Keneiloe Molopyane

2 months ago | sajs.co.za | Rebecca Ackermann |Cape Town |Keneiloe Molopyane

Abstract The concepts of explorer, expedition, and the combination of the two into the myth of the explorer have been integral parts of Western mentality for more than 200 years. Here we briefly outline the colonial origins of these ideas, and use this crystallised understanding of the explorer myth to consider how African palaeoanthropology in the 20th century and up to the present continues to carry many of these biased, outdated overtones – some more overtly than others.