Department of Anthropology and Archaeology

Prof JCA Boeyens

College of Human Sciences
School of Humanities
Department: Anthropology and Archaeology
Professor Emeritus
E-mail: janboeyens@telkomsa.net

Qualifications

  • BA (Hons)
  • MA (History)
  • DPhil (Archaeology) (University of Pretoria)
  • THED (Pretoria College of Education)

Fields of academic interests

  • Iron Age Archaeology
  • Historical Archaeology
  • Tswana Towns
  • Heritage Conservation
  • Oral Traditions
  • Toponyms
  • Early 19th-century Transvaal History

Journal articles

  • Boeyens, J.C.A. 2016. Tale of two Tswana towns: in quest of Tswenyane and the twin capital of the Hurutshe in the Marico. Southern African Humanities. Kwa-Zulu-Natal Museum. July 2016. 28:1-37.
  • Koleini, F., Prinsloo, L.C., Biemond, W.M., Colomban, P., Ngo, A-T., Boeyens, J.C.A. and Van Der Ryst, M.M. 2016. Towards refining the classification of glass trade beads imported into Southern Africa from the 8th to the 16th century AD. Journal of Cultural Heritage 19(2016): 435-444.
  • Koleini, F., Prinsloo, L.C., Biemond, W.M., Colomban, P., Ngo, A-T., Boeyens, J.C.A., Van Der Ryst, M.M. and Van Brakel, K. 2016. Unravelling the glass trade bead sequence from Magoro Hill, South Africa: separating pre-seventeenth-century Asian imports from later European counterparts. Heritage Science (Springer Open).
  • Boeyens, J.C.A. & Van der Ryst, M.M. 2014. The cultural and symbolic significance of the African rhinoceros: A review of the traditional beliefs, perceptions and practices of agropastoralist societies in southern Africa. Southern African Humanities 26: 21–55.
  • Boeyens, J.C.A. 2012. The intersection of archaeology, oral tradition and history in the South African interior. New Contree 64: 1–30.
  • Prinsloo, L.C., Boeyens, J.C.A., Van der Ryst, M.M.  & Webb, G.  2012. Raman signatures of the modern pigment (Zn,Cd)S1-xSex and glass matrix of a red bead from Magoro Hill, an archaeological site in Limpopo Province, South Africa, recalibrate the settlement chronology. Journal of Molecular Structure 38: 3264–3277.
  • Boeyens, J.C.A. & Plug, I. 2011. “A chief is like an ash-heap on which is gathered all the refuse”: the faunal remains from the central court midden at Kaditshwene. Annals of the Ditsong National Museum of Natural History 1: 1–22.
  • Boeyens, J.C.A., Van der Ryst, M.M., Coetzee, F.P., Steyn, M. & Loots, M. 2009. From uterus to jar: The significance of an infant pot burial from Melora Saddle, an early nineteenth-century African farmer site on the Waterberg Plateau. Southern African Humanities 21: 213–238.
  • Boeyens, J.C.A. & Hall, S.  2009. Tlokwa oral traditions and the interface between history and archaeology at Marothodi. South African Historical Journal 61 (3): 457–481.

Professional positions, fellowships & awards

  • Patron of the Trans-Vaal Branch of the South African Archaeological Society

Projects

  • Magoro Hill: the history and archaeology of a nineteenth-century Venda stronghold on the Zoutpansberg frontier, Limpopo Province.
  • Sešulle, Melora and Sekungwa: Iron Age settlement in the Lephalala Drainage Basin, Waterberg, Limpopo Province.
  • Life at Tswenyane-Kaditshwene: The dynamics of a late precolonial Tswana capital complex in central Marico, North West Province.
  • Paul-Lenert Breutz: state ethnographer, 1948–1977.