The South African Story: Chapter 1

This page is the start of the first paragraphs of the first chapter in the story of South Africa as told by SAKAN. The story begins at the birth of Homo sapiens-sapiens – i.e. “we” and “us”, the “wise-wise” hominids. As the story develops, new chapters and sub -chapters will be added and linked to this page. The “wise” hominids we know as “us”, irrespective of our linguistic, national, pigmentation, or wealth differentials, have been around for over 300,000 years: the evidence is in South Africa. This SAKAN initiative is about carrying that rich historical heritage into the future, through the children of today, before the lack of wisdom, which our scientific name suggests we have, drives us into chaos and discomfort.
The next chapters of this South African story will lurch from the first chapter about who we were 300,000 years ago, to South Africa in this 21st century. Reading today’s story with one eye on the ancient story of where we began our journey into today may help us understand the importance of our common human heritage, where we went wrong, and how we can use this to create an improved sustainable environment for all South Africa's inhabitants and its fragile ecosystems well into the future. As one of South Africa’s leading thinkers, the late Professor Phillip Tobias, observed in the following paraphrased extracts of one of his many speeches: “We can change our natural predisposition towards violence by changing our society to recreate ourselves as a more caring species. Society shapes our behaviour, but we can shape society, and therefore we can reinvent ourselves”: Professor Tobias’ lifetime work dominates these chapters of our early history, he has been instrumental in our enlightenment of who we are. Please view the small section of historically significant archaeological sites in South Africa, from where we derive our knowledge about our ancestors. Please click each icon associated with the archaeological site for details in video or document formats.

Please click the "SOUTH AFRICA" navigation bar to return to the South Africa page, the "PARTNERS" navigation bar to return to the list of partners, or the "HOME" navigation bar to return to the home page.

The History of Humankind told through the lens of South Africa's World Heritage Sites
South African Heritage
BlombosBlombos: Time Machine - the origins of innovation; complex chemistry; abstract art; dawn of the technology revolution.
PinnaclePinnacle Point: Earliest evidence for the systematic exploitation of marine resources (shellfish) and symbolic behaviour.
KlasiesKlasies River Mouth: Vital evidence of modern behaviour 125,000 years ago, contributed to “Out of Africa” migration.
HowiesonsHowieson’s Poort: Technological innovation and modern human behaviour in South Africa circa 65,000 years ago.
Elands BayElands Bay Cave: keeping an eye on the past: Science article by John Parkington, Department of Archaeology, UCT 2016.
SibuduSibudu: Said to be the home of the first techno-industry in the world, 70,000 years ago, a vast font of early human knowledge.
BorderCavesBorder Cave: Border Cave: Human settlements from 190,000 years ago, over one million human and other artefacts excavated.
SterkfonteinCradle of Humankind: Sterkfontein, an immense fossil-rich site of a wide range of human ancestry narrated by Phillip Tobias.
TaungTaung Child: 2-3 million-year-old child of the Australopithecus africanus human ancestors.
WonderwerkWonderwerk Caves: 2-million-year settlement by human and pre-human occupents, earliest evidence of use of fire.
MapungubweMAPUNGUBWE: A 1000-year old civilization with trade routes stretching through Zimbabwe to East Africa and beyond.
TThe South African Story will continue: Where did we go wrong? With the deep ancestral history of South Africa as told by all humanity’s ancestors through their fossilized remains, spanning the period 300,000 before the present era (BP), to the migratory return of the nation’s descendants about 1,500BP, the question of “where did we go wrong?”must be asked before we can find solutions to South Africa’s triple threats of inequality, poverty and unemployment as depicted in the slides below. The SAKAN initiative seeks answers to this question. The SAKAN initiative also seeks to use humankind’s foremost innovation: the ability to share increasingly sophisticated information and knowledge across all geographic and human barriers through the Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), to develop and manage the corrective programmes. South Africa needs to appropriate the immensely powerful technologies of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) to drive these corrective actions, beginning with the nation’s future generations of citizens – the children! The alternative will be that South Africa will become a victim of the 4IR.