Research

The School of Geography, Archaeology and Environmental Studies is one of the most productive research units at Wits. Staff in the School contribute regularly to local and international journals and are active members of the editorial boards of many prestigious journals in the fields of Geography, Archaeology and the broad area of environmental science.

The School hosts several formally constituted research groups including ACACIA (Professor Lyn Wadley), the Climatology Research Group (Dr Stuart Piketh), and the Rock Art Research Institute (Dr Benjamin Smith). 

In addition to these formal research units, individual members of the school have their own research programmes and projects. Further information on these can be found in the individual entries of the school’s staff web page (Academic staff). The school is also proud to have a long list of well-known and very active honorary research associates (honorary research associates ).

A SELECTION OF 2010 PUBLICATIONS BY SCHOOL STAFF, STUDENTS AND RESEARCH ASSOCIATES 

Arthur C, Mitchell PJ (2010). The archaeology of the Metolong Dam, Lesotho: A preliminary assessment. ANTIQUITY, 84 (325), pp. 1 - 3.

Avery D, Stratford DJ, Senegas F (2010). Micromammals and the formation of the Name Chamber at Sterkfontein, South Africa. GEOBIOS, 43 pp. 379 - 387.

Blundell G, Chippindale C, Smith BW (2010). Rock art with and without ethnography. Chapter 1. In C. Chippendale & B. Smith & G. Blundell (eds.), Seeing and knowing: Understanding roack art with and without ethnography (pp. 1-9). Johannesburg: Wits University Press. 978-1-86814-513-3.

Devereux S, Vincent K (2010). Using technology to deliver social protection: Exploring opportunities and risks. DEVELOPMENT IN PRACTICE, 20 (3), pp. 367 - 379.

Eastwood EB, Blundell G, Smith BW (2010). Art and authorship in southern African rock art: Examining the Limpopo-Shashe Confluence Area. Chapter 5. In G. Blundell & B. Smith & C. Chippendale (eds.), Seeing and knowing: Understanding roack art with and without ethnography (pp. 75-97). Johannesburg: Wits University Press. 978-1-86814-513-3.

Esterhuysen AB (2010). Excavation at Historic Cave, Makapan's Valley, Limpopo: 2001-2005. SOUTH AFRICAN ARCHAEOLOGICAL BULLETIN, 65 (191), pp. 67 - 83.

Fauvelle F-X, Bruxelles L, Mensan R, Bosc-Tiesse C, Derat M, Fritsch E (2010). Rock-cut stratigraphy: sequencing the Lalibela churches. ANTIQUITY, 84 pp. 1135 - 1150.

Forssman TR, Kuman KA, Leader GM, Gibbon RJ (2010). A later stone age assemblage from Canteen Kopje, Northern Cape. SOUTH AFRICAN ARCHAEOLOGICAL BULLETIN, 65 (192), pp. 204 - 214.

Grab SW (2010). Alpine turf exfoliation pans in Lesotho, southern Africa: Climate-process-morphological linkages. GEOMORPHOLOGY, 114 pp. 261 - 275.

Grab SW, Nash DJ (2010). Documentary evidence of climate variability during cold seasons in Losotho, southern Africa, 1833-1900. CLIMATE DYNAMICS, 34 pp. 473 - 499.

Hammett DP (2010). Ongoing contestations: The use of racial signifiers in post-apartheid South Africa. SOCIAL IDENTITIES : JOURNAL FOR THE STUDY OF RACE, NATION AND CULTURE, 16 (2), pp. 247 - 260.

Hammett DP (2010). Zapiro and Zuma: A symptom of an emerging constitutional crisis in South Africa? POLITICAL GEOGRAPHY, 29 pp. 88 - 96.

Hampwaye G, Rogerson C (2010). Economic restructuring in the Zambian Copperbelt: Local responses in Ndolo. URBAN FORUM, 21 pp. 387 - 403.

Hoogendoorn G, Visser G (2010). The role of second homes in local economic development in five small South African towns. DEVELOPMENT SOUTHERN AFRICA, 27 (4), pp. 547 - 562.

Jopela AP (2010). Towards a condition monitoring of rock art sites: The case of BNE 1 in Free State Province, South Africa. SOUTH AFRICAN ARCHAEOLOGICAL BULLETIN, 65 (191), pp. 58 - 66.

Lane PJ (2010). Developing landscape historical ecologies in eastern Africa: An outline for current research and potential future directions. AFRICAN STUDIES, 69 (2), pp. 299 - 322.

Lapeyre RF (2010). Community-based tourism as a sustainable solution to maximise impacts locally? The Tsiseb Conservancy case, Namibia. DEVELOPMENT SOUTHERN AFRICA, 27 (5), pp. 757 - 772.

Le Baron JC, Grab SW, Kuman KA (2010). Grain-size characteristics of surface sands and sandstones: Indicators of potential sediment sources for the southern Tuli Basin, South Africa. SOUTH AFRICAN GEOGRAPHICAL JOURNAL, 92 (1), pp. 7 - 21.

Le Baron JC, Kuman KA, Grab SW (2010). The landscape distribution of stone age artifacts on the Hackthorne Plateau, Limpopo river valley, South Africa. SOUTH AFRICAN ARCHAEOLOGICAL BULLETIN, 65 (192), pp. 123 - 131.

Le Quellec J  (2010). Datations directes et indirectes des images rupestres en Ahaggar, dans la Tasili-n-Ajjer et l'Atlas saharien. NOUVELLES DE LARCHEOLOGIE, 120/121 pp. 49 - 56.

Lewis-Williams JD (2010). Conceiving God: The Cognitive Origin and Evolution of Religion(1 ed.). London: Thames & Hudson. 320 pp.

Lewis-Williams JD (2010). The imagistic web of San myth, art and landscape. SOUTHERN AFRICAN HUMANITIES, 22 pp. 1 - 18.

Loubser JH (2010). Layer by layer: Precision and accuracy in rock art recording and dating. Chapter 9. In B. Smith & G. Blundell & C. Chippendale (eds.), Seeing and knowing: Understanding roack art with and without ethnography (pp. 149-167). Johannesburg: Wits University Press. 978-1-86814-513-3.

Loubser JH (2010). The ball-court petroglyph boulders of Jacaná, South-central Puerto Rico. CAMBRIDGE ARCHAEOLOGICAL JOURNAL, 20 (3), pp. 323 - 344.

Meskell L (2010). Social thought and commentary: Human rights and heritage ethics. ANTHROPOLOGICAL QUARTERLY, 83 (4), pp. 839 - 860.

Mitchell PJ (2010). Genetics and southern African prehistory: An archaeological view. JOURNAL OF ANTHROPOLOGICAL SCIENCES, 88 pp. 73 - 92.

Mitchell PJ (2010). Making history at Sehonghong: Soai and the last Bushman occupants of his shelter. SOUTHERN AFRICAN HUMANITIES, 22 pp. 149 - 170.

Mukuka GS (2010). Reap what you have not sown (1st ed.). Pretoria: Pretoria University Law Press (PULP). 236 pp.

Namono C (2010). Resolving the authorship of the geometric rock art of Uganda. JOURNAL OF AFRICAN ARCHAEOLOGY, 8 (2), pp. 239 - 257.

Nash DJ, Grab SW (2010). "A sky of brass and burning winds": Documentary evidence of rainfall variability in the Kingdom of Lesotho, southern Africa, 1824-1900. CLIMATIC CHANGE, 101 pp. 617 - 653.

Neumann FH, Scott L, Bousman BC, van As L (2010). A Holocene sequence of vegetation change at Lake Eteza, coastal KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. REVIEW OF PALAEOBOTANY AND PALYNOLOGY, 162 pp. 39 - 53.

Pearce DG (2010). Conservation and management of collapsing rock paintings: Three sites in Maclear District, Eastern Cape Province, South Africa. SOUTH AFRICAN ARCHAEOLOGICAL BULLETIN, 65 (191), pp. 96 - 103.

Pearce DG (2010). The Harris matrix technique in the construction of relative chronologies of rock paintings in South Africa. SOUTH AFRICAN ARCHAEOLOGICAL BULLETIN, 65 (192), pp. 148 - 153.

Pearce DG, Hobart J (2010). Further analysis of six painted rock fragments collected by Louis Tylor. SOUTHERN AFRICAN HUMANITIES, 22 pp. 171 - 179.

Plug I, Mitchell PJ, Bailey G (2010). Late Holocene fishing strategies in southern Africa as seen from Likoaeng, highland Lesotho. JOURNAL OF ARCHAEOLOGICAL SCIENCE, 37 pp. 3111 - 3123.

Pollarolo L, Susino GJ, Kuman KA, Bruxelles L (2010). Acheulean artefacts at Maropeng in the Cradle of Humankind World Heritage Site, Gauteng Province, South Africa. SOUTH AFRICAN ARCHAEOLOGICAL BULLETIN, 65 (191), pp. 3 - 12.

Pollarolo L, Wilkins J, Kuman KA, Galletti L (2010). Site formation at Kudu Koppie: A late Earlier and Middle Stone Age site in northern Limpopo Province, South Africa. QUATERNARY INTERNATIONAL, 216 pp. 151 - 161.

Robertshaw P, Benco N, Wood MA, Dussubieux L, Melchiorre E, Ettahiri A  (2010). Chemical analysis of glass beads from medieval al-Basra (Morocco). ARCHAEOMETRY, 52 (3), pp. 355 - 379.

Robertshaw P, Wood MA, Melchiorre E, Popelka-Filcoff R, Glascock M (2010). Southern African glass beads: Chemistry, glass sources and patterns of trade. JOURNAL OF ARCHAEOLOGICAL SCIENCE, 37 pp. 1898 - 1912.

Sadr K, Gribble J (2010). The stone artefacts from the Vredenburg Peninsula archaeological survey, west coast of South Africa. SOUTHERN AFRICAN HUMANITIES, 22 pp. 19 - 88.

Smith A (2010). Pottery traditions in Katanga (DRC): A comparative examination of roughing-out technologies. ANTHROPOS, 105 pp. 179 - 190.

Smith A (2010). Reconstitution de la chaîne opératoire de la poterie. NOUVELLES DE LARCHEOLOGIE, 119 pp. 9 - 12.

Smith BW (2010). Envisioning San history: Problems in the reading of history in the rock art of the Maloti-Drakensberg Mountains of South Africa.. AFRICAN STUDIES, 69 (2), pp. 345 - 359.

Smith J, Lee-Thorp J, Prevec R, Hall S, Spath A (2010). Pre-colonial herding strategies in the Shashe-Limpopo Basin, southern Africa, based on strontium isotope analysis of domestic fauna. JOURNAL OF AFRICAN ARCHAEOLOGY, 8 (1), pp. 83 - 98.

Thornton AC, Kerslake M, Binns T (2010). Alienation and obligation: Religion and social change in Samoa. ASIA PACIFIC VIEWPOINT, 51 (1), pp. 1 - 16.

Thornton AC, Nel E, Hampwaye G (2010). Cultivating Kuanda's plan for self-suffiency: Is urban agriculture finally beginning to receive support in Zambia?. DEVELOPMENT SOUTHERN AFRICA, 27 (4), pp. 613 - 625.

Tournie A, Prinsloo L, Paris C, Colomban P, Smith BW (2010). The first in situ Raman spectroscopic study of San rock art in South Africa: procedures and preliminary results. JOURNAL OF RAMAN SPECTROSCOPY, doi10.1002 pp. 1 - 8.

Villa P, Soriano S (2010). Hunting weapons of Neanderthals and early modern humans in South Africa: Similarities and differences. JOURNAL OF ANTHROPOLOGICAL RESEARCH, 66 pp. 5 - 38.

Villa P, Soriano S, Teyssandier N, Wurz S  (2010). The Howiesons Poort and MSA III at Klasies River main site, Cave 1A. JOURNAL OF ARCHAEOLOGICAL SCIENCE, 37 pp. 630 - 655.

Wilkins J, Pollarolo L, Kuman KA (2010). Prepared core reduction at the site of Kudu Koppie in northern South Africa: Temporal patterns across the Earlier and Middle Stone Age boundary. JOURNAL OF ARCHAEOLOGICAL SCIENCE, 37 pp. 1279 - 1292.

Wright JB (2010). Putting Bokoni on the historian's map. AFRICAN STUDIES, 69 (2), pp. 229 - 233.

Wright JB (2010). Thinking beyond 'tribal traditions': reflections on the precolonial archive. SOUTH AFRICAN HISTORICAL JOURNAL, 62 (2), pp. 268 - 286.