² Mora, Pat, My Own True Name (Houston, 2000), 39.

³ For recent excavation results at Bosutswe see Denbow, James, Smith, Jeanette, Atwood, Kirsten, Ndobochani, Nonofho, and Miller, Duncan, “Excavations at Bosutswe, Botswana: Cultural Chronology, Paleo-Ecology and Economy,” Journal of Archeological Science 35(2008), 459–80; Denbow, James and Miller, Duncan, “Metal Working at Bosutswe, Botswana,” Journal of African Archeology 5(2007), 3–46.

⁴ Phillipson, David, “Early Iron Using Peoples of Southern Africa” in African Societies in Southern Africa: Historical Studies, ed. Thompson, Leonard (London, 1969), 35.

⁵ Tagart, E., Report on the Conditions Existing Among the Masarwa in the Bamangwato Reserve of the Bechuanaland Protectorate and Certain Other Matters Appertaining to the Natives Living Therein (Pretoria, 1933). Nyati-Ramahobo, L., “The Language Situation in Botswana,” Current Issues in Language 1(2000), 243–300.

⁶ Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty, The Post-Colonial Critic: Interviews, Strategies, Dialogues (New York, 1990).

⁷ Schapera, Isaac, The Ethnic Composition of the Tswana Tribes (London, 1952); Sillery, Anthony, The Bechuanaland Protectorate (London, 1952); Kuper, Adam, “The Kgalagadi in the Nineteenth Century,” Botswana Notes and Records 2(1969), 45–51; Tlou, Thomas, A History of Ngamiland, 1750 to 1906: the Formation of an African State (Gaborone, 1985); Ellenberger, V. F., “History and Pre-history in Botswana,” Botswana Notes and Records 4(1972), 135–38.

⁸ Fabian, Johannes, Time and the Other: How Anthropology Makes its Object (New York, 1983).

⁹ Nyati-Ramahobo, “Language Situation.”

¹⁰ Sir Seretse Khama, speech of Chancellor at University of Botswana, Lesotho and Swaziland graduation ceremony, 15 May 1970; Botswana Daily News, 19 May 1970, supplement.

¹¹ The Tswana term is generally used to refer to the origins of peoples or nations, rather than chronologically or historically ordered events, or cultural history.

¹² Schapera, Isaac, A Handbook of Tswana Law and Custom (London, 1955).

¹³ Mosothwane, Morongwa, “An Ethnographic Study of Initiation Schools among the Bakgatla bo ga Kgafela in Mochudi (1874-1988),” Pula: Botswana Journal of African Studies 15(2001), 144–65.

¹⁴ Denbow, James, “Cenchrus ciliaris: an Ecological Indicator of Iron Age Middens using Aerial Photography in Eastern Botswana,” South African Journal of Science 75(1979), 405–08; Denbow, James and Denbow, Jocelyne, Uncovering Botswana's Past (Gaborone, 1990).

¹⁵ For additional examples of stories about Kgwanyape, see Schapera, Isaac, Rainmaking Rites of Tswana Tribes (Leiden, 1971).

¹⁶ Raffle, J.A., Place Names Commission: Second List of Names and Recommended Spellings (Gaborone, 1981).

¹⁷ Ellenberger, V. F., “Preliminary Notes on Known Sites of Archeological, Ethnological and Historical Interest in the Bechuanaland Protectorate.” Unpublished manuscript on file at the National Museum of Botswana, (Gaborone, 1937).

¹⁸ Denbow, “Cenchrus ciliaris.”

¹⁹ Durham, Deborah, “Disappearing Youth: Youth as a Social Shifter in Botswana,” American Ethnologist 31(2004), 593–94.

²⁰ Lee, Richard, “Eating Christmas in the Kalahari,” Natural History (December 1969), 14-22, 60–63.

²¹ Lucas, Gavin, The Archeology of Time (London, 2005).

²² “di-” is the prefix used to make artifacts “plural” for this noun class in Tswana.

²³ For more discussion of cardinal directions, burials, and the ancestral world see Denbow, James, “Heart and Soul: Glimpses of Ideology and Cosmology in the Iconography of Tombstones from the Loango Coast of Central Africa,” Journal of American Folklore 112(1999), 404–23, and Denbow/Miller, “Metalworking.”

²⁴ For the origins of this debate, see Denbow, James, “Prehistoric Herders and Foragers of the Kalahari: the Evidence for 1500 Years of Interaction” in Past and Present in Hunter Gatherer Studies, ed. Schrire, C., (Orlando, 1984), 175–93; Denbow, James and Wilmsen, Edwin, “The Advent and Course of Pastoralism in the Kalahari,” Science 234(1986), 1509–15; Solway, J. and Lee, R., “Foragers, Genuine or Spurious? Situating the Kalahari San in History,” Current Anthropology 31(1990), 109–46; Wilmsen, Edwin and Denbow, James, “Paradigmatic History of San-Speaking Peoples and Current Attempts at Revision,” Current Anthropology 31(1990), 489–524.

²⁵ Following Fabian's use of this term in his Time.

²⁶ Simpson, John, “Diamonds Are Curse of Ancient Bushmen,” Daily Telegraph (8 November 2002).

²⁷ Ibid., emphasis mine.

²⁸ Denbow, James, “Stolen Places: Archeology and the Politics of Identity in the Later Pre-history of the Kalahari” in Falola, Toyin and Jennings, Christian, eds., Africanizing Knowledge: African Studies across the Disciplines (New Brunswick NJ, 2002), 345–74; Fabian, Time; Stahl, Ann Brower, “Introduction: Changing Perspectives on Africa's Past” in African Archeology: a Critical Introduction, ed. Stahl, A., (Maiden, 2005), 6. Wilmsen/Denbow, “Paradigmatic.”

²⁹ For use of concepts of essentialized and static concepts such as “encapsulation” see Sadr, Karim, “Kalahari Archeology and the Bushman Debate,” Current Anthropology, 38(1997), 104–12, and Lee, Richard B. and Daly, Richard Heywood, The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Hunters and Gatherers (Cambridge, U.K.; New York, NY, 1999).

³⁰ Filmed interview of Motofela Molato at Khubu la Dintša, July 2002. Video CD on file at the National Museum of Botswana, translation by Nonofho Ndobochani.

³¹ Ibid.

³² For examples of the use of circled crosses see Denbow, “Heart and Soul;” Janzen, John and MacGaffey, Wyatt, An Anthology of Kongo Religion: Primary Texts from Lower Zaïre (Lawrence, 1974); and Thompson, Robert Farris and Cornet, Joseph, The Four Moments of the Sun: Kongo Art in Two Worlds (Washington, 1981).

³³ For examples of dung deposits as favored locations of burials in Botswana see Denbow, James, “The Toutswe Tradition: a Study in Socio-economic Change” in Hitchcock, Renee and Smith, Mary, eds., Settlement in Botswana (Johannesburg, 1982), 73–87; Denbow, James, “Iron Age Economics: Herding, Wealth and Politics along the Fringes of the Kalahari Desert during the Early Iron Age” (PhD., Indiana, 1983); idem., “A New Look at the Later Prehistory of the Kalahari,” JAH 27(1986), 3-28; Denbow/Miller, “Metal-working.”

³⁴ Motofela Molato, Khubu la Dintša, July 2002.

³⁵ Denbow/Denbow, Uncovering Botswana's Past.

³⁶ Interview with Nurse Bakwena, Mashoro Clinic, August 2002.

³⁷ Dow, Unity, Juggling Truths (Melbourne, 2003), 130.

³⁸ Mosothwane, Morongwa, “Skeletal Characteristics and Population Demography as Reflected by Materials from Toutswe Tradition Sites in Eastern Botswana, West of the Shashe-Limpopo basin” (M.Sc. thesis, Pretoria, 2004); see also Mosothwane, Morongwa and Steyn, Myrna, “Palaeodemography of Early Iron Age Toutswe Communities in Botswana,” South African Archeological Bulletin 59(2004), 45–51.

³⁹ I am indebted to Dr. Zacharys Gundu for this point.

⁴⁰ Hitchcock, Robert, “‘We are the First People’: Land, Natural Resources and Identity in the Central Kalahari, Botswana,” Journal of Southern African Studies 28(2002), 797–824; Wilmsen, Edwin, “Mutable Identities: Moving beyond Ethnicity in Botswana,” Journal of Southern African Studies 28(2002), 825–41.

¹ The authors are grateful for the graciousness of the Bosutswe people who hosted us over several field seasons of work. We are also grateful to the University of Botswana archeology students who provided many fresh, new voices as they added to our discussions of the past (and present). We are indebted to several readers who provided comments and suggestions: Maria Franklin, Denné Reed, Zacharys Gundu, Carla Klehm, Polly Strong, K. Kris Hirst, Kirsten Atwood, and Jan Vansina. Finally, we acknowledge the National Science Foundation for funding the 1990, 2001, and 2002 excavations at Bosutswe.