Rethinking South Africa's past

The essays in this special issue reflect the recent revival of interest in – for want of a better term – late pre-colonial history in southern African studies, and a renewed dialogue between historians and archaeologists.1 Its aim is to provide readers with a taste of the first fruits of this scholarship and to add to its growing momentum. The articles here published were first presented at the final conference of an interdisciplinary and inter-institutional initiative to rethink the last five hundred years of South African history. Established in 2007 with the support of the South African National Research Foundation, the project ran over three years and drew together a wide range of historians and archaeologists based in the main at universities and museums in the Republic. It also led to important exchanges with scholars working on East, but to some extent also on West, Africa. In our view the articles here are a testament to what has been achieved thus far and a challenge to deepen the dialogue and intensify research efforts.