"A nation without a past is a lost nation,
and a people without a past is a people without a soul."
Sir Seretse Khama, 1921 - 1980,
first President of the Republic of Botswana.
Early History
The Batswana, a term inclusively used to denote all citizens of Botswana, also refers to the country's major ethnic group (the "Tswana" in South Africa), which came into the area from South Africa during the Zulu wars of the early 1880s. Prior to European contact, the Batswana lived as herders and farmers under tribal rule.
The history of Botswana is characterised by migrations of peoples into the country from the north and west and particularly from the east and south, as well as internal movements of groups of people. The group which eventually emerged as most numerous, and dominant, were the Batswana. Their pattern of dividing and migrating saw the formation of numerous Tswana tribes, and their eventual occupation of all areas of the country.
The earliest modern inhabitants of southern Africa were the Bushman (San) and the Hottentot (Khoe) peoples. They have lived an almost unchanged lifestyle in the country since the Middle Stone Age.
The physical characteristics of the Khoe and the San are similar. Both tend to have light, almost coppery skin colour, slanted, almond-shaped eyes, high cheekbones, thin lips and tufted, tightly curled hair. Both speak click languages, though there are major differences between them. Both hunted and collected wild foods and neither grew crops.
The pastoralist Khoe and the nomadic, hunter-gatherer San, settled in the harsh environment of the Kalahari. They lived there unchanged for hundreds of years. The San are renowned for their tracking skills, and are experts in herbal medicine. They live on good cattle grazing lands, and ranchers have pressed the Botswanan government to move these tribes either to modern settlements or further into national park lands. The government has bowed to this pressure, citing improved living standards for these people as the main reason for their relocation. In 2002, the Khoesan sued the government to block this relocation.
Approximately 60,000 years ago, the peoples of sub-Saharan Africa were of one tribe, probably of Khoe/San type. It is believed that the Bantu-speaking people were an offshoot from the Khoe/San tribe. This occurred in the tropical rain forests of equatorial Africa about 10,000 years ago. The Bantu-speaking people gradually developed darker skin pigmentation and different physical attributes because of the different environments they eventually occupied.
Both farming of grain and speaking Bantu languages came souths from north of the Equator over the course of millennia. From West Africa, Later Stone Age farming reached through Angola, and was converted to the use of iron tools on the upper Zambezi by about 380 BC. From East Africa, Early Iron Age farming spread down the savanna to the Zambezi by around 20 B.C., as well as along the east coast. The farmers came speaking western and eastern Bantu languages.
San rock paintings can be seen at Selebi-Phikwe in the rocky overhangs of kopjes, and some tell the story of their retreat from encroaching peoples into these hills. Walled ruins in the style of the Great Zimbabwe era can also be seen, as can the remains of ancient village settlements and Iron Age sites, their evidence including stone arrangements, granaries, pottery and Iron-Age tools.
Only after hundreds of years did Iron Age farming culture and Bantu languages replace Khoe pastoral culture in the Okavango-Makgadikgadi area. As early as 200 BC, people were making a kind of pottery known as Bambatha ware, which archaeologists think was Khoe pottery influenced by (western) Iron Age styles. Khoe language was spoken by pastoralists in the area, on the Boteti River, as late as the 19th century, within recent living memory.
The earliest dated Iron Age site in Botswana is an iron smelting furnace in the Tswapong hills [near Palapye], dated at around 190 AD. This was probably associated with the eastern Iron Age Bantu farming culture from the Limpopo valley. The Tswapong Hills Cultural Landscape is located in the eastern part of the Central District near the town of Palapye in Botswana. The area stretches over a 70km magnificent range of the Tswapong Hills. The Tswapong Hills are about 15km wide and rise 400m above their surroundings.
The Hills are regarded as sacred by the Batswapong/ Bapedi people living in the villages around the hills. They are associated with ancestors of the Bapedi tribe and as such bore testimony to living traditions with ideas or with beliefs that the ancestors live in the area and controls what happens in the area particularly rain, fertility and harvest. The shrine locally known as the Komana which is located in Moremi village is strongly and secretly guarded by the Komana elders who communicate directly with the "Badimo" (ancestors).
Situated deep within the hills, which can only be reached by a rather vigorous climb, Moremi Gorge is a designated National Monument and is managed by the Department of National Museum, Monuments and Art Gallery. The Moremi Mannonye Conservation Trust, through the support of the Botswana Tourism Organisation, involves local residents in developing the area for non-consumptive eco-tourism. The area today remains of great religious and spiritual importance to the community.
Farming culture of the western Iron Age type spread through northern and into south-eastern Botswana. The ruins around Molepolole of beehive-shaped small houses made of grass-matting, occupied by western Early Iron Age farmers, are dated from about 420 AD, and a similar site in the western Transvaal near Pretoria was dated as early as 300.
There is also evidence of early farming settlement of a similar type in Botswana west of the Okavango delta, existing alongside Khoesan hunter and pastoralist sites in the Tsodilo hills, dated from around 550 AD. Archaeologists now have difficulty in interpreting the hundreds of rock paintings in the Tsodilo hills, which were once assumed to be painted by 'Bushman' hunters remote from all pastoralist and farmer contact.
With one of the highest concentrations of rock art in the world, Tsodilo has been called the "Louvre of the Desert". Over 4,500 paintings are preserved in an area of only 10 km2 of the Kalahari Desert. The archaeological record of the area gives a chronological account of human activities and environmental changes over at least 100,000 years. Local communities in this hostile environment respect Tsodilo as a place of worship frequented by ancestral spirits.
Located in north-west Botswana near the Namibian Border in Okavango Sub-District, the Tsodilo Hills are a small area of massive quartzite rock formations that rise from ancient sand dunes to the east and a dry fossil lake bed to the west in the Kalahari Desert. The Hills have provided shelter and other resources to people for over 100,000 years. It now retains a remarkable record, in its archaeology, its rock art, and its continuing traditions, not only of this use but also of the development of human culture and of a symbiotic nature/human relationship over many thousands of years.
Declared a National Monument in 1927, the responsibility for looking after Tsodilo Hills rests with the Department of National Museum and Monuments in collaboration with the Tsodilo Management Authority, an independent advisory group comprising the Tsodilo Community Trust, community based organizations, NGOs and selected critical government based Departments.
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