Making the past for South Africa's future: the prehistory of Field-Marshal Smuts (1920s-1940s).

Making the past for South Africa's future: the prehistory of Field-Marshal Smuts (1920s-1940s). Introduction: turns and returns When politicians engage in archaeology, it is convenient for allconcerned to say that they `turn' to it: for both parties, thismove confirms that the discipline itself is essentially neutral andindependent from extrinsic EVIDENCE, EXTRINSIC. External evidence, or that which is not contained in the body of an agreement, contract, and the like. 2. It is a general rule that extrinsic evidence cannot be admitted to contradict, explain, vary or change the terms of a contract or of a considerations. Already subject to muchsuspicion, this comforting conception can be further undermined with thecase of Field-Marshal Jan Christiaan Smuts (1870-1950), (1) for half acentury South Africa's leading soldier, statesman and intellectual,as well as a driving force behind the setting up of the Commonwealth andthe United Nations (FIGURE 1). Smuts' own interests and abilities,coupled with his country's specific geo-political and demographiccircumstances, gave him the unique opportunity literally to create aprehistoric past to the measure of his world-view. Like many politiciansbefore and since, Smuts did indulge in conventional acts of interferenceand patronage for symbolic or personal reward. (2) But his engagement inprehistoric archaeology History is the study of the past using written records. Archaeology can also be used to study the past alongside history. Prehistoric archaeology is the study of the past before historical records began. went well beyond that -- reaching into the verycontents, structure and research agenda of the discipline, he cruciallyinfluenced its professionalization pro��fes��sion��al��ize?tr.v. pro��fes��sion��al��ized, pro��fes��sion��al��iz��ing, pro��fes��sion��al��iz��esTo make professional.pro��fes and recognition in South Africa South Africa,Afrikaans Suid-Afrika, officially Republic of South Africa, republic (2005 est. pop. 44,344,000), 471,442 sq mi (1,221,037 sq km), S Africa. andabroad. What is more, his involvement with prehistoric archaeologyrepresented an immediate and seamless entanglement of scientific andpolitical concerns: `I am writing a paper on "Climate and man inAfrica" dealing with our prehistoric climates and peoples', heinformed his friend Gillett -- `I hope to finish it before I start mypolitical campaign on 3 Jan.' (30 December 1931, 48/202). Smuts mayhave finished his paper in time, but it would be illusory to believethat he then `returned' from archaeology to politics. On thecontrary, an examination of Smuts' prehistory prehistory,period of human evolution before writing was invented and records kept. The term was coined by Daniel Wilson in 1851. It is followed by protohistory, the period for which we have some records but must still rely largely on archaeological evidence to helps us appreciatehow political considerations enable and invigorate in��vig��or��ate?tr.v. in��vig��or��at��ed, in��vig��or��at��ing, in��vig��or��atesTo impart vigor, strength, or vitality to; animate: "A few whiffs of the raw, strong scent of phlox invigorated her"archaeologicalresearch, and how archaeological conditions can for their part inform orunderpin political designs. [FIGURE 1 OMITTED] Smuts, I have suggested, was no late-coming neophyte ne��o��phyte?n.1. A recent convert to a belief; a proselyte.2. A beginner or novice: a neophyte at politics.3. a. Roman Catholic Church A newly ordained priest. to the studyof the past. His recorded interest in the topic dates from as far backas 1910, when the visiting Oxford anthropologist Henry Balfour contactedhim with the desire to speak `with someone in authority on the questionof the preservation of Bushman records in S. Africa generally'.Symptomatically, their scheduled meeting was postponed when Smuts had todepart in haste Adv. 1. in haste - in a hurried or hasty manner; "the way they buried him so hurriedly was disgraceful"; "hastily, he scanned the headlines"; "sold in haste and at a sacrifice"hastily, hurriedly to Natal -- no doubt in connection with the intensivecampaigning surrounding the constitution of the Union of South Africa Union of South Africa:see South Africa. .(3) Ten years later, granted rare respite from these earthlydistractions by a transatlantic return journey from Europe, Smutsengrossed himself in Miles Burkitt's newly published Prehistory(1921). Still on the boat, he wrote enthusiastically to Gillett (16August 1921, 24/301): Nothing could be more interesting than such a book. In historictimes our race has made little progress except in outwards growth(institutions etc.). It is only when we study our very humble beginningsbeyond history that we see what enormous progress has been made. TheJava Erect Man Ape (Zool.) a anthropoid ape, as the gorilla.See also: Man -- the Piltdown Man Piltdown man,name given to human remains found during excavations (1908–15) at Piltdown, Sussex, England, by Charles Dawson. The find led to much speculation and argument. Monkey -- the Neanderthal GorillaGiant -- the Small Painter Cro-Magnon people (forbears perhaps of theBushmen) -- and then the historic races one after the other, theinferior little Browns to whom you, dear, belong, and the superior BlondBeasts to whom I belong; what a story of growth in say 100,000 years.And what will another 100,000 years produce? And midway between standsthe Great Suicide of 1914-1918. This sweeping historical pathos will always remain integral toSmuts' vision, and indeed he will go so far as to considerprehistory as revealing the Divine character of the universe (cf. hisforeword to Breuil 1949). The sensationalist sen��sa��tion��al��ism?n.1. a. The use of sensational matter or methods, especially in writing, journalism, or politics.b. Sensational subject matter.c. Interest in or the effect of such subject matter. labels and facetiousraciology, on the other hand, were very soon replaced by unprecedentedcommitment and seriousness of purpose. Significantly, this developmentfollowed the emphatic electoral defeat suffered by Smuts in June 1924.Cast aside from the helm of government for the next decade or so, thefallen leader sought to alleviate the tedium of disempowerment byre-investing his energy and talent in the pursuit of knowledge. Hisfascination with the nature of science, life and faith went back atleast to his Cambridge days: hitherto held in check by the strenuousdemands of his public activities, these interests were now free toreturn and take hold. In the massive Holism holismIn the philosophy of the social sciences, the view that denies that all large-scale social events and conditions are ultimately explicable in terms of the individuals who participated in, enjoyed, or suffered them. and Evolution he was thenable to publish, Smuts urged overcoming the narrow rigidity and `limitedexactitude' of 19th Century science, and looking instead `uponevery concrete thing or person or even abstract idea as merely a centre,surrounded by zones or aurae or spheres of the same nature as thecentre, only more attenuated and shading off into indefiniteness'(1926: 19, passim PASSIM - A simulation language based on Pascal.["PASSIM: A Discrete-Event Simulation Package for Pascal", D.H Uyeno et al, Simulation 35(6):183-190 (Dec 1980)]. ). Notwithstanding this purely philosophical catharsis catharsisPurging or purification of emotions through art. The term is derived from the Greek katharsis (“purgation,” “cleansing”), a medical term used by Aristotle as a metaphor to describe the effects of dramatic tragedy on the spectator: by ,far more consequential were the consolations which Smuts derived fromhis lasting involvement with geology, botany, and prehistory -- that is,from the scientific conquest of the land and of the past. Hemispheric ambitions First and foremost, these disciplines were enlisted as positioningdevices: by embodying the best of what South Africa had to offer, theyconfirmed the country's clamoured eminence in the global landscapeof knowledge. Drawing on a particular conception of rising and declininghistorical epicentres, the strident chauvinism chauvinism(shō`vənĭzəm), word derived from the name of Nicolas Chauvin, a soldier of the First French Empire. Used first for a passionate admiration of Napoleon, it now expresses exaggerated and aggressive nationalism. manifested by Smuts andhis followers was motivated by two urgent needs; that of casting off anyremnants of colonial domination and, at the same time, that of findingsome features which might constitute a distinctive and unifying SouthAfrican identity. The result was the `South-Africanization' ofscience -- as Smuts' protege Jan Hofmeyr Jan Hofmeyr and Jan Hendrik Hofmeyer may refer to one of two South African politicians: Jan Hendrik Hofmeyr (Onze Jan), (1845-1909), known as "Our Jan" (Onze Jan) called it during thequintessential venue of late imperial science, the 1929 joint meeting ofthe British and the South African Associations for the Advancement ofScience (B-SAAAS). What was entailed here was a complex discourse inwhich assertions of uniqueness mingled with fears of marginality, andwhere the outright rejection of European science was often accompaniedby the tacit endorsement of its traits and postures. (4) In this spirit,Hofmeyr could applaud the South African outlook for its `Freshness andbreadth of view, receptivity to new illuminations, and readiness to seeold truths in new settings and in the light of wider bearings', andthen proclaim `Science consolidated, Science South Africanised, Sciencerecognised as of great national value, both in the spiritual and in thematerial spheres, Science drawing to our country the eyes of the world-- surely that is no unworthy achievement' (Hofmeyr 1929: 9). This commendable achievement was however to be substantiated by theintrinsic ontological merits, so to speak, of South Africa. Relevantdisciplines and discoveries were thus enrolled and tallied to providemanifestly scientific grounds for this aspired planetary repositioning.Smuts himself, presiding over the 1925 meeting of the SAAAS, celebratedthe South African `point of view' which, far from being parochial,actually `supplied a real vantage point of attack on the great problemsof science' and could `liberate us from old preconceived ways oflooking at many scientific problems' -- with the result that `theleading role assigned to the European continent, or let me rather saythe Northern Hemisphere, may have to be modified in materialrespects' (Smuts 1925: 2-4). Recasting Europe (effectively Britain)as the `Northern Hemisphere' obviously invited some counterbalance.With this in mind Smuts appealed to Wegener's geological hypothesisof continental drift on the explicit grounds that `For us in this partof the world the most interesting feature of the scheme is that in itAfrica assumes a central position among the continents' and SouthAfrica became the `mother continent' of the Southern Hemisphere(Smuts 1925: 5). Upon this, also botany was enlisted in support.Smuts' plant-gathering expeditions certainly served him toconsecrate con��se��crate?tr.v. con��se��crat��ed, con��se��crat��ing, con��se��crates1. To declare or set apart as sacred: consecrate a church.2. Christianitya. (and publicize) his periodic communions with nature, butbotanical knowledge also enabled him to argue that the country'stemperate flora did not spread from the North (like its tropicalelements) but rather from some ancestral Gondwanaland hearth (Smuts1925: 4). The same perspective applied, less crudely perhaps but with fargreater implications, in the realms of human palaeontology andprehistory. There was, of course, among South Africans This is a list of notable South Africans with Wikipedia articles. Academics, Medical and ScientistsWouter Basson, Scientist Mariam Seedat, sociologist and gender advocate (1970 - ) Estian Calitz, academic (1949 - ) a long-standinginterest in anthropological and raciological matters (cf. Saunders 1988;Dubow 1995), and Smuts himself was, as we know, an early reader ofBurkitt. In 1925, however, within this drive for theSouth-Africanization of science, the starting-point was not someadaptable scientific hypothesis A scientific hypothesis is a hypothesis (a testable conjecture) which is used as a tentative explanation of an observation, but which has not yet been fully tested by the prediction validation process for a scientific theory. but rather a timely empirical discovery,namely Raymond Dart's recently reported find of the Taung `missinglink' fossil. For Smuts, this discovery rendered a great service toboth Science and South Africa by forcing the eyes of the world on thecountry and its scientific potential -- so much so, he further enthused,that South Africa may yet become `the Mecca of HumanPalaeontology', and prove itself to be `the cradle of mankind, orshall I rather say, one of the cradles' (Smuts 1925: 16-17, and cf.Smuts' congratulatory telegram in Dart 1959: 36-7). This call for attention did not go unheeded, and it was not longbefore there emerged in South Africa a highly distinctive and productivetradition of prehistoric research. The initiation of this traditioncannot in reality be attributed to some significant theoretical orpractical advances. Nor can it be simply referred to the dedicatedefforts of its two leading protagonists, John Goodwin John Goodwin can refer to more than one person: John Goodwin (preacher) (1594-1665), English preacher and religious writer John B. Goodwin, Mayor of Atlanta, Georgia in the late 1880s John Noble Goodwin (1824–1887), U.S. Representative from Maine John W. (1900-1959) -- aCambridge student of Burkitt who returned in 1923 to Cape Town Cape Townor Capetown,city (1991 pop. 854,616), legislative capital of South Africa and capital of Western Cape, a port on the Atlantic Ocean. It was the capital of Cape Province before that province's subdivision in 1994. to takethe first academic position in prehistoric archaeology in sub-SaharanAfrica -- and C. Van Riet Lowe (1894-1956) -- a public-works engineerwhose extensive fieldwork and organizational abilities soon made him theforemost institutional archaeologist in the country. It is true thatwith their fieldwork and museum studies, their lectures andpublications, these two archaeologists were key agents in transforming arather dormant and derived interest in prehistoric stone tools into afully fledged Adj. 1. fully fledged - (of a bird) having reached full development with fully grown adult plumage; ready to flyfull-fledgedfledged, mature - (of birds) having developed feathers or plumage; often used in combination2. field of professional research (cf. Goodwin 1958; Schrireet al. 1986; Deacon 1990). Nevertheless, it remains that both theinstitutional framework of this prehistoric tradition and itssubstantive contents were crucially shaped by Smuts -- by his overallcampaign for the greater glory of South Africa, and by his more specificand targeted interventions. From the South Africanization of prehistory ... It was thus at the July 1926 meeting of the SAAAS, as if inresponse to the previous year's presidential address, that Goodwinfirst proposed to break away from the European scheme of prehistoricterminology (i.e. Palaeolithic, Neolithic, and Acheulean, Mousterian,etc.), and create instead a home-grown system, including the Early,Middle and Later Stone Ages, and such cultures as Stellenbosch or Wilton(cf. Goodwin & Van Riet Lowe 1929; Goodwin 1935; 1958; Schlanger inpreparation). While empirical arguments deriving from the accumulationof new sites and collections were also advanced, this break-awayterminology was from the onset championed as a deliberate alternative,indeed a defiant act of liberation from the shackles of Europeandomination (FIGURE 2). In a series of popular `sermons in stone',Goodwin goaded himself and his audience to `go ahead, produce furtherfacts, prove them, and in a very few years' time there is no reasonwhy we should not be as far advanced in archaeology as Europe, themother of archaeology' (Cape Times The Cape Times is an English language morning newspaper owned by Independent News and Media and published in Cape Town, South Africa. The first edition of the newspaper was published in 1876 by then editor Frederick York St Leger. 21 August 1926, in Goodwin 1958:31). If this was music to Smuts' ears, he received a private encoresome years later when a draft of his paper on `Climate and Man inAfrica' (see FIGURE 2, and below) prompted from Goodwin thefollowing response (4 April 1932, 49/107): [FIGURE 2 OMITTED] You state that there is an overwhelming general correspondencebetween European and South African types. Actually the similarities havebeen very much overemphasised and over-stated, by European prehistorianswho see things through eyes trained in Europe. In Iberia and Africa wehave developed along our own lines (I am including Leakey'smaterial in this generalisation), and there is no real counterpart tothe Chellean and Acheulean at all in this area. The fact that Franceformed an eddy, a backwash, at that time does not merit theircontrolling what types we shall find in Africa. The Fauresmith has beencompared with the European cultures by Lowe, more as a sop to Europeanscientists than anything else.. .. Zoologists have allowed their ownnomenclature to differentiate between European and African antelopes,why cannot we use our terminology to differentiate between African andEuropean Mousterians, without this harking back? Expressions of this kind can be multiplied -- as in Goodwin's`By the chance spread of European culture and colonisation to distantlands, it was only natural ...' (1945: 91), or Van Riet Lowe,taking as a model North America's archaeological `liberation'by H.W. Holmes (1929: 151) -- but we can already now recognize the SouthAfricanization of prehistory well in motion; calls for emancipation,defiant questioning of old imposed commonplaces on behalf of fresh localparticularities, concerns with positioning, equivalences, margins,culs-de-sac, and so on. This `worthy achievement' -- in terms ofscientific understanding of the human past as much as propaganda -- wasalready in evidence in 1927 when Burkitt (the man from Cambridge) wasinvited for an extensive tour of the country's archaeology by theUniversity of Cape Town Coordinates: “UCT” redirects here. For other uses, see UCT (disambiguation). . It was certainly in full swing by 1929, whenthe world's leading archaeologists and prehistorians (Breuil,Balfour, Braunholtz, Caton-Thompson, Leakey etc.) convened to the jointB-SAAAS meeting, toured the country's sites, rummaged through itscollections, and were duly impressed by the rich potential of itsarchaeological `ores' -- to repeat a commonly used mining metaphor.(5) ... to the South Africanization of Africa Besides imparting to the emerging discipline of prehistoricarchaeology its sustaining rhetoric and ideology, Smuts also madedecisive contributions in more operational directions. In 1931,benefiting again from the confinement of a transatlantic crossing (backfrom presiding over the BAAS centenary meeting in London), he initiatedserious discussions with his fellow passenger Van Riet Lowe (e.g. 3February 1932, 49/200, Malan 1962: 40). Their affinities established --confident army men, visionary workaholics -- Smuts could enlist him forthe practical measures he was able to promote upon his return topolitical power, in the 1934 Fusion government with the NationalistHertzog. A long-awaited Bureau of Archaeology in the department of theInterior was then created, coupled with a Chair at the University ofWitswatersrand, and both went to Van Riet Lowe. Likewise, previouslegislation was replaced with the 1934 Preservation of Natural andHistorical Monuments, Relics and Antiques Act, and Van Riet Lowe wasmade secretary to the commission in charge. (6) This comprehensiveprocess of institutionalization InstitutionalizationThe gradual domination of financial markets by institutional investors, as opposed to individual investors. This process has occurred throughout the industrialized world. left no room for the academicallytrained Goodwin, probably because Smuts recognized that the cause ofSouth Africa would be better served by the more congenial Van Riet Lowe:with his help, prehistory could also become an extension andjustification of foreign policy. Not unexpectedly, Smuts' vision for Africa combined some nobleholistic appraisals with a Rhodes-inspired territorial agenda for a`Greater South Africa'. The shift from `colonial nationalism'to `sub-imperialism' had definitely a military slant to it, as inthe attempted takeover of adjacent German and Portuguese colonies afterWWI WWIabbr.World War IWWIWorld War One (cf. Warhurst 1983). These particular designs thwarted -- due toBritish disapproval and disinterest at home -- less belligerent culturaland economic efforts were made at forging `a great African Dominionstretching unbroken throughout Africa', and which would `conquerand hold this dark continent Dark ContinentA former name for Africa, so used because its hinterland was largely unknown and therefore mysterious to Europeans until the 19th century. Henry M. for European civilisation' (Smutsquoted in Hyam 1972: 37, 38, and cf. Ramsbottom 1930). Science was anobvious strategic device for thinking about these 'United States ofAfrica' -- with science now South Africanized, Hofmeyr had pursued(1929: 9), `shall we not Africanise it?'--and so was, morespecifically, prehistoric archaeology. Given the discontinuity betweenthe African past and those who then studied it, this discipline couldserve to transcend the recent territorial divisions of the present: thepast had known no such boundaries, and neither should the future. VanRiet Lowe clearly expressed this view when he noted that (quoted inClark 1962: 68): `the distribution of preliterate pre��lit��er��ate?adj.Of, relating to, or being a culture not having a written language.n.A person belonging to such a culture.Adj. 1. or prehistoriccultures bears no relationships to modern political boundaries and thatsuch artificial limits should not be allowed to impede its study'.True to his words, he repeatedly left his Johannesburg headquarters toroam over the continent, visiting, assessing, describing and publishingcollections from Bechuanaland, Rhodesia, Nyasaland, Mozambique, theCongo basin, Tanganyka and Uganda. Of course, in pursuing prehistoric traits and cultures acrosssub-Saharan Africa, Van Riet Lowe was also disseminating a certain form,content and ultimately raison d'etre of archaeology. Preciselybecause the stakes attached to the past were not nationalist in thenarrow conventional mould, archaeological practice could be cast as acohesive element, of symbolic and economic benefit, for the continent asa whole. This transpires in a remarkable letter from Smuts (with copy toVan Riet Lowe) to Lord Francis Scott, Legislative Council, Kenya Colony(3 August 1938, 57/158): Dear Lord Francis Scott, I understand that there is a move on in Kenya to establish aDepartment of Archaeology. I was especially pleased to hear this, andhope that something will come out of the idea. As you know, we havearchaeological bureaux under the Government both in the Union and inSouthern Rhodesia, while similar institutions exist also in Egypt andthe Sudan. I hope that the missing link in Central Africa could besupplied [by Kenya] so that we may have an unbroken chain from North toSouth. Archaeology and in particular pre-history are as you know verymuch at the fore (Naut.) at the fore royal masthead; - said of a flag, so raised as a signal for sailing, etc.See also: Fore on this continent at present. The most amazingdiscoveries have been made all over the Continent ... which almost seemsto point to this Continent as the Cradle of the human race.... It wouldbe desirable from every point of view that the work could be coordinatedalso in Central Africa, so that the various Bureaux of this Continentcould work in contact in with each other, and team work achieve evenmore striking results. I say this from the scientific point of view, buteven from a mere publicity point of view there is a great deal in thematter. At present it is our scenery and game that attract the tourist.It may yet be that our distant human or prehuman may in future prove anew source of attraction to attract people from other parts of theworld. In this way the tourist cause may be benefited, and the mattermay prove even of economic interest to us on this Continent .... Besides providing tantalizing tan��ta��lize?tr.v. tan��ta��lized, tan��ta��liz��ing, tan��ta��liz��esTo excite (another) by exposing something desirable while keeping it out of reach. indications on the origins of thehuman origins research industry, Smuts shows here that that at least inthe material and intellectual realms of prehistoric archaeology, themythical `Cape to Cairo' link imagined by C. Rhodes appeared withinreach, with the expanses in between due to be surveyed, their past soonmarked and conquered (FIGURE 3). And while this projected commonwealthof institutionalized bureaux across Africa came to nothing, the (South)African terminology of prehistory did fulfil its hemispheric calling --presented initially as a liberating local alternative, it soon grew andexpanded to reach as far North as the Sudan, and as far East as Indiaitself. [FIGURE 3 OMITTED] Native temporizings and the myth of ancestral return Such `euphoric geopolitics' (Hyam 1972: 23) were of courseunderwritten by a compatible conception of Africa and its(pre)historical destiny. Caught between well-meaning universalistpronouncements (of the kind he enshrined in the Preamble to the UnitedNations charter -- and which were turned against South Africa in itsapartheid years) and local political interests at home, Smuts clearlyneeded help when it came to the issue of native affairs; to find somesolution, and to live with it. In his 1917 Savoy talk, he had derided asarrant ar��rant?adj.Completely such; thoroughgoing: an arrant fool; the arrant luxury of the ocean liner.[Variant of errant. nonsense the doctrine of racial purity, calling for the creationof `a new South African nation out of our allied racial stock.... Allthis is the more important'--he soon clarified hismeaning--`because in South Africa we are not merely a white man'scountry' (Smuts 1917: 15). Hofmeyr (1930: 9) for his part quaintlydeplored the oppressive presence `of what European South Africa regardsas its black cloud -- the native'. With what was called at the time`race' relations (i.e. between Boer and Briton) under relativecontrol, this native problem could no longer be ignored or deferred (cf.Rich 1990, Dubow 1995). As Smuts was compelled to confront it,prehistory proved its utility for rationalizing the European presence onthe continent, and indeed for recasting the whole affair in the far moremeasured and ponderable pon��der��a��ble?adj.Considerable enough to be weighed or assessed; appreciable: ponderable results; ponderable issues.pon longue duree of paleoanthropology andprehistory. Back in his 1925 address, Smuts had envisioned the survival in theregion of prehistoric human types, as if in a museum; `there is reallynothing singular in such an idea. After all, such a situation is typicalof South Africa in more respects than one. Our Bushmen are nothing butliving fossils, whose "contemporaries" disappeared from Europemany thousands of years ago' (1925: 17). By 1929, armed with thespecialist knowledge he had helped generate, Smuts chose to advance inhis celebrated Rhodes lecture the possibility that the Negro was themother-type of the human race, and that Africa may indeed be the cradleof mankind. At any rate -- cradle or museum, or both at once -- `here wehave the vast result of time, which we should conserve and develop withthe same high respect which we feel towards all great naturalfacts' (Smuts 1929: 37). (7) One such `great natural fact' wasa singular propensity of the land in contention. Not only was it subjectto successive waves of Bushmen, Hottentot and Bantu migrations (aspostulated by the late 19th-century Stow-Theal paradigm), it alsoharboured from times immemorial IMMEMORIAL. That which commences beyond the time of memory. Vide Memory, time of. populations of different races and atdiffering stages of development. Discussed by prehistorians like N.Jones, J. Wayland or Van Riet Lowe, this prevalence of'contemporary unequals' was embraced by Smuts. As he wrote toGillett, `It appears [from Broom's researches at Sterkfontain andKromdraai] that manlike apes, very close to man, were living in thegreat Pluvials in South Africa, cheek by jowl with Homo sapiens, in theneighbourhood of Johannesburg' (21 January 1945, 77/242, and cf.Smuts 1946: 5). The expression `cheek by jowl' came easily toSmuts, as it was used then to describe the potentially explosiveproximity of Black and White urban populations on the Rand -- a problemwhich Smuts himself had helped raise to the national agenda with his1942 address to the Institute of Race Relations The Institute of Race Relations is a think tank based in the United Kingdom. It was formed in 1958 in order to publish research on race relations worldwide, and in 1972 was transformed into an 'anti-racist think tank'. External linksInstitute of Race Relations . In these circumstances,the anchoring of this incompatible contiguity contiguity/con��ti��gu��i��ty/ (kon?ti-gu��i-te) contact or close proximity. con��ti��gu��i��tyn.The state of being contiguous. in the remote past couldonly make it more intelligible, if not inevitable, in the present. Lastly, Smuts extricated ex��tri��cate?tr.v. ex��tri��cat��ed, ex��tri��cat��ing, ex��tri��cates1. To release from an entanglement or difficulty; disengage.2. Archaic To distinguish from something related. from prehistory a truly daring sense ofhistorical destiny and entitlement. Already on his first reading ofBurkitt's Prehistory, he had been impressed by the historical roleof climate, which prompted humanity to respond to adversity with everincreasing ingenuity. Reading Leakey's Stone Age of Kenya Colony(1931) on another transatlantic return inspired him to research thesubject anew (in between his political campaign), notably because itallowed for gratifying hemispheric correlations. After solicitingcritical comments (see above), Smuts went on to publish in the SouthAfrican Journal of Science what was effectively his only properlyscientific paper. For our purpose, its conclusions alone are worthy ofnote: As they were racially and physically not very different 15,000years ago, what has caused the immense difference between the Europeanand the Bushmen of today? We see in the one the leading race of theworld, while the other, though still living, has become a mere humanfossil, verging to extinction. With his quest for `rhythmic interactions' between climate andman, Smuts conjectured that one population, the Bushmen, has remained inplace to become `shrivelled shriv��el?intr. & tr.v. shriv��eled or shriv��elled, shriv��el��ing or shriv��el��ling, shriv��els1. To become or make shrunken and wrinkled, often by drying: desert animals' (FIGURE 4). The otherpopulation, for its part, has undertaken a tempering and civilizingnorthward journey -- the Ur-trek, as it were -- towards theMediterranean and beyond. And indeed, these are the Europeans (descendents of those earliest migrant cousins) whonow return to find a very different situation from that which theirAfrican ancestors left some 15,000 years ago (Smuts 1932: 130, emphasisadded). [FIGURE 4 OMITTED] A truly breathtaking vision of today's European settlers,rightfully returning to their ancestral Homo sapiens cradle! Who best toreiterate it than Van Riet Lowe (1950: 6), pointing at theclimate-induced stagnation StagnationA period of little or no growth in the economy. Economic growth of less than 2-3% is considered stagnation. Sometimes used to describe low trading volume or inactive trading in securities.Notes:A good example of stagnation was the U.S. economy in the 1970s. of Rhodesia and the Union [of South Africa]`until our so-called European forbears returned to this, their ancestralhome, a few centuries ago'. This image may well have influenced,albeit implicitly, the increasingly segregationist seg��re��ga��tion��ist?n.One that advocates or practices a policy of racial segregation.segre��ga Native policy of thetimes, as notably manifest in the 1936 Native Representation Bill whichSmuts brought for approval (cf. Friedman 1975). The fact that after 1948this daring notion of `ancestral return' did not rejoin that of`empty land' to become a pillar of apartheid mythology (Thompson1986; Cornevin 1980) only confirms that we have reached the end of thismobilized prehistory. In the Afrikaner cosmology that came to rule,there was no call to clothe practical deeds with lessons from deep(pre-biblical) prehistory, let alone with intimations of common humanorigins and shared destiny as implied by Smuts (cf. Preller 1938: 16ff., and Van Jaarsveld 1964). Unlike contemporary social anthropologyand Bantu studies (cf. Hammond-Tooke 1997; Hall 1984), South Africanprehistoric archaeology faded, or withdrew if you will, from thelimelight. Left to its fact-finding devices, it all but lost memory ofjust how much it owed its instauration as a professional discipline,indeed its very structure and contents, to the jointly scientific andpolitical imprint of Field-Marshal Smuts. (1) Biographical details and appraisals on Smuts can be found inHancock 1962; 1968; Friedman 1975; Fletcher 1996. This research wasundertaken at the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research The McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research is a research institute of the University of Cambridge in England. HistoryThe Institute was established in 1990 through a generous benefaction from the late Dr D. M. McDonald, a well-known and successful industrialist. ,Cambridge, as part of the AREA Network. In line with the aims of AREA,particular emphasis was put on archival material as a primary resourcefor the history of archaeology The history of archaeology has been one of increasing professionalisation, and the use of an increasing range of techniques, to obtain as much data on the site being examined as possible. OriginsThe exact origins of archaeology as a discipline are uncertain. . Smuts' extensive political,diplomatic and scientific correspondence are kept as microfilms at theCambridge University Library The Cambridge University Library is the centrally-administered library of the University of Cambridge in England. It comprises five separate libraries: the University Library main building the Medical Library (CUL MS. Microfilm 666-766, referredhenceforth by volume/item number). (2) For example, an appeal to Van Riet Lowe not to hinder R.Broom's work (31 December 1946, 80/189, Smuts 1946); a (failed)attempt to appoint G. Caton-Thompson to research on Mapungubwe (12 March1934, 52/103); repeated financial and logistical assistance to H. Breuiland M. Boyle during and after WWII WWIIabbr.World War IIWWIIWorld War Two (e.g. 27 November 1947, 76/40); andan intercession (initiated by Breuil) in favour of the archaeologistsBlanc in newly liberated Italy (20 February 1945, 77/143). (3) W.R.G. Clarke (Smuts' secretary?) to Balfour, 31 August1910 (Box 1, Diary of 1910 `Visit to South Africa', Balfour papers,Pitt Rivers Museum The Pitt Rivers Museum is a museum displaying the archaeological and anthropological collections of the University of Oxford. The museum is located to the east of the Oxford University Museum of Natural History, and can only be accessed through that building. , Oxford). By coincidence or not, the following yearsaw the declaration of the `Bushmanrelics' Protection Act (1911). (4) While the case of South African prehistory may be extreme,appeals to science as a factor of self-identity were characteristic ofthe `colonial nationalisms' to emerge out of the British empire.See Schreuder 1988; MacLeod 1993; Drayton 1999; as well as Worboys 1981on the British Association's overseas meetings. (5) See for example H. Balfour's diary notes, with numerousphotographs and newspaper cuttings (Balfour papers, `Notebooks -- Southand East Africa I and II, 1929'), or Breuil's report toBurkitt (17 October 1929, in CUL ADD 7959/2). (6) On this changing legislation, see Van Riet Lowe & Malan1949. They confirm there (p. 2) that history is a thoroughly Europeanaffair, while `The remains of all these people -- people who were inreality our prehistoric or preliterate forerunners -- are part of ournatural background'. (7) Smuts' call in this 1929 Rhodes lecture for a betterunderstanding of Africa and its problems had wide repercussions repercussionsnpl → r��percussions fplrepercussionsnpl → Auswirkungen pl, notablyfor dedicated anthropological and scientific research, such as LordHailey' African Survey (see Mair 1960; Heatherington 1978). References BREUIL, H. 1949. Beyond the bonds of history. Scenes from the OldStone Age. London: Gawthorn. BROOKES, E.H. et al. (ed.). 1930. Coming of age. 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