Meet the Team

Professor Shadreck Chirikure is an archaeologist whose work bridges scientific analysis, social theory, and material culture studies to illuminate Africa’s technological and social past. He applies archaeometallurgical, geochemical, and heritage-science methods to explore how communities, technologies, and environments co-evolved across space and time.

As Principal Investigator of the New Bantu Mosaics Project, he leads an interdisciplinary team investigating the migration, lifeways, and socio-political dynamics of Bantu-speaking populations across eight African countries. Combining field archaeology with high-resolution analyses of metals, ceramics, botanical, and faunal remains, the project seeks to trace how innovation, mobility, and adaptation shaped cultural landscapes over the past two millennia.

His broader research focuses on the reconstruction of ancient technologies, innovation and craft production, the history of technology, and the integration of humanities and scientific perspectives in archaeology. He is also deeply engaged in heritage science and public outreach, using exhibitions and conservation initiatives to connect the past with contemporary social and environmental questions.

Shadreck earned his MA in Artefact Studies (2002) and PhD in Archaeology (2005) from University College London. Before joining Oxford, he directed the Archaeological Materials Laboratory at the University of Cape Town. His leadership and scholarship have been recognised through numerous awards, including the British Academy Global Professorship (2019), the Antiquity Prize (2019), the Shanghai Archaeology Forum Research Award (2019), Fellowship of the Royal Society of Arts (2022), membership in the Academy of Science of South Africa (2021), and election as a Fellow of the British Academy (2024). He was also a Mandela–Harvard Fellow and recipient of the National Research Foundation of South Africa’s Presidential Award (2012).