Summary Since the 1980s, the field of anthracology has continued to expand in Southern Africa to study the interaction between past human societies and their environments, including plant resources and forest management from prehistoric times. To answer such questions, the need for comparative wood anatomy analyses of the local taxa is of particular relevance in this rich species environment to perform rigorous taxonomic identification. This paper introduces the first computer-assisted identification tool specifically designed for the analysis of archaeological charcoals from Southern Africa. This online database, called SACHA for Southern African CHArcoals, is accessible via the following link: https://sacha.identificationkey.org/ . It currently includes anatomical descriptions, as well as ecological and ethnobotanical information for 68 taxa of modern specimens collected in the Savanna Biome. An identification key is available on the Xper 3 online platform, which is designed for descriptive data management and interactive identification. This article presents a survey of the existing reference collections on Southern African woods and charcoals and proposes an overview of the development of computerised tools for systematic wood descriptions and identification keys. The SACHA database can be easily updated and enriched without requiring computer science skills. Furthermore, it can serve as a training tool for beginners in wood anatomy. The database offers an online interactive key option, a fact sheet catalogue, and conventional dichotomous and tabular keys for offline or printed versions. These functions are facilitated by the various export formats that are available in the database.