Identity and Political Centralisation in the Western Regions of Highveld, c.1770–c.1830: An Archaeological Perspective

Political centralisation in the area of present-day North West Province in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries has conventionally been associated with a broad identity, homogenised as ‘Tswana’. This article reviews the archaeological and oral evidence of identity from about ad 1500 through to the 1820s and elaborates a discussion of identity that focuses upon the cumulative accretion of at least two layers of people whose cultural and historical affiliations are traced to ‘Nguni’-speakers east of the escarpment. In the early nineteenth century attributes of these prior identities were still materially expressed. Consequently, political centralisation did not take place within a singular homogenous ‘Tswana’ identity, but with reference to complex historical layering in the region. It is argued that the retention of elements of an earlier ‘Nguni-ness’ among the Tlokwa, for example, was due to their role as specialist metal producers in the regional economy.