The 2022 Heritage Association of South Africa (HASA) Annual Symposium 2022 will be hosted by Magaliesberg Association for Culture and Heritage(MACH). It will be happening at the Hartbeespoort Cableway Conference Centre from 13-15 October 2022.

Day 1 - October 13 Thursday

Day cost R550 - Sunset dinner included. Lunch available at own cost. Excursions to Leiden Telescopes, Early Iron Age Site, Cableway to Summit Walking Tours & Talks

1) Policies and Approaches to Heritage in times of Turbulence - Professor Kathy Munro and Jacques Stoltz

Professor Kathy Munro chairs the Heritage Association of South Africa and is active in the Johannesburg Heritage Foundation, promoting blue plaques. She enjoyed a four-decade career in economic history and economic studies at Wits University and is currently an associate of the School of Architecture and Planning where she researches, lectures and publishes on heritage and architectural history. She was the founding director of Wits Plus, where working students can study at night, and she founded the first multi racial childcare centre at the university as well as the original reading programme for blind students. She has an extensive library, which is catalogued under Africansky1 in the Library Thing.

2) The place of the National Heritage Council in South Africa's heritage landscape - Dr Graham Dominy

Dr Graham Dominy is an archivist, author, historian and heritage specialist. He was National Archivist of South Africa from 2001 to 2014 and has worked in archives, museums and heritage since 1977. His most challenging project was President Mbeki’s Timbuktu Manuscripts Project which took him to the Sahel frequently. In 2018 - 2019 he worked on the Oman Across Ages Museum project in Muscat. He is a member of the National Heritage Council and a Research Fellow in History at UNISA. He has published extensively, spoken at conferences worldwide and published two books: Last Outpost on the Zulu Frontiers (a history of Fort Napier) and a biography of Deneys Schreiner, The Man Behind the Beard.

3) Educating the public: Freedom Park and its significance within the Magalies heritage landscape - Professor Sipokazi Madida

Dr Sipokazi Madida is a Senior Lecturer and Head of the Department of History at the University of South Africa (Unisa). She is a public historian, education practitioner, and heritage practitioner by training and experience. Prior to joining Unisa, Sipokazi held research and teaching positions at Robben Island Museum, University of the Western Cape and University of Witwatersrand. Her teaching and research interests include the politics of public history and heritage production. She has a keen interest in the post-apartheid heritage meanings and discourses, which she continues to study in heritage sites like Freedom Park and Ncome Monument and Museum Complex. 

 

The amphitheatre at Freedom Park (The Heritage Portal)

 

4) Geology of Transvaal Supergroup and Bushveld Complex - Stuart Clague

Stuart Clague has 40 years’ experience as a geologist in the mining industry, specialising in structural geology and ore-deposit exploration. He worked throughout Southern Africa and internationally. Application of his specialist geological principles led to the discovery of a major new ore-body in southern Namibia. He was Principal: Structural Geology for Exxaro until 2016 when he began freelance geological consulting. He is a strong advocate of the application of fundamental geological skills and voluntarily supervises university students on field-mapping excursions. He has sailed since early childhood and is now Commodore of the TYC on Hartbeespoort Dam. It is the oldest, inland keelboat yacht club in southern Africa.

5) The Battles of Silkaatsnek - Andre Wedepohl

Andre Wedepohl is the heritage representative on the board of the Magaliesberg Biosphere NPC. His main area of interest is the South African War in the Magaliesberg region and he regularly leads battlefield hikes for the Mountain Club of South Africa and for the Johannesburg Hiking Club. He has also given talks on various aspects of South African history for other organisations, including the Magaliesberg Association for Culture and Heritage (of which he is a committee member) and the Magaliesburg Historical Society. He has written several booklets, as well as the information panels for the Majakaneng Heritage Trail and for South African War exhibits at Kedar Heritage Lodge.

 

Fortified trenches of the Rietfontein Camp (foreground) facing Silkaatsnek centre distance (photo courtesy of Deon van Huizen of Kormorant)

 

Day 2 - October 14 Friday

Day cost R200 - Lunch available at own cost. Chapel ceremony and talk at Sappersrus

6) From fossils to the future: The diversity of heritage in the Magaliesberg - Vincent Carruthers

Vincent Carruthers is a business and environmental strategist, a past director of the National Productivity Institute and a registered zoologist with SACNASP. He is also an authority on the Magaliesberg region, and he initiated the successful program to have the Magaliesberg proclaimed a Biosphere Reserve by UNESCO. He has published books, articles and videos on South African biodiversity and heritage, including Cradle of Life (2019), The Magaliesberg (1990) and The Wildlife of Southern Africa (1997). He has been awarded the University of the Witwatersrand Gold Medal and the North West University Chancellor’s Medal.

 

The beauty of the Magaliesberg (The Heritage Portal)

 

7) The discovery and significance of ‘Little Foot - Professor Ron Clarke or Dr Matt Caruana

Professor Ronald Clarke is a palaeoanthropologist specialized in fossil cleaning, reconstruction and casting following his 1963 qualification in conservation of antiquities at London University Institute of Archaeology. Subsequently he was assistant to Louis Leakey in Kenya and worked on early hominids from Olduvai, Natron, and Laetoli (Tanzania), Baringo and Lake Turkana (Kenya), and Omo (Ethiopia), and excavations from Early Stone Age to Iron Age. He excavated the Laetoli Australopithecus footprint trail in Tanzania and the Florisbad Middle Stone Age site in the Free State. For over two decades, he directed excavations at Sterkfontein Caves and published on early hominids from there and from Swartkrans.

8) The ambivalence of custodial conservation at living heritage sites: the case of Kruger Cave - Professor Justin Bradfield

Professor Justin Bradfield is an Associate Professor in the Palaeo-Research Institute, University of Johannesburg. He is an editor of the South African Archaeological Bulletin, liaison to the International Council of Archaeozoologists and a member of several professional bodies. His research interests centre on the use of bone and other faunal materials in Stone Age economies. His research focuses on bone taphonomy, use-wear and fracture mechanics as proxies for understanding tool function and how people engaged with organic technology. His work at Kruger Cave originated out of his research on the bone tools from the site and the need to protect the deposit from destruction.

9) Natural heritage of the Magaliesberg, with emphasis on its largest apex predator: the leopard - John Power

John Power is the Terrestrial Ecologist with the Dept of Economic Development, Environment, Conservation and Tourism, NW Province. He holds an MSc in African mammalogy from the University of Pretoria and has studied leopards in mountain environments, especially the Magaliesberg, for the past 20 years. He is currently studying their management and potential coexistence with humans with a view to completing a PhD. He has worked in the private sector and with NGOs and has co-authored numerous scientific papers on leopards and other carnivores. In addition to his love for leopards, he enjoys history, reading, travel and rugby.

10) The Sappers in the two world wars - Peter Terry

Peter Terry is a well-known actor, director and playwright. He was with the Performing Arts Council Transvaal from 1972 to 2000, eventually serving as Artistic & Administrative Head of Drama. His wide theatrical skills range from narrating award-winning nature documentaries for National Geographic and Animal Planet, to writing and performing stirring presentations on the Great War. These include his poignant one-man play, At All Costs, based on the Battle of Delville Wood. In lighter vein, many will remember him as Nige in the long-running CTM tile commercials and as a knowledgeable presenter on Classic 1027. He now presents Classy Classics on Radio Today on Sunday afternoons.

 

Hall of Remembrance Sappersrus (Vincent Carruthers)

 

Day 3 - October 15 Saturday

Day cost R250 - Lunch and Farewell dinner at own costs. Excursion to Rietfontein Cemetery and Schoeman's Cross

11) The development of heritage projects within the Magaliesberg Biosphere Reserve - Andrew Murray

Andrew Murray is a Civil Engineer who has spent the last 40 years developing Murray & Dickson Construction company. His interests, however, are far wider than construction and he has always been fascinated by the world around him and has been willing to play a positive role in environmental issues that are dear to him. He served on the board and was for many years the chairman of the African Gamebird, Research, Education and Development Trust (AGRED). As a landowner on the south of the Magaliesberg mountain range he is committed to the Magaliesberg Biosphere Non-Profit Company, the management authority of the Magaliesberg Biosphere Reserve, of which he is the current chairman.

12) The walled settlements in the Magaliesberg - Professor Amanda Esterhuysen

Professor Amanda Esterhuysen is an Associate Professor in the School of Geography, Archaeology and Environmental Studies at the University of the Witwatersrand, and is the Head of the Origins Centre. She is a Co-Investigator on the Arcadia Mapping Africa’s Endangered Archaeological Sites and Monuments (MAEASaM) project which has its centre in Cambridge and aims to develop a rapid and reliable means of mapping and documenting archaeological sites and monuments in Africa, utilising remote sensing technologies, GIS and digitisation. She and her students have begun to remap and revisit the ‘mega-sites’ in and around the Magaliesberg.

13) The South African War in the Magaliesberg - Professor Fransjohan Pretorius

Professor Fransjohan Pretorius is Professor Emeritus in History at the University of Pretoria. He is the author or editor of fifteen books and monographs, of which eight are on the South African War. His book Life on Commando during the Anglo-Boer War 1899-1902 was the runner-up for the Sunday Times Alan Paton Award, while the Afrikaans edition, Kommandolewe tydens die Anglo-Boereoorlog 1899-1902, received three awards. He is the editor of A History of South Africa: From the Distant Past to the Present Day. He has won the Stals Prize for History and a number of other awards for his work, the most prestigious being the Jan H. Marais Prize for outstanding academic work in Afrikaans.

 

Schoeman Memorial (Mike Benn)

 

14) The South African ox-wagon - Professor Erik Holm

Professor Erik Holm is an entomologist and served as head of department at the University of Pretoria for 20 years. He has scripted and directed two TV documentary series on arthropods, published 12 popular science books, participated in regular radio talks, and public lectures. His hobbies include traditional crafts, particularly animal drawn transport, and he has restored several hundred oxwagons and horse carts for private owners and museums. He is the author of the definitive book, Die Ossewa en sy Spore and was awarded the Senior Captain Scott medal by the Suid-Afrikaanse Akademie vir Wetenskap en Kuns. He is a board member and consultant for ZZ2 farms specializing in the application of ecological principles and farming structure and strategy.

Register now. Numbers are limited. For more information and to book email info@machbookings.com.