Chirikure is former professor of archaeology in the University of Cape Town, where he directed the Archaeological Materials Laboratory, a facility dedicated to studies of pyrotechnology as practised by farming communities of the last 2000 years of sub-Saharan Africa.
Research undertaken within the laboratory includes the role of mining and metallurgy in early state formation, modelling the evolution of pyrotechnology in sub-Saharan Africa over the past 2000 years, and innovation and demography in the evolution of socio-technical systems.
[9] He currently holds a British Academy Global Professorship within the School of Archaeology at the University of Oxford,[10] and a Visiting Fellow at St Cross College.
[12] He has published several monographs, including Indigenous Mining and Metallurgy in Africa (2010), and Metals in Past Societies.
He is the editor in chief of the Oxford Research Encyclopaedia of African Archaeology[10] and one of the co-editors of Cambridge University Press’ History of Technology book series.
[15][16] Much of Chirikure's work is focused on integrating hard sciences with traditional archaeological and anthropological studies, to explore both ancient African technologies and how they contribute to political economies in both non-state and precolonial state systems.
[17] As of 2020, his current project is focused on the precolonial urban landscapes in southern Africa, and how these deep history of challenges contribute to contemporary society.
Understanding of the economies and social/trade networks of these significant sites is sorely lacking, without even a solid chronological framework.
Through an extensive science-based analysis of material and biological remains, Chirikure's work seeks to place these sites in their African and international trade networks.
The outcomes will enhance understanding of national heritage and roots through education in Africa and beyond.
Community involvement in archaeology and cultural heritage management: An assessment from case studies in Southern Africa and elsewhere.
Inside and outside the dry stone walls: revisiting the material culture of Great Zimbabwe.
Archives, Objects, Places and Landscapes: Multidisciplinary approaches to Decolonised Zimbabwean pasts.