Abstract

The longstanding relationships that developed between the French and South African research traditions in prehistoric archaeology were mostly based on shared goals and perspectives, but also included moments of tension and misunderstanding. Focusing here on the crucial decades of the 1920s to 1940s, and on both the publications and the archival sources of such major actors as John Goodwin, C. Van Riet Lowe and Henri Breuil, my aim in this paper is to show that these interactions were essentially productive for both parties. In the case of the famous ‘African terminology’ devised by Goodwin and Van Riet Lowe, it appears that French scholars had actually welcomed these propositions as fully compatible with their own modes of archaeological designation and reasoning – and therefore that its presentation as a deliberate alternative to the European scheme was primarily a rhetorical disciplinary tactic. This differs from the case of lithic technology, where South African scholars of the times made genuinely innovative contributions to the study of stone artefact raw materials, production and use. The originality of these advances is due, in my view, to two factors – the presence of the Bushman, and the absence of flint. Though their specific origins have since largely been forgotten, these ideas left their mark on leading French prehistorians, and developed in subsequent generations into a full-fledged technological approach. The historical appraisal of these decades-long interactions can thus shed light on the production of archaeological knowledge, and also confirm the potential and scope for further collaborations between these two research traditions.

Résumé

Les liens qui se sont développés au fil des décennies entre les traditions de recherches préhistoriques françaises et sud-africaines étaient principalement fondés sur des objectifs et des perspectives communs, mais ont connu aussi des moments de tensions et de discorde.