Thomas N. Huffman (17 July 1944 – 30 March 2022)[1][2] was Professor Emeritus of archaeology in association with the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa.
He specialised in pre-colonial farming societies in southern Africa.
Huffman is most well known for his identification of the Central Cattle Pattern at Mapungubwe, a pre-colonial state in southern Africa.
This, in turn he argued as the main influence in the formation of the Zimbabwe Pattern at Great Zimbabwe.
[3] Arguably his seminal contribution to the field was A Handbook to the Iron Age: The Archaeology of Pre-Colonial Farming Societies in Southern Africa (2007), which has contributed to the understanding of ceramic style analysis and culture history focusing on these groups.