Below are notable events in archaeology that occurred in 1865.

Explorations

• The first report of a discovery of Coţofeni culture at Râpa Roșie in Romania is made by Fr. W. Schuster.

Excavations

• Excavations at Slack Roman fort in Yorkshire (England) under the direction of George Lloyd.

Publications

• Joseph Barnard Davis and John Thurnam complete publication of Crania Britannica: delineations and descriptions of the skulls of the aboriginal and early inhabitants of the British islands.
• John Lubbock publishes Pre-historic Times, as Illustrated by Ancient Remains, and the Manners and Customs of Modern Savages, including his coinage of the term Palæolithic.^[1]
• Joseph-Alexander Martigny publishes Dictionnaire des antiquités chrétiennes.
• Edward Burnett Tylor publishes Researches into the Early History of Mankind and the Development of Civilization.

Finds

• French archeologist Auguste Mariette discovers Ti watching a hippopotamus hunt, tomb of Ti, Saqqara, Fifth dynasty of Egypt. It is made c. 2510 BC - 2460 BC.

Events

• Churchill Babington elected to the Disney Professorship of Archaeology in the University of Cambridge.
• Palestine Exploration Fund is established.^[2]

Births

• June 22 - Friedrich Sarre, German Orientalist (d. 1945)
• August 27 - James Henry Breasted, American Egyptologist (d. 1935)^[3]
• Alfred Foucher, French scholar and archaeologist of Buddhism (d. 1952)^[4]

Deaths

• May 4: Henry Christy, English ethnologist, archaeologist and sponsor (born 1810).^[5]
• May 21 - Christian Jürgensen Thomsen, Danish archaeologist (born 1788).