My active research interests focus on 4 topics; 1) Stone Age archaeology of sub-Saharan Africa, 2) Southern Plains archaeology, 3) hunter-gatherer technological organization, and 4) geoarchaeology and paleoenvironmental analysis.
Currently I am collaborating with the National Museum’s Florisbad Quaternary Research Department on the Modder River Paleontological and Archaeological Project excavating Middle and Later Stone Age sites at Erfkroon and Baden-Baden. This research began in collaboration with the late Dr. James Brink and has been funded by the National Science Foundation, the National Research Foundation, the Leakey Foundation, the National Museum and Texas State University. The Modder River project has now expanded to excavations at the MSA sites of Lovedale and Baden-Baden 2 as well as the LSA site of Damvlei in collaboration with Michael Toffolo (Archéosciences Bordeaux, Domaine Universitaire, France) and Kristen Wroth (Earlham College). Simon Fraser University PhD student, Sarah Himes, and I are collaborating on the geoarchaeology of the Modder River and the excavation of Early LSA occupations there.
I am also working on the NSF-funded Zeekoe Valley GIS Study, which converted data from a large survey in the Karoo of South Africa into GIS format. This project was directed by the late Garth Sampson. I have also converted Sampson’s Orange River Scheme survey data to a GIS format. This is the first large systematic heritage research survey and excavation project in Southern Africa.
Recently Dr. Jill Pruetz and I began a landscape study of chimpanzee tool use and modeling archaeological site formation processes at Fongoli in southeastern Senegal. These chimpanzees undertake a variety of technological activities that includes hunt bushbabies with thrusting spears. These unique data can be used for evaluating early hominin behavior.
My most recent research is looking at the Origins of the Plains Indian Horse Cultures in the Southern Plains. This is in collaboration with PhD student Myriah Allen. This research also involves the GIS reconstruction of early Spanish entradas into the Southern Plains by Coronado, Onate and others in the 16th and early 17th Centuries.
I received my first undergraduate degree (BS) from Southern Methodist University (SMU, 1974) where I worked for Dr. Alan Skinner in the now defunct Archaeology Research Program and directed a number of CRM projects throughout Texas and New Mexico. I then read Archaeology for a BA degree at Cambridge University under Dr. Charles McBurney and excavated with him at La Cotte de St. Brelade on the Isle of Jersey off the coast of France. While at Cambridge, I also worked with Robin Derricourt at Itechitechi, Zambia, Pat Vinnicombe in the Senqunyane valley, Lesotho, and John Coles at the Somerset Levels in southwest England. After graduating from Cambridge in 1976, I worked in Oklahoma for a year at the Museum of the Great Plains with Reid Ferring. For 2 years, I directed a nonprofit research company, Archaeological Research Associates, in Tulsa, founded by Charles and Annetta Cheek. I returned to SMU in 1979 and earned my PhD in 1991, where I studied with Dr. Garth Sampson and worked on his Zeekoe Valley Archaeological Survey in South Africa. I undertook excavations at Blydefontein Rock Shelter in South Africa for my dissertation research.
While writing my dissertation I was employed as a geoarchaeologist at Prewitt & Associates working on CRM projects throughout Texas. After finishing my PhD, I joined Mike Collins at UT-Austin, TARL, to co-direct the Wilson-Leonard project near Austin, and later spent 5 years at the Center for Archaeological Research, UTSA as the Assistant and Interim Directors.
I joined the Texas State Anthropology Department in 1999 to establish the Center for Archaeological Studies, the department’s first research center. I was offered an Assistant Professor position at Texas State in 2002, tenured in 2006, and promoted to full Professor in 2012. I stepped down from the CAS directorship in 2009 when I became the first Associate Dean for Research in the College of Liberal Arts. I held that position until 2017, when, for the first time in my career, I started teaching full-time.
I am very proud to have served as the 2011 President of the Texas Archeological Society and was elected Fellow of TAS in 2013. I served as the Editor of the Bulletin of the Texas Archeological Society with Sarah Himes as co-Editor for the 2018 and 2019 volumes. Fall 2014 I was appointed as an Honorary Professor of International Studies in the Center for International Studies at Texas State. I also serve on the Editorial Advisory Board for the journal Southern African Field Archaeology.