The year 1994 in archaeology involved some significant events.

• National Institute of Anthropology and History excavations at Maya site of Chacchoben begin
• Ruth Shady's work on the Norte Chico civilization site at Caral in Peru begins
• Martin Carver's excavations of an early medieval Pictish monastery at Portmahomack, Scotland, begin
• Jeffrey P. Brain begins work on the Popham Colony^[1]

• Alan K. Bowman – Life and Letters on the Roman Frontier: Vindolanda and its People (British Museum).
• Marc Bermann – Lukurmata: Household Archaeology in Prehispanic Bolivia (Princeton University Press).
• Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza, Paolo Menozzi and Alberto Piazza – The History and Geography of Human Genes (Princeton University Press).
• Gillian Hutchinson – Medieval Ships and Shipping (Leicester University Press).
• Naomi F. Miller and Kathryn L. Gleason (ed.) – The Archaeology of Garden and Field (University of Pennsylvania Press).
• John Schofield and Alan Vince – Medieval Towns (Leicester University Press).

• 26 June – British submarine HMS Vandal, lost on sea trials in 1943,^[2] is rediscovered in the Sound of Bute off the west coast of Scotland.^[3]
• Late – Marine archaeologists led by Jean-Yves Empereur find remains of the Lighthouse of Alexandria in Egypt.^[4]
• December
  • Spotted horses and human hands, Pech Merle cave, Dordogne, France (painted c. 16000 BC).
  • Wall painting with horses, rhinoceroses and aurochs, Chauvet Cave, Vallon-Pont-d'Arc, Ardèche Gorges, France (made c. 25,000–17,000 BC).
• Kafkania pebble.
• Moroccan gold coins and jewellery discovered at Salcombe Cannon Wreck site off the coast of south-west England.
• Diver Colin Martin discovers the wreck of the Hanover (built 1757) off the coast of Cornwall.
• Sannai-Maruyama Site discovered at Aomori, northern Honshu, Japan (mainly of Jōmon period).
• Recovery of Homo antecessor skeletal remains from the Trinchera Dolina at the archaeological site of Atapuerca in northern Spain begins; these are the oldest known hominid fossils found in western Europe (between 850,000 and 780,000 years old).
• 'Ardi', the fossilized skeletal remains of a female Ardipithecus ramidus, discovered at Aramis, Ethiopia, in the Afar Depression, the oldest known hominid fossil (4.4 million years old).
• First of the Schöningen spears.^[5]

• 16 January – British archaeological television series Time Team first shown on Channel 4.
• 12 March – Kabul Museum building hit by rocket fire and destroyed.
• ASPRO chronology published.^[6]
• The British Library acquires the Kharosti scrolls, the oldest collection of Buddhist manuscripts in the world.

• 10 March – Rupert Bruce-Mitford, English archaeologist (b. 1914)
• 27 March – Elisabeth Schmid, German archaeologist and osteologist (b. 1912)^[7]
• 8 September – Margaret Guido, English archaeologist (b. 1912)
• 10 October – Richard J. C. Atkinson, English archaeologist and prehistorian (b. 1920)^[8]