Below are notable events in archaeology that occurred in 1880.

Explorations

• William Matthew Flinders Petrie travels to Egypt and conducts a survey of the Great Pyramid of Giza.

Excavations

• Nicolay Nicolaysen excavates the Gokstad ship in Norway.
• Heinrich Schliemann begins excavation around the Tomb of Minyas at Orchomenus (Boeotia).^[1]

Finds

• The foundations of a convent, first erected in 670, discovered at Minster in Kent.^[2]
• Varvakeion Athena.
• The mandible of a Neanderthal child is discovered in a secure context in Šipka cave in the Austro-Hungarian Empire (modern-day Czech Republic) associated with cultural debris including hearths, Mousterian tools and bones of extinct animals.

Publications

• Marcelino Sanz de Sautuola and Juan Vilanova y Piera publish their initial findings on the paintings in the Cave of Altamira, suggesting to initial scepticism that they are of the Paleolithic period.
• The Journal of Hellenic Studies begins publication.^[3]

Births

• April 11 – Julio C. Tello, Peruvian archaeologist (d. 1947)
• April 17 – Leonard Woolley, British archaeologist of Mesopotamia (d. 1960)^[4]

Deaths