Tomos Llywelyn Evans

Background

Before beginning his graduate studies at William & Mary, Tomos received a B.A. in Archaeology from the University of Cambridge in 2014 and an M.A. in African Studies with Heritage from University College London in 2016. He has worked predominantly on the African continent having taken part in archaeological field projects in South Africa (2014; 2015), Malawi (2014) and Nigeria (2017-2023) and having worked as an intern at the University of Pretoria (2015) and the Trust for African Rock Art in Nairobi, Kenya (2015), though he has also worked on archaeological projects in the United Kingdom, Romania and Vietnam. Tomos is also experienced in performing zooarchaeological lab research including his analysis of faunal material deriving from archaeological contexts associated with 18th and 19th century Creole communities of African descent in colonial and antebellum Louisiana (2016). Furthermore, he has been involved in archival research in the US, UK, and South Africa relating to the history, archaeology, and anthropology of southern Nigeria. He is particularly interested in intersections of art, landscape, and earthwork technology in the West African past, and how these articulated with and influenced the rest of the Atlantic world. He also researches the impacts of British colonialism on past African societies, including in the ways in which they've been studied and represented, and explores theoretical and practical means by which archaeological and anthropological scholarship on Africa can be decolonized.

Tomos's doctoral fieldwork has been supported by grants provided by several institutions, including a Wenner-Gren Foundation Dissertation Fieldwork Grant (2023), an Emslie Horniman Anthropological Scholarship Fund Grant (administered by the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland) (2021-2022), an American Philosophical Society Lewis & Clark Fund for Exploration and Field Research (2023), and an Explorers Club Washington Group Exploration and Field Research Grant (2021-2022). Completion of his doctoral research is supported by two consecutive research fellowships: a Dumbarton Oaks Junior Fellowship in Garden and Landscape Studies (2023-2024), and a Smithsonian Institution Fellowship Program (SIFP) Predoctoral Fellowship at the National Museum of African Art and National Museum of Natural History (2024).