Tom Huffman (1944–2022)

Thomas (Tom) Niel Huffman was born and educated in the United States. In 1966 he graduated with a BA Honours degree in anthropology and later obtained his MA (1968) and PhD (1974) in anthropology from the University of Illinois. In 1967 he accompanied Brian Fagan, then a Visiting Professor at the University of Illinois, to Zambia where they excavated two sites on the northern edge of the Zambezi escarpment. Shortly thereafter he moved to Bulawayo to work on his doctoral project. He spent two months there at the National Museum studying collections and then excavated at the site of Leopards Kopje. In doing so he was able to ‘clarify inconsistencies’ in the Leopards Kopje sequence, set the limits of the ‘culture’ and describe affinities with other ‘Later Iron Age cultures’ to understand its place within larger migration patterns (Huffman 1974). His PhD set the methodological foundation for much of Tom’s later work, but also foreshadowed the scope and scale of the contribution that he would make over the next 50 years. Tom’s professional career started in Zimbawbwe, then Rhodesia, in the early 1970s with his appointment at the Queen Victoria Museum, Salisbury, as Chief Scientific Officer, National Museums and Monuments. He served as Inspector of Monuments for the Historical Monuments Commission from 1970 to 1972 with duties that included monitoring the site of