Alex Schoeman

Alex Schoeman is an Associate Professor in the School of Geography, Archaeology and Environmental Studies at the University of the Witwatersrand. She leads the NRF-funded South African Farmscapes & Food team, focusing on pre-colonial African farming systems in northeastern South Africa. Her work integrates environmental, economic, and social dimensions of farming, with a strong emphasis on Indigenous Knowledge and sustainability.

• BAHons, University of the Witwatersrand
• MA, University of the Witwatersrand
• PhD, University of the Witwatersrand

Her research interests span the archaeology of farming and food, gender and feminism, interactions between farmers and hunter-gatherers, and the history of archaeology. She explores how farming communities transformed their environments and how ritual, labor, and social structures shaped pre-colonial landscapes. Her teaching includes courses on the archaeology of the last 2000 years in southern Africa, the history of archaeological thought, and the archaeology of food production.

Her recent publications reflect a strong trend in landscape archaeology, phytolith and organic residue analysis, ritual sites, and the reinterpretation of stone-walled settlements like Bokoni. The articles span environmental reconstruction, gendered labor, technological practices, and decolonial approaches to archaeological interpretation, demonstrating a multidisciplinary and socially engaged methodology.

She has not been explicitly awarded any scientific prizes in the provided text, but her leadership of an NRF-funded project indicates significant recognition and competitive grant acquisition.

Alex Schoeman actively supervises students and leads field projects such as the Bokoni Farmscapes and AGRI-DRY initiatives. Her work involves collaboration across institutions and disciplines, particularly in geochemical, botanical, and remote sensing analyses. She is deeply involved in community-engaged archaeology and the curation of Indigenous Knowledge systems.

She is affiliated with key research platforms including the Bokoni Farmscapes Project and the AGRI-DRY research network, which support her fieldwork and interdisciplinary investigations into southern African farming pasts.