horncastle by a metal detectorist.
 * May 3 – Amesbury Archer, a Bronze Age burial found near Stonehenge in England.
 * June – Newport Ship (medieval) in south-east Wales.
 * October – Banc Ty'nddôl sun-disc in mid-Wales.
 * 3,500-year-old human remains found in the Citadel of Damascus.
 * Mask of la Roche-Cotard (Mousterian) found beside the Loire in France.

Publications

 * Thebes tablets.

Events

 * Brief reappearance and study of Seaton Carew Wreck.
 * Ciampate del Diavolo (early hominid footprints in Italy) come to scientific attention.
 * December 29 – 70,000 excavated artifacts from the Ōfune Site in Japan are damaged or destroyed when fire breaks out in an exhibition room.

Deaths

 * March 31 – Carlos J. Gradin, Argentine archaeologist (born 1918)
 * April 28 – Gordon Willey, American archaeologist (born 1913)
 * June 26 – Barbara Adams, English Egyptologist (born 1945)