Early History & Colonial Era

South Africa is the Cradle of Humankind — in the Cradle of Humankind near Johannesburg, the oldest hominid fossils in the world were found, up to 3.67 million years old (Little Foot). The San (Bushmen) inhabited southern Africa for at least 20,000 years and left thousands of rock paintings in the Drakensberg and Cederberg regions.

From the 3rd century, Bantu-speaking peoples (ancestors of today's Zulu, Xhosa, Sotho, and others) migrated south from Central Africa. They brought agriculture, livestock farming, and ironworking with them.

In 1652, Jan van Riebeeck founded a supply station at the Cape for the Dutch East India Company — the beginning of European settlement. The descendants of the Dutch, Germans, and French (Huguenots) became the Boers (Afrikaans: "farmers"), who developed their own language (Afrikaans) and culture.

The British took over the Cape in 1795 and drove the Boers inland (the "Great Trek" from 1836). This led to conflicts with the Zulu (Battle of Blood River 1838) and eventually to the Boer Wars (1880–1881 and 1899–1902), in which the British conquered the Boer republics — using the world's first concentration camps.