Gold Medal Award for Distinguished Archaeological Achievement

The Gold Medal Award for Distinguished Archaeological Achievement is awarded by the Archaeological Institute of America in "recognition of a scholar who has made distinguished contributions to archaeology through his or her fieldwork, publications, and/or teaching."

It is the institute's highest award. First awarded in 1965, it has been awarded annually since 1969.

List of AIA Gold Medal winners

 * 2022: Elizabeth Fentress
 * 2021: Katherine M.D. Dunbabin
 * 2020: Jack L. Davis, University of Cincinnati
 * 2019: Curtis Runnels, Boston University
 * 2018: Ian Hodder, Stanford University
 * 2017: John R. Clarke, University of Texas at Austin
 * 2016: Malcolm Bell III, University of Virginia
 * 2015: Charles Brian Rose
 * 2014: L. Hugh Sackett
 * 2013: Jeremy B. Rutter
 * 2012: Lawrence Richardson Jr.
 * 2011: Susan Irene Rotroff
 * 2010: John Humphrey
 * 2009: Henry Tutwiler Wright
 * 2008: James Wiseman
 * 2007: Larissa Bonfante
 * 2006: Maria C. Shaw and Joseph W. Shaw
 * 2005: Lionel Casson
 * 2004: David B. Stronach
 * 2003: Philip Betancourt
 * 2002: Robert McCormick Adams
 * 2001: Emmett L. Bennett Jr.
 * 1999: Patty Jo Watson
 * 1998: Anna Marguerite McCann
 * 1997: Clemency Chase Coggins
 * 1996: Wilhelmina F. Jashemski
 * 1995: R. Ross Holloway
 * 1994: Emeline Richardson
 * 1993: Charles Kaufman Williams, II
 * 1992: Evelyn Byrd Harrison
 * 1991: Machteld J. Mellink
 * 1990: John W. Hayes
 * 1989: Virginia R. Grace
 * 1988: Brunilde Sismondo Ridgway and John Desmond Clark
 * 1987: Dorothy Burr Thompson
 * 1986: George F. Bass
 * 1985: Saul S. Weinberg and Gladys Davidson Weinberg
 * 1984: Margaret Thompson
 * 1983: James Bennet Pritchard
 * 1982: Peter H. von Blanckenhagen
 * 1981: William Andrew McDonald
 * 1980: John Langdon Caskey
 * 1979: Dows Dunham
 * 1978: George M.A. Hanfmann
 * 1977: Lucy Shoe Meritt
 * 1976: Edith Porada
 * 1975: Eugene Vanderpool
 * 1974: Margarete Bieber
 * 1973: Gordon R. Willey
 * 1972: Homer A. Thompson
 * 1971: Robert John Braidwood
 * 1970: George E. Mylonas
 * 1969: Oscar Theodore Broneer, Rhys Carpenter, and William B. Dinsmoor Jr.
 * 1968: Gisela M. A. Richter
 * 1967: William Foxwell Albright
 * 1966: Hetty Goldman
 * 1965: Carl W. Blegen