Thomas Huffman


Thomas N. Huffman is Professor Emeritus of archaeology in association with the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa. He specialises in pre-colonial farming societies in southern Africa. Huffman is most well known for his identification of the Central Cattle Pattern at Mapungubwe, a pre-colonial state in southern Africa. This, in turn he argued as the main influence in the formation of the Zimbabwe Pattern at Great Zimbabwe. Arguably his seminal contribution to the field was A Handbook to the Iron Age: The Archaeology of Pre-Colonial Farming Societies in Southern Africa, which has contributed to the understanding of ceramic style analysis and culture history focusing on these groups.

Biography

Personal history

Career

Influences

Theoretical underpinnings

Contributions to the field

Iron Age archaeology in southern Africa
Critiques
Current research

Publications

  1. Huffman, T.N. 1970. The Early Iron Age and the spread of the Bantu. South African Archaeological Bulletin 25: 3–21.
  2. Huffman, T.N. 1974. The Leopard's Kopje Tradition. Salisbury: National Museums and Monuments. 150p.
  3. Huffman, T.N. 1982. Archaeology and ethnohistory of the African Iron Age. Annual Review of Anthropology 11:133 50.
  4. Huffman, T.N. 1984. Expressive space in the Zimbabwe culture. Man 19: 593–612.
  5. Huffman, T.N. 1986. Iron Age settlement patterns and the origins of class distinction in southern Africa. Wendorf, F.and Close, E.. Advances in World Archaeology 5: 291–338.
  6. Huffman, T.N. 1986. Archaeological evidence and conventional explanations of Southern Bantu settlement patterns. Africa 56:280–298.
  7. Huffman, T.N. 1989. Iron Age Migrations: The ceramic sequence in southern Zambia. Johannesburg: University of the Witwatersrand Press.
  8. Huffman, T.N. and J.C. VOGEL. 1991. The chronology of Great Zimbabwe. South African Archaeological Bulletin 46:61–70.
  9. Huffman, T.N. 1993. Broederstroom and the Central Cattle Pattern. South African Journal of Science 89:220–226.
  10. Huffman, T.N. and R.K. HERBERT. 1994/1995. New perspectives of Eastern Bantu. AZANIA 29–30: 27–36.
  11. Huffman, T.N. 1996. Archaeological evidence for climatic change during the last 2000 years in southern Africa. Quaternary International 33: 55–60.
  12. Huffman, T.N. 1996. Snakes and Crocodiles: Power and symbolism in Ancient Zimbabwe. Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press.
  13. Huffman, T.N. 2000. Mapungubwe and the origins of the Zimbabwe culture. South African Archaeological Society Goodwin Series 8: 14–29.
  14. Huffman, T.N. 2001. The Central Cattle Pattern and interpreting the past. Southern African Humanities 13: 19–35.
  15. Huffman, T.N. 2002. Regionality in the Iron Age: the case of the Sotho-Tswana. Southern African Humanities 14: 1–22.
  16. Huffman, T.N. and Murimbika, M. 2003. Shona ethnography and Iron Age burials. Journal of African Archaeology 1:237–246.
  17. Huffman, T.N. 2004. The archaeology of the Nguni past. Southern African Humanities 16: 79–111.
  18. Huffman, T.N. 2005. Mapungubwe: Ancient African Civilisation on the Limpopo. Johannesburg: Wits University Press. 63 pp.
  19. Huffman, T.N. 2006. Maize grindstones, Madikwe pottery and ochre mining. Southern African Humanities 18:51–70.
  20. Huffman, T.N. 2007. A Handbook to the Iron Age: The Archaeology of Pre-Colonial Farming Societies in Southern Africa. Pietermaritzburg: University of KwaZulu-Natal Press, 540 pp.
  21. Huffman, T.N. 2008. Climate change during the Iron Age in the Shashe-Limpopo Basin, southern Africa. Journal of Archaeological Science 35: 2032–2047.
  22. Huffman, T.N. 2009. Mapungubwe and Great Zimbabwe: The origin and spread of social complexity in southern Africa. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 28: 37–54.
  23. Huffman, T.N. 2009. A cultural proxy for drought: ritual burning in the Iron Age of Southern Africa. Journal of Archaeological Science 36: 991–1005.
  24. Huffman, T.N. 2010. Intensive El Nino and the Iron Age of South-Eastern Africa. Journal of Archaeological Science 37: 2572–2586.
  25. Huffman, T.N. & Du Piesanie, J. 2011. Khami and the Venda in the Mapungubwe landscape. Journal of African Archaeology 9 : 189–206.
  26. Neukirch, L.P., J.A. Tarduno, T.N. Huffman, M.K. Watkeys, C.A.Scribner and R.D. Cottrell 2012. An archaeomagnetic analysis of burnt grain bin floors from ca. 1200–1250 AD Iron-Age South Africa. Physics of the Earth and Planetary Interiors 190–191: 71–79.
  27. Huffman T.N. 2012. Historical archaeology of the Mapungubwe area: Boer, Birwa, Sotho-Tswana and Machete. Southern African Humanities 24: 33–59.
  28. Huffman, T.N. 2012. Ritual space in pre-colonial farming societies in southern Africa. Journal of Ethnoarchaeology 5: 119–146.
  29. Huffman, T.N., Elburg, M. AND M. Watkeys 2013. Vitrified cattle dung in the Iron Age of Southern Africa. Journal of Archaeological Science 40: 3553–3560.