Joseph O. Vogel   (DPhil Oxford, 1975) is an archaeologist who retired from the Anthropology Department in 1996 as Professor Emeritus. He is concerned with processes of adaptation and social interaction in subsistence farming societies and with the history and methodologies of archaeology, as well as the application of archaeology to the study of the ecosystems of farmers in time perspective. He has a long term commitment to defining social and ecological processes in a succession of farming societies in the Victoria Falls area of Southern Zambia. Specific interests include analyses of social, as well as non-ascribed space, in the identification of fields of social interaction, and interaction in socially mediated material and information flows. Working at Cahokia and Moundville, Prof. Vogel was only the third archaeologist to have conducted field investigations on at least two of the three major Mississippian period towns in eastern North America.  Professor Vogel has also done fieldwork at Big Bend Dam area and Oahe Dam area in South Dakota, the Modoc Rockshelter in Illinois, late Stone Age caves in central Africa, and shellmiddens on the North American Atlantic and Pacific coasts. He has conducted typological studies of Cahokia and Victoria Falls ceramics. Present research includes studies of the symbolic content of central African burials, the organization of social space in prehistoric African villages, and the role of socially mediated exchange systems on the South Central African Plateau.  Dr. Vogel has been very active in editing work since his retirement, including his current role as Series Editor for the African Archaeology Series of AltaMira Press.  Dr. Vogel's Encyclopedia of Precolonial Africa and Ancient African Metallurgy were each named Choice books of the year.  Dr. Vogel continues to reside in Tuscaloosa and can be reached through the Department of Anthropology and his Departmental e-mail address.

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Selected Publications

2000.  Ancient African Metallurgy.   Walnut Creek: AltaMira Press.

1997.  Encyclopedia of Precolonial Africa. Walnut Creek: AltaMira Press.

1995.  De-Mystifying the Past: Great Zimbabwe, King Solomon's Mines and other Tales of Old Africa. In Research Frontiers in Anthropology -- Advances in Archaeology and Physical Anthropology, ed. P. N. Peregrine, C. R. Ember and M. Ember. New York: Prentice-Hall.

1994.  Great Zimbabwe: The Iron Age Archaeology of South Central Africa. New York and London: Garland Publishing Inc.

1993.  A Question of Identities: an anthropological inquiry and a historical narrative. In The Archaeology of Africa: Food, Metals and Towns, ed. T. Shaw, P. Sinclair, B. Andah and A. Okpoko. London and New York: Routledge, pp. 399-408.

1990.  The Cultural Basis, Development and Influence of a Socially Mediated Trading Corporation in Southern Zambezia. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 9, pp. 105 47.

1989.  Savanna Farmers on the Sandveldt: Patterns of Land Use and Organizational Behaviour of some Shifting Cultivators in south-central Africa. In Special Volume on the History of African Agricultural Technology and Field Systems, ed. J. E. G. Sutton. Azania 24, pp. 38 50.

1987.  Iron Age Farmers in Southwestern Zambia: Some Aspects of Spatial Organization. African Archaeological Review 15, pp. 159-70.

1976.  Trends in Cahokia Ceramics. In Illinois Archaeological Survey Bulletin 10, ed. J. Brown, pp. 32-125.

1975.  Simbusenga: The Archaeology of the Intermediate Period of the Southern Zambian Iron Age, Zambia Museum Paper 4, Oxford: Lusaka.

1971.  Kamangoza: An Introduction to the Iron Age of the Victoria Falls Region, Zambia Museum Papers 2, Oxford: Nairobi.

1971. Kumadzulo: An Early Iron Age Village in Southern Zambia. Zambia Museum Papers 3, Oxford: Lusaka.