Etan Ayalon was born in 1950 on Kibbutz Gal'ed, Israel and has lived in Kefar Saba since the age of 7. At the age of 8 he resolved to become an archaeologist. From 1974 to 1988 he studied archaeology at Tel Aviv University – earning his B.A. in Biblical Archaeology and Prehistory and his M.A. in Biblical Archaeology with the addition of Classical Studies – both cum laude.
In 1980 Ayalon established the Kefar Saba Archaeological Museum. From 1980 to 1982 he was the antiquities inspector for the central district in what was then the Department of Antiquities and Museums. Since 1983 until his retirement in 2017 he has been the curator of the Man and His Work Center in the Eretz Israel Museum, Tel Aviv (today MUZA). He has dealt mainly with ethno-archaeology and the material culture of Eretz Israel, and has curated a variety of exhibitions. In 2003 he received his Ph.D. from Bar-Ilan University, writing his dissertation on ancient bone and ivory objects from Caesarea. Ayalon has taken part as a worker, partner or director of some 80 archaeological excavations and archaeological and ethnographic surveys. He has published numerous books and papers on archaeological and ethnographical issues.