<P> Following the defeat of the Boers in the Anglo - Boer or South African War (1899--1902), the Union of South Africa was created as a dominion of the British Empire in terms of the South Africa Act 1909, which amalgamated the four previously separate British colonies: Cape Colony, Natal Colony, Transvaal Colony and Orange River Colony . The country became a self - governing nation state within the British Empire, in 1934 following enactment of the Status of the Union Act . The dominion came to an end on 31 May 1961 as the consequence of a 1960 referendum, which legitimised the country becoming a sovereign state named Republic of South Africa . A republican constitution was adopted . </P> <P> From 1948--1994, South African politics were dominated by Afrikaner nationalism . Racial segregation and white minority rule known officially as apartheid came into existence in 1948 (under British rule), and become an official law of segregation when South Africa became a republic, an Afrikaans word meaning "separateness". It was an extension of segregationist legislation enacted in 1960 . On 27 April 1994, after decades of armed struggle and international opposition to apartheid, during which military and political support was provided primarily by the Soviet Union to the non-racial African National Congress (ANC), the ANC achieved victory in the country's first democratic election in which all races could vote . Since then, the African National Congress has dominated the politics of South Africa, in an uneasy alliance with the South African Communist Party and the Congress of South African Trade Unions . </P> <P> Scientists researching the periods before written historical records were made have established that the territory of what is now referred to generically as South Africa was one of the important centers of human evolution . It was inhabited by Australopithecines since at least 2.5 million years ago . Modern human settlement occurred around 125,000 years ago in the Middle Stone Age, as shown by archaeological discoveries at Klasies River Caves . The first human habitation is associated with a DNA group originating in a northwestern area of southern Africa and still prevalent in the indigenous Khoisan (Khoi and San). Southern Africa was reached later by the migration of the ethnically different, dark - skinned, Bantu - speaking or African people originating in the northwestern region of southern Africa during the early centuries AD . </P> <P> At the Blombos cave Professor Raymond Dart discovered the skull of a 2.51 million year old Taung Child in 1924, the first example of Australopithecus africanus ever found . Following in Dart's footsteps Robert Broom discovered a new much more robust hominid in 1938 Paranthropus robustus at Kromdraai, and in 1947 uncovered several more examples of Australopithecus africanus at Sterkfontein . In further research at the Blombos cave in 2002, stones were discovered engraved with grid or cross-hatch patterns, dated to some 70,000 years ago . This has been interpreted as the earliest example ever discovered of abstract art or symbolic art created by Homo sapiens . </P>

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