The year 1996 in archaeology involved some significant events.

• Preliminary survey of Buckton Castle in the north west of England.
• A Bronze Age site, al-Moghraqa, was discovered by Moain Sadeq in Gaza Governorate, State of Palestine.^[1]

• July – excavations at Blakhiya Byzantine cemetery in Palestine take place under the auspices of the Department of Antiquities of Gaza and the École Biblique.^[2]
• Large-scale, wide-scope horizontal excavations begin at Daepyeong, a large Mumun Pottery Period settlement in Korea (continued until early 2000).
• Excavations near Bogazköy by the Deutsche Orient-Gesellschaft begin (continued until 1999).
• Excavation of the Portuguese nau Nossa Senhora dos Mártires (1605–06) at the mouth of the Tagus begins (continued until 2001).
• First excavation of medieval drain at Paisley Abbey in Scotland.

• Matthew Johnson - An Archaeology of Capitalism (Blackwell).
• Denise Schmandt-Besserat - How Writing Came About (University of Texas Press).
• Rita P. Wright (ed.) - Gender and Archaeology (University of Pennsylvania Press).
• First issue of e-journal Internet Archaeology.

• July: Mass grave of victims of the Battle of Towton (1461) in England.
• July 28: Kennewick Man in the United States.
• August 4: Seaton Carew Wreck in England.
• November 21: Pirate flagship Queen Anne's Revenge (run aground 1718) in North Carolina.
• Herxheim archaeological site, a Neolithic Linear Pottery culture ritual center and mass grave at Herxheim in southwest Germany.
• The Keltenfürst (Celtic prince) of Glauberg in Germany, a life-size sandstone statue of a warrior dating from the 5th century BCE.^[3]
• Ekron Royal Dedicatory Inscription in Israel.
• Lod Mosaic in Israel.
• Croatian Apoxyomenos off the Croatian islet of Vele Orjule.
• Hermes of Messene in Messene, Greece.
• Ōfune Site, one of the Jōmon Archaeological Sites in Hokkaidō, Japan.
• "Great Dover Street woman" from Roman Britain in London.^[4]
• Polychrome wall paintings (dated to 1090) at church of St Mary the Virgin in the deserted village of Houghton on the Hill, Norfolk, England.^[5]

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• Yale University Bonampak Documentation Project begins at Maya site of Bonampak.
• November 2: Sendai City Tomizawa Site Museum opens in Japan.

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• January 17- William Lamplough, British archaeologist (b. 1914).
• March 18 - Jacquetta Hawkes, British archaeologist (b. 1910).^[6]
• September 23 - Stuart Piggott, British archaeologist (b. 1910).^[7]
• November 14 - Martyn Jope, British archaeologist and biochemist (b. 1915).
• December 9 - Mary Leakey, British archaeologist and anthropologist (b. 1913).