He’s possibly the only reoccurring black character, and yes it is very much a product of its time.
In defense of the authors the Gauls are all depicted with large bulbous noses, the Romans with Roman noses, etc; all cariceturs. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caricature.
In the attached image you can see Obelix is also depicted as a “knuckle dragger” (at times). The character leading them is a Roman.
This second example shows the Vikings.
We had the teams update at work, with the endless notifications to let me know that a new version was coming, would I like to update early, on the 1st the update will be forced …