general books Archaeology & Ethnography

Barham (L.) & Mitchell (P.) THE FIRST AFRICANS, African archaeology from the earliest toolmakers to most recent foragers
601 pp., maps, illus., paperback, Cambridge, 2008. R330
Lawrence Barham and Peter Mitchell review and assess the archaeological and fossil evidence left by Africa's earliest homonid inhabitants and present a new synthesis of the archaeology of more recent hunter-gatherers on the continent.

Lawrence Barham is Senior Lecturer in the School of Archaeology, Classics and Egyptology at the University of Liverpool.
Peter Mitchell is Porfessor of African Archaeology at the University of Oxford and Tutor and Fellow in Archaeology at St Hugh's College, Oxford.
Berger (L.R.) & Hilton-Barber (B.) IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF EVE, the mystery of human origins
325 pp., map, paperback, Washington, 2000. R150
Lee Berger attempts to "cast light on the transition from not only archaid 'Homo sapiens' to modern humans but also from ape-man to man-ape to human" and argues the case for a southern African origin of humans.

Lee R.Berger is Director of the Paleoanthropology Unit for Research and Exploration at the University of the Witwatersrand.
Brett Hilton-Barber is a journalist specializing in the field of human origins.
Bonner (P.), Esterhuysen (A.) & Jenkins (T.) eds. A SEARCH FOR ORIGINS, science, history and South Africa's "Cradle of Humankind"
313 pp., maps, b/w & colour illus., paperback, Johannesburg, 2007. R280
Foreword by Phillip V. Tobias.

A history of the "Cradle of Humankind" (bordering Gauteng and the North-West Province), and of the important human and animal fossils that have been discovered there.

Contents include "White South Africa and the South Africanisation of Science: humankind or kinds of humans?" by Saul Dubow,
"Fossil Homonids of the 'Cradle of Humankind'" by Kevin Kuykendall,
"The Emerging Stone Age" and "The Earlier Stone Age" by Amanda Esterhuysen,
"Rock Engravings in the Magaliesberg Valley" by David Pearce,
"The Myth of the Vacant Land" by Philip Bonner,
"Tswana History in the Bankenveld" by Simon Hall,
"The Early Boer Republics: changing political forces in the 'Cradle of Humankind', 1830s to 1890s" by Jane Carruthers,
"The Story of Sterkfontein since 1895" by Phillip V Tobias,
"The South African War of 1899-1902 in the 'Cradle of Humankind'" by Vincent Carruthers, and
"Voice of Politics, Voice of Science: politics and science after 1945" by Philip Bonner, Amanda Esterhuysen and Trefor Jenkins.

Historian Philip Bonner, archaeologist Amanda Esterhuysen and geneticist Trefor Jenkins are all academics based at the University of the Witwatersrand.
Bray (R.) et. al. GROWING UP IN THE NEW SOUTH AFRICA, childhood and adolescence in post-apartheid Cape Town
358 pp., map, colour illus., paperback, Cape Town, 2010. R270
This book by Rachel Bray, Imke Gooskens, Lauren Kahn, Sue Moses and Jeremy Seekings, all based at the time at the Centre for Social Science Research at the University of Cape Town, is based on ethnographic research conducted in the Fish Hoek valley, with the participants in the study being drawn from the communities of Fish Hoek, Ocean View and Masiphumelele.

"This thought-provoking book provides rare and nuanced insight into the everyday lives of young people in post-apartheid South Africa. The social complexities it unravels make it essential reading for African scholars and for those interested in international childhood studies." Allison James, Professor of Sociology and Director of the Centre for the Study of Childhood and Youth, University of Sheffield

Brink (Y.) THEY CAME TO STAY, discovering meaning in the 18th century Cape country dwelling
220 pp., illus., paperback, Stellenbosch, 2008. R211
Archaeologist Yvonne Brink seeks to understand more about the Dutch peasants who built the colonial farmsteads in the Cape winelands in the later eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, and why this style of architecture emerged only at the Cape and not in Dutch colonies in other parts of the world.
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