Below are notable events in archaeology that occurred in 1950.

• Spring: Explorations at Timna in Yemen by Wendell Phillips of the American Foundation for the Study of Man (continues in 1951).

• Excavations at Stonehenge by R. J. C. Atkinson, Stuart Piggott and J. F. S. Stone.
• Excavations at Wharram Percy by Maurice Beresford begin.
• Excavations at Beitin, West Bank.
• Excavations at Gordium by the University of Pennsylvania Museum under Rodney S. Young begin.

• March 1 - A hoard of Roman coins is discovered at Hordley Grange, Shropshire, England.
• May 8 - A bog body known as "Tollund Man" is discovered in Denmark.^[1]
• The Upchurch Hoard is discovered in Upchurch, Kent, England.
• A third premolar is discovered in materials sent back to Sweden by Otto Zdansky from his excavations of the Peking Man site at Zhoukoudian, China in 1921 and 1923.
• Balfarg, a prehistoric site in Fife, Scotland, is discovered through air photography.^[2]
• Three Roman mosaic pavements are found at Harpham in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England.
• Stabiae rediscovered.
• The Garima Gospels at Abba Garima Monastery first become known to Western scholars.

• T. C. Lethbridge - Herdsmen and Hermits: Celtic Seafarers in the Northern Seas.^[3]
• V. E. Nash-Williams - The Early Christian Monuments of Wales.^[4]

• January 25 - Phil Harding, English field archaeologist
• Wafaa El Saddik, Egyptian Egyptologist

• January 27 - Herbert Eustis Winlock, American Egyptologist who worked for the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art (b. 1884)^[5]