Introduction

Cambridge University Press 978-0-521-74663-2 — Great South African Inventions Mike Bruton Excerpt More Information

Chapter 1 Introduction

Have you ever thought of inventing A task to do something that would make your life Other great inventions, easier, or more fun – perhaps a robot, according to Philbin, or a new game, or a time machine? include the pen/pencil, paper, motorcar, aeroplane, For your invention to be successful, plough, spectacles, atomic other people also need to ﬁnd it useful. reactor, atomic bomb, Your invention could be a new idea, or it Colossus computer and could improve on something that already toilet. exists. The inspiration for your idea could Do you agree? I reckon come from many sources. that the jet engine (which he rates at number 32), battery (35), screw (37), compass (39), microscope Invention (46), camera (63) and especially the bicycle (95), It is important to know the difference To qualify as an invention, the deserve a higher rating. What do you think? between an invention, an innovation device must have been made and The only South African and a discovery. An invention is an must prove useful to humans. It invention in the top 100, act of creation – something new, may be a brilliant idea, but, if it has the CAT scanner, comes in developed by the inventor for a never been made, it does not at a respectable 53. The specific purpose. Typically, an qualify as an invention. Of course, CAT scanner is, in fact, the invention improves the quality of life many early inventions were simple, only invention in the top 100 that was invented (at of people, at least in the long term. for example, logs were used as least partly) in the Famous inventions internationally the first wheels, or drum beats southern hemisphere! include the wheel, light bulb, were used as an early method of Famous inventions in printing press, telephone, television, distance communication. However, South Africa include buchu radio, gunpowder, desktop they gradually changed over time stomach medicine, rooibos computer, telegraph and internal into the complex vehicles and tea, the broadband radio, combustion engine. In fact, these communication systems that we the Tellurometer, dolos, Cryoprobe, Sheffel bogey, were voted as the top ten inventions use today. Pratley Putty, CAT scan, of all time by the science writer, Tom An invention is typically Kreepy Krauly, Philbin, in 2003. something that you can see, use Cybertracker, Brush Golf Inventions do not have to be and pick up – at least until recently. Tee, Action Potential ‘high tech’ to be useful. For instance, In our modern internet-linked, Stimulation Device and the PlayPump roundabout inventions that are used in rural information economy, some water pump. You can read areas may be very simple. The Hippo inventions are services that you more about these and Roller makes it easier for rural cannot really see or pick up, such other South African people to transport water over long as the World Wide Web, email, inventions in this book. distances, without having to carry it computerised ticketing and on their heads. YouTube.

Innovation Discovery Language

An innovation is an improvement on A discovery is something totally Some things, like language, fall somebody else’s invention. For different. It involves ‘revealing a between inventions and discoveries. example, the first electric light bulb, truth that was always there’ – Language is a human skill that has which wasn’t very practical, was finding out something about the evolved over time in response to the invented by Joseph Swann of natural and physical world that need for people to talk to one England. After extensive experi- no-one else has found, observed another. From simple beginnings, it menting, Thomas Edison of the USA or understood before. has become more and more complex developed an improved, more reliable Discoveries may include: over time – like an invention that is light bulb that was practical to use. • natural objects, such as constantly changing and continues Edison’s bulb, which had a carbon fossils to evolve today. New words, such as filament, was an innovation. • new plants and animals Google, eticket, HIV/Aids and • a physical phenomenon, paraglider, can be regarded as Did you know? such as the light spectrum cultural inventions. Some other great South African • the patterns of behaviour Hundreds of words of South inventions include: of living and non-living African origin are now part of the • Fourcade’s spectroscope, the first things, such as monkeys English language that is spoken three-dimensional mapping system in the world or the weather worldwide. Examples include: veld, • Colindictor, the first machine in the • theories to explain how biltong, rand, springbok, marimba, world that could record a telephone nature works, such as the indaba, kraal and donga. What a conversation theory of evolution by natural cross-section of our multi-cultural • Disa telephones (1982), the first selection. society these examples provide! push button telephones in the world. Technically, an original work of Famous discoveries in South art, such as a painting, carving, Africa include: sculpture or even a piece of music, is • indigenous plants that a cultural invention. This is because produce medicines and food it is something new that has been • rocks that contain gold and created, rather than found. diamonds • dinosaur and early human A task to do fossils But what is a photograph? Discoveries may include a physical • the impact of global warming It reproduces something phenomenon, such as the light spectrum. • the coelacanth that is already there. Certainly, the camera and • the diagnosis and treatment its film (or memory chip) of various diseases of are an invention. Some humans and domestic stock great photographs are • the extent of the ozone gap. correctly seen as works of art. But, like a delicious meal from a microwave oven, or a bestselling book from a computer, perhaps they should be regarded as Famous discoveries in South Africa innovations. include the coelacanth.

Electricity and fire electricity power stations. Sometimes the discovery or Electricity and fire are discoveries as they happen invention of new materials, such as plastics, nylon or naturally. Fire, for example, results when lightening nanotubules, gives rise to a whole range of new inventions. strikes dry grass, or when a volcano erupts and sets the This book is about South African inventions and surrounding countryside alight. However, the innovations, not about controlled use of fire to cook meat, keep warm discoveries. or frighten away predators, by early Stone Age people in South Africa, should be regarded as Did you know? an invention. They took control over a natural The oldest building site force and produced a new tool (controlled fire) in the world is found in that could be used for a specific purpose. South Africa, in the valley of the Jukskei River, dated Electricity also comes from nature, in the at 11 000 years old from form of lightening and in the bodies of animals. the Stone Age. Very often an important discovery, such as Electricity also comes from nature, in the electricity, leads to a range of new inventions, form of lightening and in the bodies of such as the electric light bulb, electric heaters and animals.

Natural inventions

Many inventions that These inventions flying fish, many (termites) are claimed by humans include: insects) • echolocation (bats) were, in fact, first • jet propulsion • light (fireflies) • suspension bridges made during the course (squid) • echo sounding (spiders) of evolution by animals. • flight (birds, bats, (fishes) • and incubators flying squirrels, • division of labour (bees). (social insects) • sailing (marine In fact, a whole new jellyfish) field of study called • tools (great apes, bioengineering involves some birds) learning about nature’s • agriculture (ants) inventions and attempting • skyscrapers to reproduce them.

Termites have been building large structures long before people constructed tall buildings.

South African brands Beverages

English, Dutch, other European and Malay settlers introduced a rich variety of cooking traditions into South Africa. These were combined with traditional African dishes from the wide variety of indigenous plants and animals (both on land and in the sea). The result was a South Africa is famous around the unique range of cooking inventions world for the quality and variety of and innovations. Biltong is famous all over the world. its red, white, rosé, sparkling and hanepoot wines. Its beer, sherry, Did you know? port, brandy, whiskey, liqueur and Over 500 000 cans of Lucky Star aperitifs are also very well known. pilchards are sold every day in Some of the more unusual drinks to South Africa! come originally from South Africa in recent years include: • Amarula marula fruit cream Unique South African dishes aperitif biltong, boerewors, chakalaka, and periwinkles, ‘pofadder’ • Brulpadda ruby port droë wors, bobotie, frikadel, (kudu sausage), potjiekos, • Cape Tawny Port koeksusters, krummel pap, pumpkin fritters, roosterbrood, • Cape Velvet aperitif maas, roti (unleavened bread), saboeratjies (traditional • iLala cream aperitif malva pudding, melktert Malay biscuits), ‘smiley’ • Original Mother’s old brown (milk tart), mosbolletjies (aniseed (roasted sheep’s head), sherry (‘Jou Ma se Sjerrie’) dumplings), oepsies (bacon smoorsnoek, soetkoekies, • Van de Hum liqueur kebab), ‘padda eiers’ (sago sosatie, vetkoek, ‘walkie South African Breweries, which pudding), pap ‘n sheba talkies’ (fried chicken feet), is now called SABMiller, (‘train smash’), pickled mussels waterblommetjiebredie. is one of the largest brewers in the world and works on six continents. Beers that are brewed in Some South African food brands, past and present South Africa include Castle, Black Label Appletiser, Black Cat peanut Maltabella, Mama’s steak and and Mitchell’s. The butter, Bokomo rusks, Bovril, kidney pie, Mandela shirt, Mitchell’s Brewery in Ceres fruit juice, Eet Sum Mor, Marie biscuits, Milo, Mrs Ball’s Knysna, South Africa, Farmer Brown chickens, Game chutney, Nando’s cooking sauce, once brewed a beer sports drinks, Grand Pa headache Nik Naks, Oros, Ouma rusks, called ‘Coelacanth’! powders, Impala maize meal, Ina Pronutro, Provita, Redro fish Paarman’s sticky marinade, Jungle spread, Safari dried fruit and Oats, Lemos, Lion matches, Weet-Bix (since 1930).

Chapter 2 Early inventions

Controlled fires made it possible to produce heat for cooking, light for social gatherings, and light and heat to frighten away predators, such as lions and hyaenas.

Fire and tools discovered that fire was used, under control, in caves Controlled fire at the Cradle of Humankind site as early as 1 to 1.8 Africa is considered to be the ‘Cradle of Humankind’ million years ago. This site is in the Gauteng province as some of the earliest humans evolved here. When in South Africa. Controlling fire was one of the greatest Africa started to dry out after the last Ice Age, the forests achievements of early humans and led to a major became open savannahs. This major change in the change in their habits and opportunities. climate and vegetation caused the pre-humans to leave Controlled fires made it possible to produce heat the shelter of the trees and venture onto the ground in for cooking, light for social gatherings, and light and the great plains which did not have much vegetation. heat to frighten away predators, such as lions and This important evolutionary step encouraged them to hyenas. Later, fire was used to produce pots from walk on two legs. They were then able to use their baked clay, and tools and weapons from molten metal. hands for other tasks, such as controlling fire and Humans as toolmakers were evolving! Fires were also making tools. given magical or religious powers. People believed that There is strong evidence that the first controlled fire was a living thing that had to be looked after use of fire took place in South Africa. Dr Bob Brain, carefully. It was important to keep the fire burning, as previously Director of the then Transvaal Museum, the whole family would suffer if it went out.

Stone Age tools Humans South Africans have always been innovative people. Hunter-gatherers The earliest records found by scientists show that the Until about 10 000 years ago, all of humankind hunted first people to inhabit southern Africa were among the and gathered their food. Even after the domestication of earliest to make various stone, wood and bone tools. plants and animals, and the beginnings of agriculture They also made fish hooks, beads, ornaments, pots, about 10 000 years ago, many people continued to hunt. baskets, rope, works of art and mathematical devices. In fact, until only 150 years ago, men who hunted and Humans can touch their thumbs with their women who gathered food were relatively common on forefingers and can therefore hold objects more all the inhabited continents. efficiently than other animals. This ability would have encouraged them to pick up objects, such as stones and Handy humans sticks and use them for collecting and preparing food. Homo habilis (‘handy human’), who lived in South Africa They would soon have learned how to change these about two million years ago and had small brains, made stones or sticks into efficient tools. If you strike one stone hand axes and other tools that were used for stone (the core tool) with another, flakes are produced crushing bones, killing small animals, digging out bulbs (flake tools) that have sharp edges. These can be used and cutting meat. Homo erectus, who lived about for cutting or digging, or to shape other tools made 1.5 million years ago and had a larger brain, made more from wood, bone, horn and shells. sophisticated stone tools with sharp cutting edges.

Prehistoric artefacts found by scientists show that the first people to inhabit southern Africa were among the earliest to make various stone, wood and bone tools.

Kalahari bushmen lived as hunter-gatherers.

Modern humans Did you know? Modern humans (Homo sapiens – with a very large brain) Research has revealed that arrived on the scene about 30 000 years ago. They made the enlargement of the and shaped sharp-pointed stone, horn and bone tools brain, that took place when Homo erectus evolved into that were used for chiselling, flaking, scraping, skinning, Homo sapiens, may have boring holes in animal hides and sewing. occurred along the west and south coasts of South Africa. A chemical Strandlopers This bust of a ‘handy compound (polyunsatur- Many early South Africans lived along the coast, as food human’ was based on ated fatty acids) that skull fragments. was plentiful along the 3 000 km coastline from the is commonly found in Orange River mouth in the west to the Kosi lakes in seafood is known to the east. These people are known informally as the stimulate brain develop- Strandlopers (beach walkers) and they searched for food ment. The huge piles of such as intertidal shellfishes and fishes. Over 1 000 mussel and oyster shells (middens) along the middens have been found around our shores, and South African coast (the probably three times more exist. Middens are scattered largest in the world) collections of ‘kitchen debris’ from the meals and other indicate that early humans activities of early people. The middens mainly consist of in South Africa ate a great shells and bones of animals, but also include handmade deal of seafood. tools. Charcoal is common in coastal middens, and shows that the inhabitants used fire for cooking their The skull of this modern human was found in food, and for keeping warm. Middens are an extremely Border Cave. valuable record of the habits, and resourcefulness, of early South African technologists. On the Namibian coastline, remnants of shelters made from huge whale bones have also been found. Tools and objects which have been found in middens include: • stone tools used for digging, cutting and scraping • wooden pegs and digging tools • string made from vegetable fibres • clay pots and potsherds (fragments) • bone arrowheads Objects found in middens • shell and bone fish hooks (right) include potsherds and gorges (above). • stitched leather panels • ostrich eggshell beads • ostrich egg water flasks • pendants made from sea shells • bone tubes and seeds.

Who made the tools? In the modern Kalahari, hunter-gatherers (both men and women) make tools and household utensils. However, some tools or ornaments are more often made by men than women. Ostrich eggshell beads are made only by women, although they are worn by men, women and children. Women also make and retool wooden digging sticks using adzes (axes). Arrowheads and cutting tools made from stone are crafted by the men. At the Dunefield midden, north of Verlorenvlei A hammerstone. on the Cape west coast of South Africa, researchers found that almost all the stone tools were small flakes and chips cooking food but also for heating and softening plant of crystalline quartz, which were removed from small mastic. This is a resin or glue that is used to attach the cores by flaking. The core was placed on a small anvil stone tool to its wooden handle. The toolmakers also and struck with a hammerstone so that flakes and chips made fires which were separate from the domestic were removed from both the top and bottom of the core. cooking hearth, where they prepared poisons to add to This technique produces thousands of flakes, some of their arrowheads. This was probably done so that they which are selected by the toolmaker for retouching into could keep dangerous poisons away from children and finished tools, which would have been mounted in food. Other fireplaces were used as roasting pits for wooden handles. whale meat. These tool-making locations were the first ‘technology hubs’ in South Africa! Sites The tool-making sites were used by several toolmakers Traps at the same time. The tools were prepared in ash An important invention by the Strandlopers, that can hearths (fire places). These fires were not only used for still be seen today, is the tidal fish trap. These are enclosures with stone walls, situated in the intertidal zone. At high tide, the sea floods the stone walls and fish swim over them. When the tide goes out, the fish are trapped inside the walls, and can be caught more easily using spears, bows and arrows, natural poisons, and later, nets. Tidal fish traps are found along the west and south coast of the Western Cape, with the best examples at Still Bay, west of Mossel Bay in South Africa.

Early artworks ivory with China, India and Egypt. Although it Ochre artefact was discovered in 1932, the South African government One of the earliest artworks in the world is an at the time kept the discovery quiet. However, engraved ochre artefact found in Blombos Cave near Mapungubwe has now been declared a Unesco World Still Bay on the southern Cape coast of South Africa. Heritage Site. This 8-cm long piece, which is at least 77 000 years old, was first scraped and ground to create a smooth, Mathematics flat surface. It was then engraved with cross hatches The earliest mathematical device in the world is the and lines, using a stone tool, to create a regular Lunar Stick. It was found in Border Cave in the pattern of complex lines. Instead of showing animals Lebombo Mountains in Maputaland, near the South or other images from nature, the designs are symbolic Africa – Swaziland border, in 1972. This counting and may reveal the first attempts by early humans device, which is over 37 000 years old, is a 7.7-cm long to think in an abstract way. According to Professor baboon bone, with 29 notches cut into it. Dr Peter John Parkington, Head of Archaeology at the Beaumont, an University of Cape Town, “It is hard to find regularly archaeologist from the Did you know? marked objects any earlier in the archaeological McGregor Museum in Unesco stands for the record anywhere in the world.” The exact meaning Kimberley, who worked United Nations of the markings is not known. on Border Cave, points Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation. out that this notched Other World Heritage Sites bone looks like the in Africa include the calendar sticks that are Kilimanjaro National Park still used today by Khoi- in Tanzania. Africa’s highest San clans in Botswana. peak, Mount Kilimanjaro, is Previously, the record for situated in this national park. Islamic Cairo is the oldest known another World Heritage mathematical device was Site. It is a part of central a wolf’s bone engraved Cairo and is famous for its with 57 notches, found in historically important The world-famous golden rhinoceros found at Mapungubwe. Czechoslovakia, Europe, mosques and other Islamic monuments. in 1957. The wolf’s bone One of the earliest is about 32 000 years old. artworks is an engraved ochre artefact found Mathematics was born in Blombos Cave near in Africa, in the Still Bay. calculations of the rope stretchers and pyramid Mapungubwe builders of ancient Egypt. More than 1 000 years ago, on the Zimbabwe plateau, a It reached the height of Late Stone Age culture developed on both sides of the success with Euclid’s Limpopo River in southern Zimbabwe and the northern geometry in Alexandria in The Islamic section Limpopo province of South Africa. This culture was Egypt. It is therefore of Cairo, Egypt, is an most powerful and successful at Mapungubwe, which appropriate that the example of a World means ‘place of the stone of wisdom’. Here a great record for the oldest Heritage Site. southern African kingdom developed between 1 250 mathematical device and 850 years ago. They traded successfully in gold and should be held in Africa.

Buchu Buchu is a group of indigenous fynbos shrubs that grows in the Western Cape of South Africa. They have green leaves and tiny white flowers. There are several species of this purplish-brown shrub (true buchu, sea buchu, stem buchu, wild buchu). However, one of the two species of true buchu, Agathosma betunlina, is the most useful. The active ingredient, which is the main chemical that makes the drug work, is the unstable oil found in the buchu leaves. The San and Khoi-Khoi people of South Africa have chewed the leaves Buchu is a group of indigenous fynbos shrubs that grows in the A task to do of buchu for hundreds of Western Cape of South Africa. They have green leaves and tiny Can you think of other years to cure stomach white flowers. plants and products which: complaints, rheumatism • are used to flavour food and gout. Buchu was also Traditional plants and drink combined with wild South Africa has a tremendous variety of plants and • help cure nausea, garlic to treat colds and rheumatism and gout? animals. The indigenous people of the region have flu, and was rubbed into developed a rich knowledge of how to use these natural wounds to reduce resources for medicines, health food and drinks, cosmetics infection and frighten and other purposes. Indigenous knowledge is a precious insects away. This technical heritage that can make an important contribution practice was taken over to world knowledge. If it is lost, it is not just a tragedy for by the Dutch colonists, the people who once owned it, but also for all humankind. whose ‘boegoe’ became a It is important to hold onto this knowledge and create famous Cape medicine. products from it that people can use all over the world. The leaves are also Take the case of buchu stomach medicine. crushed to make brandy. Buchu was sent to Buchu is produced in England by Cape irrigated fields in the colonists as early as Cederberg and other regions 1790. It was introduced of South Africa. into western medicine by a London drug company, Reece & Co, in 1821. Until recently, most buchu was harvested from wild plants. However, as buchu has the potential to make money, many farmers have started to grow it. Buchu is produced in irrigated fields in the Cederberg and other regions of South Africa. Tea extracts from buchu are used to stimulate kidney function and to encourage a person’s appetite

Until recently, most buchu was harvested from wild plants. for food. They are also used to treat colds, ﬂu, nausea, However, as buchu has the potential to make money, many farmers rheumatism and gout. Buchu is also used to ﬂavour have started to grow it. food, soft drinks, wine, perfumes and cosmetics.