'Iron Age in Southern Africa' next up for University Lecture Series

By Ann Friou
University News Service
March 18, 2010

Thomas Huffman, an expert on the origin and spread of social complexity among the pre-colonial farming societies of Southern Africa, will speak at Texas State University-San Marcos on Tuesday, April 6, at 7 p.m. in Centennial Hall 157.

Huffman, professor emeritus of the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa, will speak on “Mapungubwe and Great Zimbabwe: Pathways to social complexity in Southern Africa.” The talk, sponsored by the University Lecture Series, is free and open to the public.

Huffman, who grew up in Texas and Colorado, holds a Ph.D. in anthropology from the University of Illinois Urbana/Champaign. He has worked in Zambia, Zimbabwe, and South Africa for more than 40 years and conducted excavations at many Iron Age sites in Southern Africa. He served as chair of the archaeology department at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg for 35 years, publishing numerous books and articles on Iron-Age symbolism and the proliferation of culture among Southern African societies. In 2007, he published Handbook to the Iron Age: The Archaeology of Pre-colonial Farming Societies in Southern Africa (University of Kwazulu-Natal Press). He lives in Johannesburg and continues to conduct archaeological research in Southern Africa.

For more information, contact Britt Bousman at bousman@txstate.edu.