Africa in 1923: A Year of Transformation and Discovery

Nov 12, 2025 0

Political Map of Africa in 1923

The year 1923 marked a period of significant change and development across the African continent. From the establishment of academic disciplines to the ongoing impact of colonial rule and the struggles of indigenous populations, Africa was a continent in transition.

The Dawn of South African Prehistory

In 1923, A.J.H. (John) Goodwin, South African-born and Cambridge-trained, returned to become one of the first professional archaeologists in sub-Saharan Africa. This year marks "the beginning of a new cycle of increased advance" according to B.D. Malan. Goodwin's influence on the development of archaeology in Africa was decisive during this period.

Prior to Goodwin's arrival, interest in the material evidence of past times in South Africa was present, with settlers and explorers collecting artefacts. Some 130 papers on broadly archaeological topics were published in the period 1870-1923, covering the territories of what are today South Africa, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Swaziland and Mozambique. The key source for this early period is Goodwin himself, whose "Comments on the History and Present Position of South African Prehistory" (1935) was written as a report to the "Inter-University Committee for African Studies".

Two ideas underpinned approaches to prehistory in this period. The first was that the South African material needed to be referred back to the European sequence, and in particular the French Palaeolithic which provided the benchmark for European prehistory. A second underpinning idea identified South African prehistory with a contemporary, ethnically-designated group, the "Bushmen" or "San".

Colonialism and its Impact

The early 20th century saw the subcontinent under European rule, with its societies increasingly meshed into a single political economy. The annexation of African territories meant the establishment of new states, and colonial rule was given perceptible effect by policemen and soldiers, administrators, tax collectors, traders, prospectors, and labour recruiters.

The costs of colonialism were unequally distributed. In the areas of white colonization, the BSAC and the colonial powers supported the settlers. Elsewhere African ruling elites were able to strike compromises with their new overlords. On the reserves and protectorates of Southern Africa, chiefs and hereditary headmen still controlled their followings, although their authority was eroded as they became appointees of the colonial authorities.

The Changing Labor Market

The exploitation of minerals, the capitalization of settler agriculture, and the establishment of manufacturing industries drew Africans into the world economy as workers and peasants, transforming class structures and political alignments and shifting the division of labour between men and women. Indigenous production of nonagricultural commodities from cotton to iron suffered from the competition of cheap, mass-produced imports.

Growth of Racism

European racist ideology replaced an older tradition in the Cape of social dominance through economic control. White racism, though still embryonic outside South Africa, fueled African nationalism throughout the region. Racially discriminatory policies were prompted by settlers’ fears of competition from Blacks and the growth of Black class consciousness; they were given an intellectual underpinning by anthropologists and administrators fearful of rapid social change.

Before 1945 the ideology of segregation was espoused by virtually all the governments of the region and by most whites regardless of political persuasion. For Blacks segregation meant exclusion from citizenship; incorporation into a restricted and racially segmented labour market based on the use of migrant labour; government control of movement, urban residence, and trade union organization; the consolidation of the authority of the chiefs; and a recognition or invention of Black ethnic identity in the African reserves.

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Segregation sign in South Africa

Key Events and Historical Context

South Africa's history is marked by early human habitation dating back millions of years. The first modern humans are believed to have inhabited South Africa more than 100,000 years ago. These are the Khoisan, the Khoekhoe and the San. Starting in about 400 AD, these groups were then joined by the Bantu ethnic groups who migrated from Western and Central Africa during what is known as the Bantu expansion.

European exploration began in the late 14th century, with Portuguese explorers rounding the Cape of Good Hope in 1488. The Dutch East India Company established a trading post in Cape Town in 1652, leading to the establishment of the Dutch Cape Colony. Following British invasions in 1795 and 1806, mass migrations known as the Great Trek occurred, with Voortrekkers establishing Boer Republics in the interior.

The discoveries of diamonds and gold in the nineteenth century had a profound effect on the fortunes of the region, propelling it onto the world stage and introducing a shift away from an exclusively agrarian-based economy towards industrialisation and the development of urban infrastructure.

The South African War

The reasons for the South African (or Anglo-Boer) War (1899-1902) remain controversial. Over the next three and a half years, nearly 500,000 British troops were deployed against an Afrikaner force of 60,000 to 65,000, at great cost to the British taxpayers. Some 6,000 British soldiers died in action and another 16,000 of infectious diseases. The Afrikaners lost some 14,000 in action and 26,000 in concentration camps.

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A Super Quick History of South Africa

In the end, Britain’s greater resources wore the Afrikaners down; their leaders were forced to sue for peace, and a treaty was signed on May 3l, 1902. By 1906-07 the British were sufficiently confident of the new order they had established to grant self-governing institutions to male whites in the conquered territories, and in 1910, under the South Africa Act passed by the British Parliament in 1909, the four South African colonies of Transvaal, Natal, Orange Free State, and the Cape were unified as provinces of the Union of South Africa.

Archaeological Discoveries and Human Evolution

Scientists researching the periods before written historical records were made have established that the territory of what is now referred to generically as South Africa was one of the important centers of human evolution. It was inhabited by Australopithecines since at least 2.5 million years ago. Modern human settlement occurred around 125,000 years ago in the Middle Stone Age, as shown by archaeological discoveries at Klasies River Caves.

Professor Raymond Dart discovered the skull of a 2.51 million year old Taung Child in 1924, the first example of Australopithecus africanus ever found. At the Blombos cave in 2002, stones were discovered engraved with grid or cross-hatch patterns, dated to some 70,000 years ago.

Hominid Species	Discovery Date	Location	Age (Millions of Years)
Australopithecus africanus (Taung Child)	1924	Taung	2.51
Paranthropus robustus	1938	Kromdraai	Unknown
Australopithecus africanus	1947	Sterkfontein	Unknown
Little Foot (Unknown hominid)	Unknown	Sterkfontein	2.2 - 3.3
Australopithecus sediba	2008	Unknown	1.9
Homo naledi	2015	Near Johannesburg	Unknown

Homo naledi

The Legacy of Colonial Archaeology

The discipline of archaeology remains generally committed to a form of scholarship in which knowledge is "discovered" rather than "produced". Colonial archaeologists were separated from their archaeological subjects by a double remove of time and space. They were colonial "Others", culturally, racially and spatially distanced from the metropoles.

In a roughly 30-year period, beginning in the early 1920s, we see the emergence and formation of the discipline of archaeology in South Africa in a recognisable format - which has elsewhere been described as colonial archaeology - with an associated set of practices and guiding ideas. At the centre of this discourse was a conception of South African prehistory, and a new valuation of forms of knowledge associated with the archaeological past.