Below are notable events in archaeology that occurred in 1939.

Excavations

• Major excavation of Ostia Antica in Italy begins (continues to 1942).
• University of Pennsylvania project at Piedras Negras, Guatemala ends (started 1931).
• Palace of Nestor in Pylos by Carl Blegen (resumed 1952-69).
• Tomb of Psusennes at Tanis by Pierre Montet (started 1928).
• Deserted medieval village of Seacourt near Oxford by Rupert Bruce-Mitford (June–July 15).^[1]
• Medieval settlement at Bere, North Tawton, England, by Martyn Jope.^[2]
• Bowl barrow at Knap Hill, Wiltshire, England, by C. W. Phillips.

Publications

• Grahame Clark: Archaeology and Society.

Finds

• May
  • Sutton Hoo ship burial unearthed by Basil Brown and Edith Pretty in Suffolk, England. On July 28 the Sutton Hoo helmet is excavated.
  • Battle of Thermopylae site unearthed by Spyridon Marinatos in Greece.^[3]
• August 25: The Lion-man statue is discovered in the Hohlenstein-Stadel, a cave in southern Germany.^[4]
• Matthew Stirling discovers the bottom half of Stela C at Tres Zapotes in Veracruz, Mexico.
• Wyllys Andrews discovers the Maya civilization site of Kulubá in Yucatán, Mexico.^[5]

Miscellaneous

• May 6: Dorothy Garrod is elected to the Disney Professorship of Archaeology in the University of Cambridge, the first woman to hold an Oxbridge chair.

Births

• January 15: Neil Cossons, English industrial archaeologist and museum director
• July 12: Peter Addyman, English archaeologist
• November 6: Peter J. Reynolds, English experimental archaeologist (d. 2001)^[6]
• December 10: Barry Cunliffe, English archaeologist
• November 27: Malcolm Todd, English archaeologist (d. 2013)

Deaths

• March 2: Howard Carter, English Egyptologist (b. 1874)^[7]