Everything about Khoisan totally explained
» This article is about the Khoisan ethnic group. For the Khoisan language group, see Khoisan languages.
Khoisan (increasingly commonly spelled
Khoesan or
Khoe-San) is the name for two major
ethnic groups of
Southern Africa. They are also called by some the
Capoid race. From the beginning of the
Upper Paleolithic period, hunting and gathering cultures known as the
Sangoan occupied southern
Africa in areas where annual
rainfall is less than 40 inches (1016mm)—and today's San and Khoi people resemble the ancient Sangoan skeletal remains. The Khoisan people were the original inhabitants of much of southern Africa before the southward
Bantu expansion — coming down the east and west coasts of Africa — and later
European colonization. Both Khoi and San people share physical and linguistic characteristics, and it seems clear that the Khoi branched forth from the San by adopting the practice of herding cattle and goats from neighboring
Bantu-speaking groups.
Culture
Culturally they're divided into the
hunter gatherer San (commonly known as
Bushmen, although this can be interpreted as derogatory) and the pastoral
Khoi (sometimes known as
Hottentots, although this is generally considered obsolete and sometimes offensive). The
Khoisan languages are noted for their
click consonants.
Over the centuries the many branches of the Khoisan peoples were absorbed or displaced by Bantu speaking societies who were migrating south in search of new lands, most notably the
Xhosa and
Zulu, who both have adopted some Khoisan clicks and loan words into their respective languages. The Khoisan survived in the desert or in areas with winter rains which were not suitable for Bantu crops. During the colonial era they lived in
South Africa,
Namibia and
Botswana, and were massacred in great numbers by
Dutch,
British, and
German settlers in acts of
genocide (for example the
Herero and Namaqua Genocide). But still the vast majority of the Khoisan were exterminated in most areas by the inward coming Bantu tribes who were responsible for their population decline and ultimately to their complete decline in almost everywhere except the Kalahari where they couldn't farm; thus the Bantu tribes are more responsible than the later Europeans in the great reduction of numbers of the Khoisan. They contributed greatly to the ancestry of some parts of South Africa's
coloured population. Today many of the San live in parts of the
Kalahari Desert where they're better able to preserve much of their cherished culture.
Oldest human group?
According to Knight et al. (2003)
Y-haplogroup A, the most diverse or oldest-diverging
Y haplogroup transmitted purely by
patrilineal descent, is today present in various Khoisan groups at frequencies of 12-44%, and the other Y-haplogroups present have been formed by recent admixture of Bantu male lineages E3a (18-54%), and in some groups, noticeable Pygmy traces are visible (B2b). The Khoisan also show the largest
genetic diversity in
matrilineally transmitted
mtDNA of all human populations. Their original mtDNA haplogroups
L1d and L1k are one of the oldest-diverging female lineages as well. However, analysis of neutral
autosomal (inherited through either parent) genes finds that the Khoisan are similar to other sub-Saharan African populations.
The presence of Haplogroup A, especially the subclade A3b2, in
East Africa have led some to speculate on an ancient connection between those populations and the Khoisan, although the negigibly small frequencies of the A haplogroup that were observed in some recent genetic studies on East Africans puts this theory in serious doubt.
One interpretation is that the Khoisan are the earliest-diverging human group, or even a group that has preserved the original human lifestyle along with genetics. More conservatively, it can be said that the patrilineal or matrilineal descent of most individuals in most other human groups have passed through common
genetic bottlenecks that are later than the
most recent common patrilineal ancestor or
most recent common matrilineal ancestor shared by all humans, and that the ancestors of the Khoisan avoided these particular bottlenecks. Such bottlenecks might be associated simply with the chance reproductive success of particular males, or with the settlement and subsequent expansion of a small group (for example modern humans venturing
out of Africa, or the
Sahara Pump Theory, or recovery from disasters like the
Toba catastrophe) or have even more complex causes.
This doesn't show that the Khoisan were particularly isolated through history and prehistory; in fact, the autosomal genes demonstrate interchange with other African populations.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Khoisan'.
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