Prehistory and Human Origins from Jan Christiaan Smuts to Thabo Mbeki

22 South African Archaeological Society Goodwin Series 12: 22–30, 2019

RECOMPOSING IDENTITIES: PREHISTORY AND HUMAN ORIGINS FROM JAN CHRISTIAAN SMUTS TO THABO MBEKI NATHAN SCHLANGER École nationale des chartes, PSL, Paris, UMR Trajectoires, Nanterre, France, and Rock Art Research Institute, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa E-mail: [email protected]

ABSTRACT colonisation, with its emphasis on territories, boundaries, The development of prehistoric archaeology in South Africa represents contacts, and exchanges, as in the colonisation of the globe by an instance of colonial archaeology as a research setting, in which an Homo sapiens, or the Mediterranean by the Roman Empire interest in the material past is imported and implemented in the (cf. Gamble 1993; Gosden 2004; Dietler 2010). Second, nor does context of settlement and domination. The utility of such a discipline is it refer to a chronological time span – usually set from Colum- amply demonstrated in the second quarter of the 20th century. bus’ 1492 travels onwards – encompassing the archaeological Encouraged by empirical discoveries, by dedicated scientists, and by and historical evidence of European implantations and interac- Field Marshal J.C. Smuts, prehistory proved twice useful: to position tions in foreign lands (Schrire 1995; Orser 1996). Both these South Africa and the southern hemisphere as a global actor, and to aspects are germane, but what is at stake with colonial archae- provide an equidistant unifying ground for the infighting Boer ology here is rather a distinctive research setting in which and Briton communities of the Union. The ‘cradle of humankind’, archaeology, imported or imposed from the outside, is carried promoted in those interwar years on both scientific and economic out in political, economic and cultural conditions of adminis- grounds, provides a link to post-apartheid times. As former President trative and cognitive domination by practitioners – predomi- Thabo Mbeki expressed on numerous occasions, the deep past of nantly white and Westerners – who have no ostensible humanity carries historical but also moral meaning, as a cornerstone ‘historical’ or ‘ethnic’ affinities, let alone ‘racial’ ones, with the of the African renaissance – then as now, the prehistoric past can serve populations or the lands whose past they study (Schlanger as a means for recomposing identities in the present. 2012). This begs the question: in the light of the aforementioned national postulate, and leaving aside possible references to the Key words: prehistoric archaeology, colonial archaeology, ‘pure and disinterested’ pursuit of knowledge, why bother at history of archaeology, African terminology, Afrikaans, cradle all? Why on earth sweat and toil under the tropical sun in order of humankind, Jan Christiaan Smuts, Thabo Mbeki. to painstakingly uncover vestiges of a past to which one is INTRODUCTION alien? The emergence of archaeology as a scientific discipline One set of possible answers has been advanced by during the 19th century has often been associated with the rise historian of archaeology Bruce Trigger in an influential paper of nationalism. Throughout this period – and indeed up to the entitled ‘Alternative archaeologies: Nationalist, Colonialist, present day – numerous attempts have been made to recover Imperialist’ (Trigger 1984). Trigger saw colonial archaeology as and root some tangible pasts into the ideological make-up of effectively a ‘colonialist’ one, whose practitioners seek, “by the modern nation state. In Europe, this tendency is perhaps emphasising the primitiveness and lack of accomplishments of best exemplified by Napoleon III’s creation of the Musée des these [indigenous] peoples, to justify their own poor treatment antiquités nationales (itself partly inspired from the earlier of them” and thus legitimise their domination. Furthermore, Danish National Museum), or again, some decades later, by he added, “Colonialist archaeology, wherever practised, Gustaf Kossinna’s promotion of archaeology as a “pre-emi- served to denigrate native societies and peoples by trying to nently national discipline” (hervorragend nationale Wissenschaft). demonstrate that they had been static in prehistoric times and However, while many similar cases can be mentioned, to lacked the initiative to develop on their own” (Trigger 1984: reduce the raison d’être and the development of archaeology to 360, 363, Trigger 1989; Robertshaw 1990; Rowlands 1998, and nationalism alone will not do – especially if this merely implies more general comments in Van der Linde et al. 2012; Effros the recovery and reappropriation of some original autoch- & Lai 2018). By casting local populations as being ‘without thonous birth- or land rights, or again, the exaltation of some history’ (Wolf 1982) and ‘outof time’ (Fabian 1983), colonial(ist) shared heroic or cohesive past, in the mould of ‘our ancestors archaeology would help to invalidate or belittle their possible the Gauls’ (or the Danes, or the Germans). To endorse too claims for natural or historical justice. This archaeological hastily this ‘nationalist’ viewpoint may result in a rather historiography clearly echoes social anthropology’s long- one-dimensional appraisal of the archaeological discipline and standing disquiet over its own practical and ideological its broader implications as a body of practices and of represen- congruence with the colonialist enterprise (see classic state- tations (see notably Kohl & Fawcett 1995; Díaz-Andreu & ments in Leiris 1966; Asad 1973). The notion of colonial (sensu Champion 1996; Kohl 1998; Kaeser 2002; Díaz-Andreu colonialist) archaeology is in this respect of undeniable utility 2007). In order to highlight some of the issues involved, I for alerting the scholarly community to the ideological stakes will dedicate the coming pages to what appears on the face of inherent to their discipline – all the more so since such denials it to be a striking counter-example: given archaeology and of history are still occasionally encountered in the 21st century nationalism, what are we to make of the phenomenon of colo- in fairly blatant forms, as in the case of the infamous Dakar nial archaeology? speech by French former President Sarkozy (see Chrétien 2008). That granted, there remains considerable scope to move COLONIAL ARCHAEOLOGY AND COLONIALIST beyond this Machiavellian ideal type – and here again, compar- SENSIBILITIES isons with social anthropology are instructive. Intimate knowl- The colonial archaeology that concerns us here needs to be edge of native political and kinship structures (as secured defined. First, it does not refer directly to the archaeology of through functionalist fieldwork) has proved time and again to South African Archaeological Society Goodwin Series 12: 22–30, 2019 23 be a patent asset to good governance: we may therefore pay australopithecine ape-like ‘missing link’ skull at Taung in 1924; heed to Bronislaw Malinowski, a leading expert in these and, at another level, the visit of metropolitan scientists such as matters, when he remarks that “the colonial ‘practitioner’ [can- Cambridge-based Miles Burkitt in 1927, and particularly the not] base his decisions upon an anthropology concerned with renowned French prehistorian and Africanist Henri Breuil, the Pithecanthropus erectus, or with the purely antiquarian whose 1929 grand tour of the region coincided with the joint reconstruction of various archaic cultures” (Malinowski 1930: meeting of the British and South African Associations for 428). Indeed, to take this disparaging comment one step the Advancement of Science in Cape Town. However, what further, of what utility could such an ‘antiquarian’ archaeology contributed most decisively to making prehistoric archaeology possibly be, as a handmaid of colonialism? a ‘frontline’ discipline (at least ideologically, if not in financial Such an archaeology can actually be quite useful, once we or infrastructural terms) was the crucial endorsement it have recognised that the notion of ‘colonialism’ covers a diver- received from Field Marshal Jan Christiaan Smuts (1870–1950), sity of political, cultural and socio-economic manifestations South Africa’s leading soldier, statesman and politician for (see Stoler 1989; Pels 1997). It would clearly be a misleading much of the first half of the 20th century (see Hancock 1968; oversimplification to lump together all colonisers in Africa, for and Schlanger 2002, for a detailed discussion). instance – be they soldiers, settlers, administrators, traders, Making the most of an electoral setback, Smuts found farmers, city-dwellers, missionaries, the liberal professions, himself free, between 1924 to about 1935, to pursue his philo- working classes, women, men, of English, Irish, French, Dutch sophical and scientific interests in geology, botany and prehis- or Lebanese origins, and so forth, and various permutations of toric archaeology. Smuts’ interests were particularly broad- all the above – into a single unitary group supposedly sharing ranging: he is notably credited with introducing the term some essential practical and ideological disposition. Avoiding ‘holism’ from philosophy and popular psychology, and also generalisations and stereotypes, we need to appreciate the with some prescient and innovative views on the phenomenon diversity of interests and assumptions that underlie the of globalisation. At the same time, his scientific agenda was practice of archaeology in colonial settings. This in turn should thoroughly invested and strategic, geared first and foremost to prepare us to recognise that the colonised and their past are not promoting the renown and stature of his country. Addressing always or exclusively the primary focus of attention. Indeed, the 1925 meeting of the South African Association for the local populations aside, it is important to recognise that colonial archaeology will often have more to do with the settlers themselves, with their own aspired or contested identities, and sense of cohesion or common purpose. In a similar vein, colonial archaeology may well have more to do with the claims and preoccupations of its present-day practitioners, than with some would-be affinities to ancestral vestiges and populations. The case study I focus on here – prehistoric archaeology in South Africa – is particularly instructive in this respect, insofar as this guiding postulate can actually be followed up twice, across two distinct conceptual and political timeframes: once before apartheid, in the second quarter of the 20th century; and once more recently, in post-apartheid times. Undoubtedly much has changed across these eras, but it is also the case that some common concerns with the archaeological construction of collective identities have been maintained in between, or possibly reinvented anew.

A SCIENTIFIC MECCA – ENSURING INTERNATIONAL STATURE Prehistoric archaeology – and more specifically Stone Age archaeology – has been pursued in southern Africa since the 1860s or 1870s by relatively isolated amateurs (missionaries or prospectors) who, for the most part, abided by fairly loose versions of metropolitan science (cf. accounts in Goodwin 1946, 1958; and more recently, Deacon 1990; Mitchell 2002; Dubow 2000, 2006; Shepherd 2015). From the 1920s onwards, however, prehistoric archaeology gathered sudden momentum as a topical and indeed militant science. This transformation has undoubtedly much to do with the professionalisation and institutionalisation of the discipline. This occurred through the appointment in 1926 of the Grenoble- and Cambridge-trained A.J.H. Goodwin to the first academic archaeological position in sub-Saharan Africa, at the University of Cape Town, and through the creation in 1934 of a chair in archaeology at the University of the Witwatersrand for civil engineer Clarence van Riet Lowe, associated with a directorship of the country’s newly created Bureau of Archaeology (Archaeological Survey) FIG. 1. Field Marshal Jan Smuts (centre) conversing with C. van Riet Lowe (cf. Goodwin 1946, 1958; Shepherd 2003; Schlanger 2004). Also (left) during a 1931 transatlantic voyage (RARI Archives, University of the important at that time were Raymond Dart’s discovery of the Witwatersrand). 24 South African Archaeological Society Goodwin Series 12: 22–30, 2019

Advancement of Science, for example, he urged the upholding nomenclature: it amounted in fact to a rendition of European of “science from the South African point of view”, with its terms and concepts in English rather than in Greek, and drew special sphere and role in the sub-continent. Applauding on ‘local’ place names rather than remote (French) eponymous Dart’s fossil discovery, Smuts was pleased to note that “recent sites. The quotation marks here on ‘local’ are aimed at drawing events have turned the gaze of the world on South Africa as a attention to an important aspect that seems to have escaped rich field for scientific investigation. Who knows whether many commentators subsequently revelling in the supposedly South Africa may not yet become the Mecca of human palaeon- ‘emancipatory’ and ‘authentic’ qualities of the ‘African’ termi- tology?” (Smuts 1925: 2, 16). These scientific machinations also nology of prehistory. Quite simply, the eponymous place transpired in Smuts’ extensive correspondence with leading names used are all, without exception, of purely Euro- scholars and intellectuals of the day. British anthropologist pean-colonial origins – and not at all indigenous or autoch- G. Elliot Smith, for example, was told by Smuts: thonous African. From Victoria West to Wilton through Fauresmith, these are all names of localities given by European I wish to write to you a line expressing my grateful obligation to you for what you have done. The southern view-point is now settlers, resonating with the reassuringly familiar phonetic well advertised and I must leave it to others to follow up the idea, as I landscape of their mother countries. The fact that some ‘real’ have neither the knowledge nor the time to do so […] There is an African names have occasionally cropped up in the prehistoric immense field for scientific research in South Africa, and a literature during these years (the ‘Thaba Nchu’ of E.C.N. van heap of praise from the great masters of science is often very Hoepen, or N. Jones’ ‘Bambata culture’ in Southern Rhodesia) sweet and welcome to the isolated worker here [i.e. Dart], actually shows that the issue was not one of deliberate avoid- carrying on despite very discouraging apathy all round ance as much as sheer invisibility and non-topicality – an indif- (Smuts to G. Elliot Smith, 25 August 1925, Smuts correspon- ference that obviously contrasts with the engagements dence, Wits University Archives, emphasis added). characteristic of current promoters of the terminology. The This ‘South Africanisation of science’, further echoed by inescapable conclusion that the African terminology is in Smuts’ political lieutenant Jan Hofmeyr (see Hofmeyr 1929, reality African neither in nature nor in name does not of course 1930; Dubow 2000) became a veritable tool of geopolitical and diminish from its real symbolic and scientific utility. As devel- symbolic positioning, prompting the practitioners of the oped from the mid-1920s onwards, this terminology has clearly palaeoanthropological and prehistoric disciplines to claim served African archaeology worldwide well, and has indeed their rightful place on the international scene, as proud cham- been of immense practical use for classifying, comparing, and pions of the southern hemisphere. Indeed, this ‘southern’ interpreting prehistoric industries across Africa and beyond point of view was the opportunity to conjecture a sort of hemi- (see Schlanger 2005; and cf. Goodwin 1945, 1958; Clark et al. spheric equivalence, a tit-for-tat science-based redress. Charac- 1966; Kleindienst 1967; Deacon 1990). teristically, Smuts was a very early advocate of the theory of In addition to its explicit inter-continental vistas, this ‘continental drift’ advanced by German geologist Alfred ‘African terminology’ leads us to consider a little-explored but Wegener, precisely because it showed that this expanse of land crucial internal question, specific to South Africa – the issue of now known as southern Africa had been moving around the language. The conflictual relations prevailing at that time Earth’s surface during geological times (Gondwanaland): its between the country’s ‘Boer’ and ‘Briton’ communities found current marginal position south of the tropics was both recent their way into the field of archaeology, notably through a and temporary, geologically speaking, and therefore effec- ‘priority dispute’ that raged between the English-speaking pair tively accidental rather than essential. This erstwhile centrality of Goodwin and Van Riet Lowe (e.g. in 1929), and Afrikaans- was attested by the country’s unique floral kingdoms (Smuts using scholars like C. Heese and E.C.N. van Hoepen (e.g. in was a keen ascender of the botanical heaven of Table Moun- 1928). In contention were dates of publications, and specific tain) and also, in different ways, by its prehistoric remains terms used in the study of prehistory. Van Hoepen, Director of (Schlanger 2002). the Nasionale Museum in Bloemfontein, had been advancing terminological proposals – in Afrikaans – regarding the TERMINOLOGICAL AMBITIONS AND LINGUISTIC Koning, Pniel or Thaba Nchu cultures, which were ruthlessly TENSIONS brushed aside in this dispute. In the same vein it is significant It was in this context, from the mid-1920s onwards, that the to note how Goodwin himself was very quick to correct his famous ‘African terminology’ of prehistoric industries came eponymous orthography – from ‘Still baai’ to ‘Still Bay’ culture. about, with its Earlier, Middle and Later Stone Ages, and, inter In fact, these were not really substantially different carvings or alia, its Stellenbosch, Smithfield and Still Bay cultures (or indus- interpretations of the prehistoric past that were at stake here, tries). In subsequent accounts, this African terminology has let alone some deep-seated ideological divergences, as much often been presented as a radical departure, indeed a deliberate as, more prosaically, the legitimisation of present-day linguistic break and emancipation from imported northern hemisphere entities. In short, the dispute concerned the capacity of the notions, supposedly imposed by European scholars (see for Afrikaans language to serve as a national scientific medium of example, Goodwin 1945, 1958; Schrire et al. 1996). In actual fact, communication, and even more so the risks of confusion and the development of this terminology from the mid-1920s competition that the use of Afrikaans might engender on the onwards was thoroughly welcomed, in its aims and its details, international scene, threatening to blur and dilute the by leading European scholars, French and British alike. This univocality of Smuts’ “South African point of view” (for more, positive reception was due to theoretical developments within see Schlanger 2003, 2005). the discipline (having broken away by the early 20th century In the light of these tensions, Smuts himself had hoped – in from the unilinear evolutionism associated with French vain as it happened – that the South African Association for the prehistorian Gabriel de Mortillet), to an interest in encourag- Advancement of Science, in which “both languages enjoy ing research in overseas locations, and also finally, to a basic equal privileges”, would serve to “bring together and unite all familiarity with the proposed system. Indeed, the African South Africans [interested in science], irrespective of race or terminology clearly remained – as it was wont – well within language” (Smuts 1925: 1). As was customary at that time, the internationally established scientific norms of systematics and term ‘race’ referred not to the ‘natives’ or ‘indigenes’ but rather South African Archaeological Society Goodwin Series 12: 22–30, 2019 25 to those populations of British, or Dutch, or German extrac- the fate of South African prehistoric archaeology during the tion). In this respect, crucially, the very existence of a gap or Nationalist government and apartheid years. As distinct from distance from the past as studied by all South African archaeol- social anthropology or volkekunde (see Gordon 1988; Dubow ogists could serve as a distinctive asset for realising these cohe- 1995), and unlike the archaeology of farming communities sive intentions. Cambridge prehistorian Miles Burkitt had a (Hall 1984), Stone Age research does not seem to have suffered good sense of this in 1927, when he was invited to tour the much from political appropriation and instrumentalisation per country’s archaeological riches under the guidance of se. Rather, despite notable methodological advances, and Goodwin and Van Riet Lowe: the succession of Goodwin by Ray Inskeep in 1960, a relative disaffection or indifference seem to characterise the powers It is just this fact [lack of written records] that makes the study of prehistory in South Africa so interesting and important to that be, as expressed for example, by the gradual closing down the members of the various nationalities who have chosen to of the Archaeological Survey and the non-enforcement of make that beautiful country their home, and who are in the heritage protection (see various views in Schrire et al. 1986; process or forming a new South African nation within the Deacon 1993; Wadley 2000; Esterhuysen 2012; as well as British Empire. The present inhabitants have, often, very Shepherd 2003; and Mazel 2014, on the question of the disci- different origins [i.e. Boer and British]; the one common factor pline’s ‘political quiescence’). in which they all have a share and a concern is their country In fact, it was during the late 1990s and early 2000s, in the and its history. Prehistory with them carries the story of the days of emerging multiracial, democratic post-apartheid South land down almost to the day before yesterday, and that is why it is of particular interest to every intelligent South African […] Africa, that archaeology once more came to be invested with (Burkitt 1928: 1–2). symbolic potency for constructing and consolidating collective identities (without for that necessarily benefiting from much- Here is then a plea for sincere collaboration: given that needed investment or coordination). Granted that the two none of the sparring communities have any grounds to claim historical situations under discussion – pre- and post-apartheid prior proximity or exclusivity regarding the country’s prehis- – are undoubtedly complex in many different ways, there are toric past – to which they are all ‘uitlanders’ – it is therefore as some parallels to be drawn between the previous (‘colonial’) equal partners that they might join the venture and invest in it and the recent (‘postcolonial’) spates of archaeological enlist- together. So, with reference to our opening discussion, while it ment. The most important parallel, for our purposes, concerns can be agreed that South African prehistoric archaeology in the personalities and localities. The latest round of interest in the first half of the 20th century was broadly ‘colonial’ in its setting, past follows to a considerable extent the prompting and atten- it was hardly ‘colonialist’ in its intents, and held little relevance tions of Thabo Mbeki, former ANC leader, deputy president to for ‘native affairs’. Likewise, far from seeking to recover some Nelson Mandela from 1994, and South Africa’s president from common or federative identity retrospectively located in the 1999 to 2008. For all their manifest historical, ethnic, and ethical remote past, as the staple nationalist postulate would have it, differences, Smuts and Mbeki often demonstrate in their South African prehistorians and politicians alike rather aimed discourse remarkable affinities in tone and in worldview, at bringing about such an identity in the present. This they did by including in their detailed recourse to scientific claims and au- investing together in the suitably ‘South Africanised’ practice thority. Next, just as Smuts could build on the flurry of interest of archaeology so as to make it, given their equidistant alterity, generated by Dart’s 1924 australopithecine discovery to consol- a part of their shared common heritage. As Burkitt further put idate the ‘South Africanisation of science’, so could Mbeki it: “The now growing interest in their prehistoric archaeology better conceive and convey his message of African and South […] is, in my opinion, a most hopeful sign indicative of national African renewal by capitalising on the recent inscription on the cultural development, indeed of the growth of a true South UNESCO list of World Heritage Sites of some fossils- and African nationality within the British Empire” (Burkitt 1928: ix). artefacts-bearing caves in the vicinity of Johannesburg, called the ‘cradle of humankind’. The focus in this paper is on CRADLES OF HUMANKIND ‘cradle’-related issues, but it should be mentioned that Thabo Just what the real, demonstrable contribution of prehistoric Mbeki had also recourse to two other archaeological episodes archaeology was to the country’s subsequent ‘national growth’ as part of the construction of a new South Africa. One episode still remains to be identified and researched. The obverse claim, concerns recent finds at Blombos cave, which would locate in however, clearly holds, insofar as the systematic, institution- this country the worldwide origins of symbolic, artistic and ally-backed enhancement of the discipline of archaeology ‘culturally modern’ behaviour (e.g. Mbeki speech, 8 February evidently did much to establish its eminent position on the 2002; and see Henshilwood & D’Errico 2011). The other epi- global map of knowledge, and to maintain it there throughout sode draws on the painted rock art tradition of southern Africa the second half of the 20th century. Note in this respect how (known as ‘San’ or ‘Bushman’ art), also listed by UNESCO at quickly the political spotlights were dimmed after 1948, with the uKhahlamba Drakensberg Park World Heritage Site, and the election of the National Party to power, and the death of more specifically the inclusion of a Bushman art figure (with Smuts two years later. The Pan-African Congress of Prehistory some revealing graphic manipulations) as the centrepiece of and Quaternary Studies, instigated by Louis Leakey and the new national coat of arms (see Mbeki speeches, 27 April like-minded colleagues, had unanimously agreed at its inaugu- 2000 and 7 March 2006; and Smith et al. 2000). ral meeting in Nairobi in January 1947, to hold its subsequent Back then to the ‘Cradle of Humankind’: its formal inscrip- meeting in Johannesburg in 1951, at Smuts’ express invitation. tion on the UNESCO list dates as such to 1999, but we should all Preparations for this meeting were underway, and dedicated appreciate, and Mbeki first and foremost, how much it owes to letterhead paper already printed, when the newly installed the vision and endeavours of Smuts three quarters of a century nationalist government abruptly cancelled the congress – earlier. Indeed, this instantly intelligible yet inherently implau- which assembled instead in Algiers in 1952, and ‘returned’ to sible notion of ‘cradle of humankind’ has actually been long in South Africa only in 2014. the making as a distinctive topos or ‘lieu de mémoire’ in the Afri- This episode appears in fact symptomatic, pending more can context (cf. Schlanger 2006, 2008). One strand of this interest detailed archive- and oral sources- based historical analysis, of was generated by Raymond Dart, who, on first examining the 26 South African Archaeological Society Goodwin Series 12: 22–30, 2019

(a)

(b)

(c)

(d)

FIG. 2. Preparations for the 1951 Pan-African Congress on Prehistory, Johannesburg: (a) Telegram from Van Riet Lowe via Commissioner, Nairobi, to Secretary for External Affairs, Cape Town, 13 January 1947. (b) Telegram from Secretary for External Affairs, Cape Town, to Van Riet Lowe via Commissioner, Nairobi, 14 January 1947.(c) Telegram from Van Riet Lowe via Commissioner, Nairobi, to Secretary for External Affairs, Cape Town, 21 January 1947 – confirming unanimous acceptance by the plenary session of the invitation to hold the next Pan-African Congress on Prehistory in the Union of South Africa. (d) Letterhead prepared for the 1951 Pan-African Congress on Prehistory (in Afrikaans, English, and French) (RARI Archives, University of the Witwatersrand). South African Archaeological Society Goodwin Series 12: 22–30, 2019 27

Taung skull in 1924, exclaimed that “Darwin’s largely discred- UNESCO effect with the neoliberal exploitation of the past (see ited theory that man’s early progenitors probably lived in Esterhuysen 2012; as well as Bonner et al. 2007; Meskell 2012; Africa came back to me. Was I to be the instrument by which his Duval & Smith 2014) – has amply confirmed the pioneering ‘missing link’ was found?” (Dart 1959: 6; and see also Ardrey quality of Smuts’ programme. Thabo Mbeki was indeed well in 1961). Darwin had indeed conjectured that “It is therefore tune with his predecessor’s aspirations when he recalled, in probable that Africa was formerly inhabited by extinct apes one of his speeches: closely allied to the gorilla and chimpanzee; and as these two While we were at Davos [WorldEconomic Forum], I received a species are now man’s nearest allies, it is somewhat more prob- letter from Professors Nicholas Conard and John Parkington able that our early progenitors lived on the African continent of the Universities of Tubingen and Cape Town, respectively. than elsewhere” (Darwin 1871: 199). However one is to take his They make the important observation that: “The archaeologi- postulated ‘alliance’ between apes and Africans, Smuts readily cal record of South Africa, including human fossils, artefacts endorsed this view against the then dominant hypothesis that and organics remains, has an international significance that placed human origins in the Near East (close to the biblical extends far beyond the country’s borders […] [Less well paradise) or in Central Asia (with its Indo-European potential). known] are the hominids that demonstrate the earliest signs of modern people and the treasure trove of rock art sites.” Smuts remained, however, cautious: “Discoveries already While correctly pointing to the need to protect this heritage, to made point to the possibility that South Africa may yet figure as which we must surely respond, they also indicate the poten- the cradle of mankind, or shall I rather say, one of the cradles?” tial for job creation in the preservation and other activities at (Smuts 1925: 17). Throughout the subsequent decades, Smuts the various archaeological sites. Needless to say, they can also and his associated scientists kept their minds open as to the be powerful tourist attractions, thus emphasising the impor- localisation of this cradle: in East Africa, in Uganda, or in the tance raised by the two professors with regard to the challenge Sahara. As Van Riet Lowe put it in one of his last published of looking after what we have inherited which is as old as the articles, “If South Africa is not the cradle of the human race, it is origins of humanity (Address at the opening of Parliament, 4 February 2000). certainly not far from it. The archaeological evidence is not yet convincing, but the palaeontological [evidence] is overwhelm- ingly in favour of this claim” (Van Riet Lowe 1953: 375). Inci- dentally, this proposition was immediately seized upon by the prominent Jesuit theologian and palaeontologist Teilhard de Chardin, who specifically requested the principal of Wits University to enable Van Riet Lowe to continue his important work after retirement: It is becoming clearer and clearer that, as a result of recent discoveries, Africa south of the Sahara is the main birthplace of Man, and more especially of the birthplace of modern Man (Homo sapiens). For this reason the advance of palaeo-anthropology in South Africa has become a matter of interest in scientific circles the world over (Teilhard de Chardin to Dr Raikes, 15 August 1953, Van Riet Lowe papers, Wits University archives). But while the specific location of this ‘cradle’ may be uncer- tain – and would continue to be so, with further discoveries of evermore ancient and ancestral fossils in Kenya, in Tanzania, in FIG. 3. At the Cradle of Humankind World Heritage Site. (Photograph: N. Ethiopia, and more recently across the rift in Chad – Smuts was Schlanger, October 2015.) crystal clear about the collateral benefits, both symbolic and economic, that could be gained from this African attribution. As RENAISSANCE IMPERATIVES he wrote to the governor of Kenya colony in 1938: Where Thabo Mbeki does go considerably further than At present it is our scenery and game that attract the tourist. It his predecessors, Smuts included, is in enlisting this status of may yet be that our distant human or pre-human past may in original ‘cradle’ at a symbolic level, to shore up his vision of future prove a new source of attraction to attract people from (South) Africa’s sense of its own self, its abilities, its prospects. other parts of the world. In this way the tourist cause may In a series of speeches, addresses and public statements (all be benefited, and the matter may prove even of economic readily available at http://www.mbeki.org/speeches/), South interest to us on this continent (Smuts to Lord Francis Scott, Africa’s former president highlights those landscapes and 3 August 1938, Smuts papers 57/158; see full quote and context relics of this country whose very antiquity endows them with a in Schlanger 2002: 205–206). sense of destiny and direction for the future of South Africa, of These were colonial times: Africa was being ‘opened up’ Africa, and of humankind as a whole. Moreover, and this is and a network of archaeological bureaux, modelled after Van where Mbeki most clearly builds on scientific knowledge in Riet Lowe’s Johannesburg prototype, could be spun, in plan if order to reach beyond it, he also attempts to imprint on the past not in fact, all the way from Cape to Cairo, and back. In a real moral imperative, to convey an edifying message to postcolonial times, there seem to be rather less compunction which his audience is bound to pay heed today. Our common about repatriating the ‘Cradle of Humankind’ firmly back on humanity, so he tells us, urges us to build a non-racial society, South African soil, and more specifically, to the caves of “otherwise our claim to be the Cradle of Humanity would have Sterkfontein, Swartkrans, Kromdraai and environs near Johan- little meaning except as an historical fact” (Mbeki 2002, emphasis nesburg – to which have been added, as of 2005, the far- added, see full quote below). On the contrary, even if this removed ‘extension sites’ of Makapan and Taung. Together ‘cradle of meaning’ emerges retrospectively, from such histori- with these, the considerable advances recently made with heri- cal developments as colonialism, the Industrial Revolution, tage enhancement and economic exploitation – coupling the nationalism, or indeed, apartheid, there are deeper lessons to 28 South African Archaeological Society Goodwin Series 12: 22–30, 2019 be gained from the past as we move towards the African As we dance, sing, eat and drink from the same source, we are Renaissance. The following six extracts from Thabo Mbeki’s forging a new South African identity which knows no discrim- speeches, presented here in chronological sequence from 1998 ination on the grounds of race, colour, ethnicity, gender or creed. Together we need to break down racial, tribal and to 2006, attest to their orator’s skilful navigation between mean- gender boundaries and instead invoke the common traditions ingful pasts, present redresses, and future prospects. that bind us as a nation, as South Africans and as human And when archaeology presents daily evidence of an African beings. We once again affirm our common humanity at one of primacy in the historical evolution to the emergence of the the sites where our species first emerged (Address at the Heri- human person described in science as Homo sapiens – how can tage Day Celebrations, Taung, North West Province, 24 Sep- we be but confident that we are capable of effecting Africa’s tember 2005). rebirth? (Address at the United Nations University, Tokyo, Our nation is moving forward into an era during which the 9 April 1998) interwoven, seamless histories of its peoples will be para- mount in the formation of our national identity. Clearly, we The paradox of South Africa being the last country, together are, as a people, looking to the past to make sense of our iden- with East Timor, to gain freedom is that our country has in tity in the present (Address at the opening of the Origins abundance fossil evidence that indicates that ours is the land Centre, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 7 from where humanity first emerged (Speech at the launch of March 2006). Freedom Park, 16 June 2002).

This [South Africa] is also your home in a second and most important sense. A few kilometres from where we sit today is the World Heritage Site, Sterkfontein, the Cradle of Human- kind. This is one of the most important archaeological sites in the world where some of the oldest fossilised remains of our ancestors have been found, the birthplace of all humanity, regardless of race or colour. We are happy that, because of the World Summit for Sustainable Development, humanity has come back to its ancestral home to deliberate on vital issues that face all humanity and the common planet which made the birth of human beings possible, after millions of years of evolution. The decision that must be taken at the World Sum- mit must answer the question concretely whether we, the present generations of the common humanity that emerged from the Cradle of Humankind, have the will to ensure that, after us, humanity will live on for millions more years (Address at the opening of the civil society forum of the World Summit on Sustainable Development, Johannesburg, 23 August 2002). FIG. 4. At the National Palace in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 27 July 2015, former US President Barak Obama examines the bones of Lucy the Australopithecine, During the World Summit on Sustainable Development, we and reminds us that we are all ‘part of the same human family’. (Photograph: had occasion to take the Secretary General of the United Jonathan Ernst/Reuters, used with gracious permission.). Nations, Mr Kofi Annan, to the Sterkfontein Caves. As we all know,this area was declared a WorldHeritage Site because the CONCLUDING COMMENTS fossils found here indicate that this place, in our country, is the Cradle of Humanity. From here, people spread to the rest of In the light of these discussions, and in order to draw this the world, evolving into different races, colours and cultures. paper to a close, there seems to be little need to comment on By taking the UN Secretary General to the Cradle of Humanity each of these quotes, on the circumstances in which they were we sought to emphasise a number of points. One of these was pronounced, and on the specific and timely issues to which that by convening in Johannesburg for the WSSD, the peoples they refer. It is rather the overall effect that matters, the system- of the world were returning to their historic place of origin and atic and uninhibited recourse to the past as a means of making should therefore be inspired by a common spirit of human sense of the present, and more specifically for promoting solidarity. We also sought to communicate the message that the composition and re-composition of collective identities at humanity itself had emerged and prospered because of a correct relationship between the people and the planet. The various scales and levels. fact that the WSSD was held at the Cradle of Humanity there- In this respect, ‘colonial archaeology’ can actually be said to fore highlighted the need for the Summit to restore the have quite a few points in common with ‘postcolonial archaeol- balance between human activity and environmental protec- ogy’. Both strands are liable to being equally ‘nationalist’ – in tion. The Cradle of Humanity is both part of our national heri- the prospective, forward-looking sense of the term – and both tage and the heritage of all humanity. We cannot but be proud rather make a mockery of Malinowski’s (1930) earlier quoted that as a country we are this Cradle of Humanity. Our country dismissal (seemingly pragmatic and yet deeply unhistorical) of is […] in the unique position that it is both the Cradle of Humanity and is home to the great variety of people of various “archaic cultures”, “antiquarianism” and “Pithecanthropus erec- colours and races who evolved out of the original Homo sapiens tus” as useless resources for the politics of the present. Where a that originated in our country.This too is part of the heritage of notable difference lies – for differences there are – is in the which we should be proud. But it also poses the challenge to disposition to enable, or on the contrary restrict, the expression us to create the kind of society that respects the fact that, of diverse identities and destinies through the archaeological indeed, we belong to a common humanity. We, above every- past. Late in his life, Smuts noted in his preface to an illustrated body else, should understand the importance and necessity of book by his ageing friend and erstwhile priest Henri Breuil building a non-racial society. Otherwise our claim to be the that, to move “beyond the bounds of history and establish Cradle of Humanity would have little meaning except as an historical fact. We cannot both be the Cradle of Humanity and contact with the most distant ancestors of our race” was a heart- tolerate any situation in which any members of this humanity ening exercise. In comparison with the last two or three continue to be denied their identity and dignity (ANC Today thousand years of recorded history, prehistory “overwhelm- (2)39, 27 September 2002). ingly confirmed the case for progress”, and provided us all South African Archaeological Society Goodwin Series 12: 22–30, 2019 29 with “a call to good cheer and faith in our future, an inspiration example of the Maloti-Drakensberg Park World Heritage Site. South for the march, the endless march, and the road stretching African Archaeological Bulletin 69: 34–48. before us” (Smuts 1949: 7–9). Smuts’ rather benign one-dimen- Effros, B. & Lai, G. (eds) 2018. Unmasking ideology in imperial and colonial archaeology: vocabulary, symbols, and legacy, UCLA: sional narrative is one in which different trajectories are natu- Cotsen Institute of Archaeology Press. rally subsumed to the triumphant march of ‘our race’ – for Esterhuysen, A. 2012. The Cinderella metaphor: South African archae- which read, bearers of Western civilisation, the people with his- ology (still) in the making. Azania 47: 5–13. tory. In contrast, postcolonial and anti-apartheid Mkebi has Fabian, J. 1983. Time and the Other. How Anthropology Makes Its Object. from the very outset taken on board a plethora of dissimilari- New York: Columbia University Press. ties and inequalities, diversities and disparities, yearnings and Gamble, C. 1993. Timewalkers: the Prehistory of Global Colonisation. London: Penguin. loathings, so much so that his attempt at re-enchanting Goodwin, A.J.H. 1945. The terminology of prehistory. South African and mobilising the archaeological past in the present, while as Archaeological Bulletin 1: 91–100. ideologically driven and open to critique as any others, carries Goodwin, A.J.H. 1946. The Loom of Prehistory. A Commentary and Select almost by necessity (one might suggest) more weight, or at Bibliography of the Prehistory of Southern Africa. Cape Town: South Afri- least, more conviction. can Archaeological Society. Goodwin, A.J.H. 1958. Formative years of our prehistoric terminology. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS South African Archaeological Bulletin 13: 25–33. Goodwin, A.J.H. & Van Riet Lowe, C. 1929. The Stone Age Cultures of The research succinctly presented and synthesised here South Africa. Cape Town: Annals of the South African Museum, 27. has been undertaken over the past decade in the frameworks of Gordon, R. 1988. Apartheid’s anthropologists: the genealogy of Afri- the EU culture programme-funded AREA network (Archives kaner anthropology. American Ethnologist 15: 535–553. of European Archaeology, 1999–2008; see Schlanger 2009), as Gosden, C. 2004. Archaeology and Colonialism. Cultural Contact from 5000 well as the French-funded ACI Constructions identitaires and BC to the Present. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Archives Breuil. Special thanks are due to many colleagues and Hall, M. 1984. The burden of tribalism: the social context of southern institutions in South Africa (in Johannesburg, Cape Town, African Iron Age studies, American Antiquity 49/3: 455–467. Hancock, W.K. 1968. Smuts: 2. Fields of Force, 1919–1950. Cambridge: Bloemfontein, Kimberley) for discussions and for assistance in Cambridge University Press. accessing archival sources. I have particularly benefited from Henshilwood, C. & D’Errico, F.(eds) 2011. Homo symbolicus: the Dawn of the insightful reminiscences of the late Philip Tobias. I also Language, Imagination and Spirituality. Amsterdam: Benjamins. thank the IFAS; as well as Adrien Delmas and Paloma de la Peña Hofmeyr, J.H. 1929. Africa and science (Presidential address to the joint for their hospitality during the October 2015 meeting in Johan- British and South African Associations for the Advancement of nesburg, and their perseverance thereafter; and finally, the Science). British Association for the Advancement of Science 97: 1–21. anonymous reviewers of this paper for their pertinent com- Hofmeyr, J.H. 1930. Introduction. In: Brookes E.H., Louw, J.H. & Cope, J.P.(eds) Coming of Age. Studies in South African Citizenship and Politics: ments. 1–16. Cape Town: Maskew Miller Ltd. Kaeser, M-A. 2002. On the international roots of prehistory. Antiquity REFERENCES 76: 170–177. Ardrey, R. 1961. African Genesis: a Personal Investigation into the Animal Kleindienst, M.R. 1967. Questions of terminology in regard to the study Origins and Nature of Man. New York: Atheneum. of Stone Age industries in eastern Africa: ‘Cultural stratigraphic Asad, T. (ed.) 1973. Anthropology and the Colonial Encounter. London: units’. 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