The election procedure is selective and fellowship is regarded as recognition of significant achievement in the fields of archaeology, antiquities, history or heritage.

[6] A precursor organisation, the College of Antiquaries, was founded c. 1586 and functioned largely as a debating society until it was forbidden to do so by King James I in 1614.

[8] In 1751, a successful application for a charter of incorporation was sought by its long-serving vice president Joseph Ayloffe,[10] which allowed the society to own property.

[8] The society began to gather large collections of manuscripts, paintings, and artefacts, housing such gifts and bequests while a proper institution for them did not exist.

A gift of Thomas Kerrich, which included portraits of Edward IV, Mary Tudor, and two of Richard III, reveal anti-Tudor bias in their later portrayal.

[8] Following the London Blitz, the society organised many of the excavations of Roman and medieval ruins exposed by the bombing of the City, with annual surveys performed every year between 1946 and 1962.

[11] In 2007, the society celebrated its tercentennial year (recognising the first, less formal meetings) with an exhibition at the Royal Academy entitled Making History: Antiquaries in Britain 1707–2007.

The council issued a statement saying that it "regrets that a majority of those present [at the vote] did not see fit to support the resolution" and that the incident showed "need to modernise the society's statutes and governance procedures".

[14] In 2020, following comments made by David Starkey on slavery and genocide, the society announced that they were modernising their procedures for dealing with behaviour which runs contrary to their values.

Having acquired material since the early 18th century, the Library's present holdings number more than 100,000 books and around 800 currently received periodical titles.

An engraver was employed by the society from its inception – the earliest were George Vertue, James Basire and successors – labouring to produce the copperplate used in the printing of the folio editions.

[9] The prints were often large and appealing, and were intended to satisfy popular demand for archæological subject matter; their quasi-scientific illustrations were often inset with multiple viewpoints of architectural details.

Archaeologia continued to appear on a more or less regular basis until after the Second World War, but then became increasingly irregular, some of its ground having been taken by the society's other journals.