Britt Bousman | Education & Research Background

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 Dr. Lloyd Rossouw (director of 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 begin excavations at the MSA site of Lovedale and LSA site of Damvlei in collaboration with Chris Miller and Kristen Wroth (University of Tübingen), Chantal Tribolo (Université Bordeaux Montaigne), and Michael Toffolo (Centro National Investigación Sobre la Evolución Humana, Spain).

I am also working with Garth Sampson on the NSF-funded Zeekoe Valley GIS Study, which is converting data from a large survey in the Karoo of South Africa into GIS format. Lastly the Bureau of Land Management has supported our field school excavations at Antelope Creek homesteads on the Cross Bar Ranch and NPS has funded research at the Alibates Quarries, both in the Texas Panhandle.

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.

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 in 2002, tenured in 2006, and promoted to full Professor in 2012. I stepped down from the CAS directorship in 2009 when I became 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.

Recently I was elected as a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland.