In 1957, the Rollefson family moved to Long Beach, California where he completed high school.
He attended the University of California, Berkeley and graduated in 1965 receiving a Bachelor of Arts in Anthropology.
[1] After serving as a translator in the Vietnam War,[1] he went on to study anthropology at the University of Arizona, where he was awarded a Master of Arts in 1972 and a Ph.D. in 1978.
His articles have appeared in a number of journals including American Antiquity, Current Anthropology, Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, Journal of Anthropological Archaeology and Holocene.
He leads educational journeys to Jordan for Far Horizons Archaeological and Cultural trips