Below are notable events in archaeology that occurred in 1881.

• Alfred Maudslay begins his thorough examination of Quiriguá.

• Timgad, Algeria, is excavated.
• The excavations at Olympia, Greece which began in 1875 and were led by Ernst Curtius end.^[1]
• Mount Nemrut, Turkey, is excavated by German engineer Karl Sester.
• Great Pyramid of Cholula in Mexico is investigated by Swiss-born American archaeologist Adolph Bandelier.
• Pyramid of Unas in Egypt is investigated by French archaeologist Gaston Maspero.

• March – Augustus Pitt Rivers finds palaeolithic flints in concreted gravels of the Nile terraces near Thebes.^[2]
• "Official" discovery of collective tomb DB320 at Deir el-Bahari in Egypt.
• Capt. H. L. Wells, RE, finds Qadamgah in Fars province, Persia (Iran).
• The birch bark Bakhshali manuscript, incorporating perhaps the earliest known use of mathematical zero, is unearthed near Bakhshali in British India.

• John Evans – The Ancient Bronze Implements, Weapons and Ornaments of Great Britain and Ireland.
• H. A. Fletcher – "The archaeology of the west Cumberland iron trade". Transactions of the Cumberland & Westmorland Archaeological Society 5:5–21.
• Possible earliest use of the term "Industrial archaeology" in the English language.^[3]

• February 22 – 'Cleopatra's Needle' erected in Central Park, New York.^[4]

• December 19 – Hetty Goldman, American archaeologist (d. 1972)^[5]

• January 24 – Frances Stackhouse Acton, English botanist, archaeologist, artist and writer (b. 1794)^[6]
• May 19 – Joseph Barnard Davis, English craniologist (b. 1801)
• June 21 – Ferdinand Keller, Swiss archaeologist (b. 1800)