Working Paper for the Indigenous Kingdoms of Southern Africa (IKOSA)
Reassessing Early Sotho-Tswana Chronology and Indigenous Toponymy: Reconciling Archaeology, Oral Tradition, and Colonial Historiography
Author: Indigenous Kingdoms of Southern Africa (IKOSA)
Working Paper
Abstract
The chronology of early Sotho-Tswana history remains one of the most contested subjects in southern African historiography. Archaeological evidence consistently demonstrates that major stone-walled settlements associated with early Sotho-Tswana speaking communities were established between the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries CE. However, influential historical works, particularly those written during the missionary and colonial periods, place many of the founding ancestors of present day Basotho, Bakwena, Bafokeng, Bahlakoana and related communities nearly two centuries later.
This paper argues that the discrepancy is not primarily an archaeological problem but a historiographical one. The chronological compression found in nineteenth and early twentieth century historical literature resulted from the application of rigid European genealogical calculations to indigenous oral traditions that were never intended to function as chronological calendars. The paper further argues that colonial and postcolonial heritage administration has contributed to the systematic erasure of indigenous historical geography through generalized archaeological naming practices that disconnect archaeological sites from their historical founders and descendant communities.
Rather than treating archaeology and oral history as competing sources of knowledge, this paper proposes an integrated methodology that combines archaeology, oral genealogy, indigenous praise poetry (Dithoko), linguistic evidence, and historical geography.
1. Introduction
Southern African history has long been reconstructed through two largely independent traditions.
The first consists of archaeological investigations based upon excavation, radiocarbon dating, settlement analysis, and material culture.
The second consists of historical reconstructions derived primarily from oral traditions recorded by nineteenth century missionaries, colonial administrators, and early ethnographers.
These two traditions frequently disagree.
Perhaps nowhere is this disagreement more pronounced than in the chronology of early Sotho-Tswana political development.
Archaeological investigations place large stone-walled settlements across present day Gauteng, North West, Free State and neighbouring regions between approximately 350 CE and 1450 CE.
Conversely, influential historical works, particularly Ellenberger’s History of the Basuto (1912), position important ancestral figures such as Motebang, Disema (Lisema), and Napo in the sixteenth century.
This discrepancy approaches two centuries.
The purpose of this paper is to examine the origins of this chronological divergence and propose an integrated framework capable of reconciling archaeology with indigenous historical memory.
2. Archaeological Chronology
Excavations throughout southern Africa have demonstrated that extensive stone-walled settlements flourished well before European contact.
Sites including:
Ntsuanatsatsi
Suikerbosrand (commonly labelled “Kweneng”)
Numerous Bokoni settlements
Stone-walled complexes along the Vaal River
have produced archaeological dates ranging largely between the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.
These settlements demonstrate:
permanent occupation,
intensive agriculture,
sophisticated livestock management,
advanced stone architecture,
regional trade networks,
complex political organisation.
The archaeological evidence leaves little doubt that substantial Sotho-Tswana speaking societies occupied these landscapes centuries before the arrival of Europeans.
3. The Genealogical Compression Problem
The principal chronological conflict arises not from archaeology but from the methodology employed by early historians.
Missionaries and colonial historians attempted to convert oral genealogies into linear chronological timelines.
Their method typically involved:
identifying a historically dated nineteenth century ruler,
counting backward through genealogies,
assigning approximately 25 to 30 years per generation.
Although mathematically convenient, this approach fundamentally misunderstood the nature of indigenous oral tradition.
Oral genealogies preserve legitimacy rather than chronology.
Their primary purpose is political continuity, not chronological precision.
Consequently, they naturally compress time.
4. The Time Telescoping Effect
Anthropologists have long recognised a phenomenon known as genealogical telescoping.
Over many generations, oral traditions tend to retain politically significant ancestors while gradually omitting less prominent rulers.
Several factors contribute to this process.
These include:
rulers who died young,
short reigns,
succession disputes,
peaceful periods producing few memorable events,
collateral branches omitted from dominant lineages.
As omitted generations accumulate, several centuries may become represented by comparatively few remembered names.
When nineteenth century historians assigned fixed numerical values to these compressed genealogies, they unintentionally shortened indigenous history.
A lineage representing approximately 450 years could easily appear to span only 250 years.
The result was an artificial forward shift of ancestral figures such as Motebang, Disema and Napo.
5. Parallel Leadership and Political Branching
Another weakness within early historical reconstruction lies in the assumption of linear succession.
Sotho-Tswana political systems frequently produced simultaneous branches.
Following political expansion or succession disputes, brothers often established independent chiefdoms.
For example, traditions concerning Motebang and Disema indicate the establishment of parallel rather than sequential political communities.
However, many early historians interpreted these branches as chronological succession instead of simultaneous expansion.
This misunderstanding further compressed historical chronology.
6. Settlement Occupation Versus Clan Foundation
An equally important distinction concerns the meaning of “founding.”
Archaeology dates physical occupation.
Oral tradition often records political founding.
These are not necessarily identical events.
A settlement may have existed for generations before becoming associated with a particular ruling lineage.
Thus:
archaeology dates construction and occupation,
oral tradition dates political identity.
When traditions describe Napo, Motebang or Disema as founders of particular places, this need not imply that they physically built the first stone walls.
Rather, they established political authority over already inhabited landscapes.
Confusing these two different concepts has produced unnecessary chronological contradictions.
7. Reconstructing an Earlier Chronology
When archaeological evidence is treated as the chronological anchor, the historical timeline shifts naturally.
Instead of placing Motebang, Disema and Napo during the sixteenth century, their lives align more closely with the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries.
Such a reconstruction:
corresponds with radiocarbon dating,
aligns with settlement expansion,
explains the architectural development of stone-walled settlements,
accommodates the existence of omitted genealogical generations.
Rather than questioning archaeological dating, the historical chronology should be adjusted accordingly.
8. Colonial Historiography, Toponymic Erasure and Toponymic Homogenisation
The reconstruction of southern African history has been influenced not only by chronological distortion but also by geographical distortion. Colonial historiography and, in many cases, postcolonial heritage management have increasingly replaced historically specific indigenous place names with broad archaeological, ethnic, or administrative labels. This process has gradually detached archaeological landscapes from the communities whose historical memory continues to preserve them.
IKOSA identifies two related but distinct historiographical processes that require scholarly recognition: toponymic erasure and toponymic homogenisation.
Toponymic erasure refers to the disappearance or replacement of an indigenous place name by a colonial or modern designation.
Toponymic homogenisation refers to the replacement of historically specific indigenous place names with broad ethnic, administrative, archaeological, or political labels that conceal the diversity of the communities historically associated with those landscapes.
Unlike toponymic erasure, where an indigenous name disappears entirely, toponymic homogenisation preserves only a general identity while removing the historical specificity of the landscape. The result is that multiple independent political communities become retrospectively merged into a single generalised ethnic category that did not necessarily exist in the form implied by modern nomenclature.
From an indigenous historical perspective, this process significantly alters the interpretation of archaeological landscapes by disconnecting sites from the ruling houses, founding lineages and historical events that gave those places their original identities.
8.1 Tebang and the Generalisation of “Kweneng”
One important example concerns the extensive archaeological complex in the Suikerbosrand, which has gained international recognition through LiDAR mapping.
Contemporary archaeological literature generally refers to the settlement simply as Kweneng, meaning “the place of the Kwena.”
Although this terminology broadly associates the settlement with Bakwena history, it removes the more specific historical identity preserved within indigenous oral traditions that identify the locality as Tebang, associated with Motebang and the expansion of his lineage.
This distinction is significant.
“Kweneng” describes a broad political or ethnic affiliation.
“Tebang” identifies a historically specific landscape connected to a particular founder and ruling house.
The substitution transforms a historically situated political centre into an anonymous archaeological category.
IKOSA argues that such naming practices constitute an example of toponymic homogenisation, whereby historically distinct political centres become absorbed into broad ethnic classifications, obscuring the identities of the communities that established, governed and occupied them.
8.2 Dikoteng and the Modern Designation “Thaba ya Batswana”
A similar process can be observed in the heritage designation Thaba ya Batswana, the modern name applied to the indigenous landscape historically known as Dikoteng.
The archaeological report A Moment in the Past of Thaba ya Batswana illustrates this practice by consistently employing the modern heritage designation while documenting one of more than one hundred Iron Age stone walled settlements distributed throughout the Klipriviersberg landscape. The report further acknowledges that only a small proportion of these settlements have been archaeologically investigated, suggesting a much larger and more complex indigenous historical landscape than is commonly recognised.
From an archaeological perspective, the designation “Thaba ya Batswana” appears descriptive.
From an indigenous historical perspective, however, it produces several unintended historiographical consequences.
First, it obscures the older indigenous place name, Dikoteng.
Second, it retrospectively projects a broad modern ethnic identity onto a landscape that predates many of the political identities recognised today.
Third, it conceals the historical coexistence and interaction of numerous Sotho-Tswana communities, including Bakwena, Bafokeng, Bahlakoana, Bahurutshe, Barolong, Bakgatla, Bataung and other related groups whose histories intersect within this broader landscape.
Finally, the modern designation weakens the relationship between archaeological sites and the oral traditions that preserve the identities of specific founding houses and ancestral lineages.
The issue is therefore not whether “Batswana” is an incorrect descriptor, but whether such a broad designation adequately reflects the historical complexity of the indigenous landscape.
IKOSA contends that it does not.
8.3 Historiographical Consequences of Toponymic Homogenisation
The widespread adoption of generalised place names has produced consequences extending well beyond archaeology.
It influences historical interpretation by encouraging scholars to reconstruct the past through modern ethnic categories rather than historically specific political communities.
As successive publications repeat these modern designations, they gradually acquire the appearance of historical authenticity despite representing relatively recent administrative or academic conventions.
This process contributes to several forms of historical distortion.
It obscures indigenous systems of territorial organisation.
It disconnects archaeological landscapes from oral genealogies.
It diminishes the historical visibility of smaller kingdoms and chiefdoms.
It encourages the perception that large umbrella identities such as “Tswana” or “Sotho” existed as unified political entities long before evidence suggests they did.
Most significantly, it separates living descendant communities from landscapes with which they continue to maintain historical and cultural relationships.
8.4 Restoring Indigenous Historical Geography
IKOSA proposes that indigenous historical geography should become an essential component of southern African historiography.
Historical reconstruction should seek not merely to identify where archaeological sites are located but also to determine how those landscapes were understood, named and remembered by the communities that occupied them.
This requires integrating archaeological evidence with indigenous place names, oral genealogies, praise poetry (lithoko), linguistic evidence and traditional historical knowledge.
Rather than treating indigenous toponyms as folklore, they should be recognised as historical evidence capable of preserving information concerning political authority, migration, settlement continuity and territorial identity.
The restoration of indigenous place names therefore represents more than linguistic preservation.
It is a necessary step towards reconstructing indigenous historical geography and correcting the historiographical distortions produced by centuries of chronological compression and toponymic homogenisation.
9. Archaeology, Landscape and Indigenous Historical Geography
Stone-walled settlement distribution demonstrates an identifiable historical landscape extending from northern regions through Suikerbosrand and across the Vaal River.
Architectural continuity strongly suggests long term regional interaction rather than isolated settlement.
When oral traditions referencing hills, rivers and migration routes are compared with archaeological evidence, coherent historical landscapes begin to emerge.
IKOSA proposes that indigenous historical geography should become a central methodological tool for reconstructing early southern African history.
Landscape names preserved in praise poetry may provide critical chronological and geographical evidence absent from written colonial records.
10. Towards an Indigenous Historical Methodology
Future historical reconstruction should move beyond the colonial practice of privileging missionary texts over indigenous knowledge systems.
IKOSA proposes an integrated methodology based upon five complementary sources of evidence:
1. Archaeological excavation and radiocarbon dating.
2. Indigenous oral traditions.
3. Praise poetry (Dithoko).
4. Historical linguistics.
5. Indigenous historical geography and traditional place names.
Only through the integration of these disciplines can southern African history be reconstructed in a manner that reflects both scientific evidence and indigenous historical memory.
11. Implications for Indigenous Land History
The relationship between chronology and geography has significant implications beyond academic debate.
When ancestral landscapes lose their historical names, descendant communities become disconnected from their historical territorial identities.
Generalised archaeological terminology risks transforming living ancestral landscapes into politically neutral heritage sites.
Restoring indigenous place names therefore represents more than historical correction.
It contributes to the preservation of indigenous cultural memory, historical continuity and territorial identity.
12. Conclusion
The apparent contradiction between archaeology and written history does not require choosing one source over the other.
Instead, it requires recognising the methodological limitations of colonial historiography.
Archaeological evidence consistently supports an earlier chronology for the emergence of complex Sotho-Tswana societies.
The chronological framework presented in influential missionary histories resulted largely from genealogical compression, assumptions of linear succession, and misunderstanding of indigenous oral traditions.
Equally significant is the continued erasure of indigenous historical geography through generalized archaeological naming conventions that obscure the relationship between specific ancestral lineages and the landscapes they occupied.
IKOSA therefore calls for a comprehensive reassessment of early southern African history that places archaeology, oral tradition, indigenous linguistics, praise poetry and historical geography on equal scholarly footing. Such an approach offers the most credible path toward reconstructing an indigenous chronology that reflects both the physical evidence preserved in the landscape and the historical memory maintained within descendant communities.
IKOSA further submits that future scholarship must move beyond correcting chronology alone. The restoration of historical timelines must be accompanied by the restoration of indigenous geographical memory. Archaeological sites should not merely be dated correctly, they should also be identified by the names through which descendant communities have historically known them. Only by addressing both chronological distortion and toponymic homogenisation can southern African historiography accurately represent the diversity, antiquity and territorial continuity of its indigenous kingdoms and communities.
I believe Toponymic Homogenisation is a genuinely novel analytical concept with the potential to become one of IKOSA’s distinctive contributions to southern African historiography. It complements established concepts such as “toponymic erasure” but addresses a different phenomenon, namely the replacement of historically precise indigenous identities with broad umbrella labels that flatten the political and cultural diversity of the precolonial landscape. It is sufficiently rigorous to be developed into a standalone theoretical framework in future IKOSA publications.
References
Ellenberger, D.F. (1912). History of the Basuto: Ancient and Modern.
Hall, M. (1987). The Changing Past: Farmers, Kings and Traders in Southern Africa.
Huffman, T.N. (2007). Handbook to the Iron Age: The Archaeology of Pre Colonial Farming Societies in Southern Africa.
Huffman, T.N. (2015). Studies on the stone walled settlements of the southern African Iron Age.
Maggs, T. (1976). Iron Age Communities of the Southern Highveld.
Mitchell, P. (2002). The Archaeology of Southern Africa.
A report by R.J.Mason For Reuben Louw, (March 2002). A Moment in the Past of Thaba ya Batswana
National and provincial archaeological excavation reports on Ntsuanatsatsi, Suikerbosrand (Kweneng), Bokoni settlements, and the Vaal River stone walled complexes.
Oral traditions and lithoko preserved among the Bakwena, Bafokeng, Bahlakoana and related Sotho-Tswana communities.
IKOSA Research Note
This paper is intended as a working research paper. Several interpretations, particularly those concerning the identification of Tebang, Dikoteng, Motebang, Disema, Napo, and the restoration of indigenous toponyms, represent hypotheses that require further interdisciplinary verification through archaeology, historical linguistics, oral history, GIS mapping, and archival research. Distinguishing clearly between evidence based conclusions and research hypotheses will strengthen the paper’s scholarly credibility while encouraging future investigation.