Khoisan#Origins

The compound term Khoisan / Khoesān is a modern anthropological convention in use since the early-to-mid 20th century. Khoisan is a coinage by Leonhard Schulze in the 1920s and popularised by Isaac Schapera.{{cite book |title=The Khoisan peoples of South Africa: Bushmen and Hottentots |url=https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.283438 |publisher= Routledge |year=1930 |author-link= Isaac Schapera |first=Isaac |last= Schapera}} It entered wider usage during the 1960s, based on the proposal of a Khoisan language family by Joseph Greenberg.

During the Colonial/Apartheid era, Afrikaans-speaking persons with partial Khoesān ancestry were historically also grouped as Cape Blacks ({{langx|af|Kaap Swartes}}) or Western Cape Blacks ({{langx|af|Wes-Kaap Swartes}}). This was done to distinguish them from the Bantu-speaking peoples, the other indigenous African population of South Africa who also had significant Khoe-San ancestry.{{cite journal |last1= Christopher |first1=A. J. |title='To Define the Indefinable': Population Classification and the Census in South Africa |journal=Area |date=2002 |volume=34 |issue=4 |pages=401–408 |doi=10.1111/1475-4762.00097 |jstor= 20004271 |bibcode= 2002Area...34..401C }}

The term Khoisan (also spelled KhoiSan, Khoi-San, Khoe-SanThe hyphenated spelling Khoe-San or Khoi-San is recent (post-1990). Note that this usage is distinct from the occasional usage of Khoi-San for the Khoe-speaking subset of the San, e.g. "the Ai-San, the Kun-San, the Au-ai-san, the An-San, the Matsana-Khoi-San, and the Bushmen of Otave" in John Noble, Illustrated Official Handbook of the Cape and South Africa (1893), p. 395. Spellings Khoi-San and Khoe-San in Mohamed Adhikar, Burdened by Race: Coloured Identities in Southern Africa (2009), [https://books.google.com/books?id=_wcVFSyt7mgC&pg=PA148 p. 148].

) was also introduced in South African usage as a self-designation after the end of apartheid in the late 1990s. Since the 2010s, there has been a Khoisan activist movement, demanding recognition and land rights from the government and the white minority which owns large parts of the country's private land.

{{cite web| url= https://www.enca.com/south-africa/khoisan-march-parliament-demand-land-rights | title= Khoisan march to Parliament to demand land rights| website= ENCA.com| date= 3 December 2015| archiveurl= https://web.archive.org/web/20220315194336/https://www.enca.com/south-africa/khoisan-march-parliament-demand-land-rights | archivedate= March 15, 2022| accessdate= March 24, 2025}}{{cite news|url= https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2017/12/24/cyril-ramaphosa-finally-meets-khoisan-activists-at-union-buildings_a_23316182/ | title= Cyril Ramaphosa Finally Meets Khoisan Activists At Union Buildings| website= huffingtonpost.co.uk| date= 24 December 2017| publisher= | accessdate= March 24, 2025}}

{{cite web| url= https://www.iol.co.za/capeargus/news/illegitimate-khoisan-leaders-are-trying-to-exploit-new-bill-14488376 | title= Illegitimate Khoisan leaders are trying to exploit new bill| website=IOL.co.za| date= 17 April 2018}}

File:San-Mann beim Sammeln der Teufelskralle (Namibia).jpg]]

{{further|Peopling of Africa|Haplogroup L0|Proto-Human language#Phonemic diversity}}

{{further|Klasies River Caves|Boomplaas Cave|Blombos cave}}

File:InitialExpansionMitogenome.PNG

It is suggested that the ancestors of the modern Khoisan expanded to southern Africa (from East or Central Africa) before 150,000 years ago and possibly as early as before 260,000 years ago.{{cite journal |last1=Schlebusch |first1=Carina M. |last2=Malmström |first2=Helena |last3=Günther |first3=Torsten |last4=Sjödin |first4=Per |last5=Coutinho |first5=Alexandra |last6=Edlund |first6=Hanna |last7=Munters |first7=Arielle R. |last8=Vicente |first8=Mário |last9=Steyn |first9=Maryna |last10=Soodyall |first10=Himla |last11=Lombard |first11=Marlize |last12=Jakobsson |first12=Mattias |title=Southern African ancient genomes estimate modern human divergence to 350,000 to 260,000 years ago |journal=Science |date=2017 |volume=358 |issue=6363 |pages=652–655 |doi=10.1126/science.aao6266|pmid=28971970 |bibcode=2017Sci...358..652S |doi-access=free |display-authors=2}}Estimated split times given in the source cited (in kya): Human-Neanderthal: 530-690, Deep Human [H. sapiens]: 250-360, NKSP-SKSP: 150-190, Out of Africa (OOA): 70–120. By the beginning of the MIS 5 "megadrought" 130,000 years ago, there were two ancestral population clusters in Africa; bearers of mt-DNA haplogroup L0 in southern Africa, ancestral to the Khoi-San, and bearers of haplogroup L1-6 in central/eastern Africa, ancestral to everyone else.{{citation needed|date=August 2022}} This group gave rise to the San population of hunter gatherers. A much later wave of migration, around or before the beginning of the Common Era,{{cite web | last=Crowe | first=Tim | title=How the origin of the KhoiSan tells us that 'race' has no place in human ancestry | website=The Conversation | date=4 February 2016 | url=http://theconversation.com/how-the-origin-of-the-khoisan-tells-us-that-race-has-no-place-in-human-ancestry-53594 | access-date=4 August 2022}} gave rise to the Khoe people, who were pastoralists.{{cite web | title=The Khoisan | website=South African History Online | date=16 January 2020 | url=https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/khoisan | access-date=4 August 2022}}

Due to their early expansion and separation, the populations ancestral to the Khoisan have been estimated as having represented the "largest human population" during the majority of the anatomically modern human timeline, from their early separation before 150 kya until the recent peopling of Eurasia some 70 kya.{{Cite journal |title=Khoisan hunter-gatherers have been the largest population throughout most of modern-human demographic history |last1=Kim |first1=Hie Lim |last2=Ratan |first2=Aakrosh |last3=Perry |first3=George H. |last4=Montenegro |first4=Alvaro |last5=Miller |first5=Webb |last6=Schuster |first6=Stephan C.|display-authors=2 |journal=Nature Communications |date=4 December 2014 |doi=10.1038/ncomms6692 |publisher=Nature Publishing Group |volume=5 |pages=5692 |pmid=25471224 |pmc=4268704|bibcode=2014NatCo...5.5692K }}. [https://www.science.org/content/article/dwindling-african-tribe-may-have-been-most-populous-group-planet Science, December 4, 2014] They were much more widespread than today, their modern distribution being due to their decimation in the course of the Bantu expansion. They were dispersed throughout much of southern and southeastern Africa. There was also a significant back-migration of bearers of L0 towards eastern Africa between 120 and 75 kya. Rito et al. (2013) speculate that pressure from such back-migration may even have contributed to the dispersal of East African populations out of Africa at about 70 kya.{{cite journal |last1=Rito |first1=Teresa |last2=Richards |first2=Martin B. |last3=Fernandes |first3=Verónica |last4=Alshamali |first4=Farida |last5=Cerny |first5=Viktor |last6=Pereira |first6=Luísa |last7=Soares |first7=Pedro |last8=Gilbert |first8=Tom |display-authors=2|title=The First Modern Human Dispersals across Africa |journal=PLOS ONE |date=2013 |volume=8 |issue=11 |pages=e80031 |doi=10.1371/journal.pone.0080031 |pmid=24236171 |pmc=3827445 |bibcode=2013PLoSO...880031R |doi-access=free }}

Recent work has suggested that the multi-regional hypothesis may be supported by current human population genetic data. A 2023 study published in the journal Nature suggests that current genetic data may be best understood as reflecting internal admixtures of multiple population sources across Africa, including ancestral populations of the Khoisan.

{{further|Kalahari Debate|Sangoan}}

File:Schematic representation of the major inferred migrations involving mtDNA haplogroup L0.png

The San populations ancestral to the Khoisan were spread throughout much of southern and eastern Africa throughout the Late Stone Age after about 75 ka. A further expansion dated to about 20 ka has been proposed based

on the distribution of the L0d haplogroup. Rosti et al. suggest a connection of this recent expansion with the spread of click consonants to eastern African languages (Hadza language).

The Late Stone Age Sangoan industry occupied southern Africa in areas where annual rainfall is less than a metre (1000 mm; 39.4 in).Lee, Richard B. (1976), Kalahari Hunter-Gatherers: Studies of the ǃKung San and Their Neighbors, Richard B. Lee and Irven DeVore, eds. Cambridge: Harvard University Press The contemporary San and Khoi peoples resemble those represented by the ancient Sangoan skeletal remains.

Against the traditional interpretation that find a common origin for the Khoi and San, other evidence has suggested that the ancestors of the Khoi peoples are relatively recent pre-Bantu agricultural immigrants to southern Africa who abandoned agriculture as the climate dried and either joined the San as hunter-gatherers or retained pastoralism.{{Citation|last=Güldemann|first=Tom|title=Changing Profile when Encroaching on Forager Territory: Toward the History of the Khoe-Kwadi Family in Southern Africa |date=2020|work=The Language of Hunter-Gatherers|pages=114–146|publisher=Cambridge University Press|doi=10.1017/9781139026208.007|isbn=978-1-139-02620-8|s2cid=240934697 }}

With the hypothesised arrival of pastoralists & bantoid agro-pastoralists in southern Africa starting around 2,300 years ago, linguistic development is later seen in the click consonants and loan words from ancient Khoe-san languages into the evolution of blended agro-pastoralist & hunter-gatherer communities that would eventually evolve into the now extant, amalgamated modern native linguistic communities found in South Africa, Botswana & Namibia (e.g. in South African Xhosa, Sotho, Tswana, Zulu people.){{cite journal |last1=Petersen |first1=Desiree C. |last2=Libiger |first2=Ondrej |last3=Tindall |first3=Elizabeth A. |last4=Hardie |first4=Rae-Anne |last5=Hannick |first5=Linda I. |last6=Glashoff |first6=Richard H. |last7=Mukerji |first7=Mitali |last8=Fernandez |first8=Pedro |last9=Haacke |first9=Wilfrid |last10=Schork |first10=Nicholas J. |last11=Hayes |first11=Vanessa M. |title=Complex Patterns of Genomic Admixture within Southern Africa |journal=PLOS Genetics |date=14 March 2013 |volume=9 |issue=3 |pages=e1003309 |doi=10.1371/journal.pgen.1003309 |pmc=3597481 |pmid=23516368 |doi-access=free }}

Today these groups represent the quantitative majority of extant admixed ancient Khoe-San descendants by the millions.{{cite journal |last1=May |first1=Andrew |last2=Hazelhurst |first2=Scott |last3=Li |first3=Yali |last4=Norris |first4=Shane A |last5=Govind |first5=Nimmisha |last6=Tikly |first6=Mohammed |last7=Hon |first7=Claudia |last8=Johnson |first8=Keith J |last9=Hartmann |first9=Nicole |last10=Staedtler |first10=Frank |last11=Ramsay |first11=Michèle |title=Genetic diversity in black South Africans from Soweto |journal=BMC Genomics |date=December 2013 |volume=14 |issue=1 |page=644 |doi=10.1186/1471-2164-14-644 |pmc=3850641 |pmid=24059264 |doi-access=free }}

{{further|Hottentot (racial term){{!}}Hottentot|Khoikhoi|Nama people|Damara people|Khoe languages}}

{{further|San people|ǃKung|Kxʼa languages}}

The Khoikhoi entered the historical record with their first contact with Portuguese explorers, about 1,000 years after their displacement by the Bantu. Local population dropped after the Khoi were exposed to smallpox from Europeans. The Khoi waged more frequent attacks against Europeans when the Dutch East India Company enclosed traditional grazing land for farms. Khoikhoi social organisation were profoundly damaged and, in the end, destroyed by colonial expansion and land seizure from the late 17th century onwards. As social structures broke down, some Khoikhoi people settled on farms and became bondsmen (bondservants) or farm workers; many were incorporated into existing Khoi clan and family groups of the Xhosa people. Georg Schmidt, a Moravian Brother from Herrnhut, Saxony, now Germany, founded Genadendal in 1738, which was the first mission station in southern Africa,The Pear Tree Blossoms, Bernhard Krueger, Hamburg, Germany among the Khoi people in Baviaanskloof in the Riviersonderend Mountains. Early European settlers sometimes intermarried with Khoikhoi women, resulting in a sizeable mixed-race population now known as the Griqua. The Griqua people would migrate to what was at that time the frontierlands of the Xhosa native reserves and establish Griqualand East, which contained a mostly Xhosa population.

File:Khoikhoi-nedersetting - 1711.png settlement in Table Bay, as depicted in an engraving in Abraham Bogaert's Historische Reizen, 1711]]

Andries Stockenström facilitated the creation of the "Kat River" Khoi settlement near the eastern frontier of the Cape Colony. The settlements thrived and expanded, and Kat River quickly became a large and successful region of the Cape that subsisted more or less autonomously. The people were predominantly Afrikaans-speaking Gonaqua Khoi, but the settlement also began to attract other Khoi, Xhosa and mixed-race groups of the Cape.

The so-called "Bushman wars" 1673–1677 were to a large extent the response of the San after their dispossession.{{citation needed|date=May 2018}}

At the start of the 18th century, the Khoikhoi in the Western Cape lived in a state dominated by the Dutch. By the end of the century the majority of the Khoisan operated as 'wage labourers', not that dissimilar to slaves. Geographically, the further away the labourer was from Cape Town, the more difficult it became to transport agricultural produce to the markets. The issuing of grazing licences north of the Berg River in what was then the Tulbagh Basin propelled colonial expansion in the area. This system of land relocation led to the Khoijhou losing their land and livestock as well as dramatic change in the social, economic and political development.{{cite book |last1=James |first1=Wilmot Godfrey |last2=Simons |first2=Mary |title=Class, Caste and Color: A Social and Economic History of the South African Western Cape |date=2008 |publisher=Transaction Publishers |isbn=978-1-4128-1970-1 |pages=1–10 }}

After the defeat of the Xhosa rebellion in 1853, the new Cape Government endeavoured to grant the Khoi political rights to avert future racial discontent. The government enacted the Cape franchise in 1853, which decreed that all male citizens meeting a low property test, regardless of colour, had the right to vote and to seek election in Parliament. The property test was an indirect way by the British Cape Government (who took over from the Dutch in 1812) to retain a racist based system of governance because on average only white people owned property adequate to meet the test.{{cite web |last1=Fraser |first1=Ashleigh |title=A Long Walk To Universal Franchise In South Africa |url=https://hsf.org.za/publications/hsf-briefs/a-long-walk-to-universal-franchise-in-south-africa-1 |publisher=Helen Suzman Foundation |date=3 June 2013 }}

In the Herero and Nama genocide in German South-West Africa, over 10,000 Nama are estimated to have been killed during 1904–1908.Jeremy Sarkin-Hughes (2008) Colonial Genocide and Reparations Claims in the 21st Century: The Socio-Legal Context of Claims under International Law by the Herero against Germany for Genocide in Namibia, 1904–1908, p. 142, Praeger Security International, Westport, Conn. {{ISBN|978-0-313-36256-9}}{{cite book |author = Moses, A. Dirk | year = 2008 | title = Empire, Colony, Genocide: Conquest, Occupation and Subaltern Resistance in World History | location = New York | publisher = Berghahn Books | isbn = 9781845454524}}

File:Buschmänner (Namibia).jpg

The San of the Kalahari were described in Specimens of Bushman Folklore by Wilhelm H. I. Bleek and Lucy C. Lloyd (1911). They were brought to the globalised world's attention in the 1950s by South African author Laurens van der Post in a six-part television documentary. The Ancestral land conflict in Botswana concerns the Central Kalahari Game Reserve (CKGR), established in 1961 for wildlife, while the San were permitted to continue their hunter-gatherer lifestyle. In the 1990s, the government of Botswana began a policy of "relocating" CKGR residents outside the reserve. In 2002, the government cut off all services to CKGR residents. A legal battle began, and in 2006 the High Court of Botswana ruled that the residents had been forcibly and unconstitutionally removed. The policy of relocation continued, however, and in 2012 the San people (Basarwa) appealed to the United Nations to force the government to recognise their land and resource rights.

Following the end of apartheid in 1994, the term "Khoisan" has gradually come to be used as a self-designation by South African Khoikhoi as representing the "first nations" of South Africa vis-a-vis the ruling Bantu majority. A conference on "Khoisan Identities and Cultural Heritage" was organised by the University of the Western Cape in 1997.{{cite web|last1=Hitchcock|first1=Robert K.|last2=Biesele|first2=Megan|title=San, Khwe, Basarwa, or Bushmen? Terminology, Identity, and Empowerment in Southern Africa|url=http://www.khoisanpeoples.org/indepth/ind-identity.htm|work=Kalahari Peoples Fund|access-date=15 January 2014|archive-date=2 August 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200802215202/http://www.khoisanpeoples.org/indepth/ind-identity.htm|url-status=dead}} and "Khoisan activism" has been reported in the South African media beginning in 2015.

The South African government allowed Khoisan families (up until 1998) to pursue land claims which existed prior to 1913. The South African Deputy Chief Land Claims Commissioner, Thami Mdontswa, has said that constitutional reform would be required to enable Khoisan people to pursue further claims to land from which their direct ancestors were removed prior to 9 June 1913.{{cite web|url=http://www.sabc.co.za/news/a/8a103b004178fb09b0aaffb1c784b7fa/Possible-constitution-changes-for-Khoisan-land-claims|title=SABC News – Possible constitution changes for Khoisan land claims: Wednesday 16 October 2013|author=Mercedes Besent|work=sabc.co.za|access-date=11 January 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161123214235/http://www.sabc.co.za/news/a/8a103b004178fb09b0aaffb1c784b7fa/Possible-constitution-changes-for-Khoisan-land-claims|archive-date=23 November 2016|url-status=dead}}

File:Sameul Daniell - Khoisan besig om sprinkane te braai - 1804.jpg|"Bosjemans frying locusts", aquatint by Samuel Daniell (1805).

File:In Search of the San 08.jpg|San woman in Namibia (1984 photograph)

File:Bushman camp.jpg|Bushman camp 2005

In 2019, scientists from the University of the Free State discovered 8,000-year-old carvings made by the Khoisan people. The carvings depicted a hippopotamus, horse, and antelope in the 'Rain Snake' Dyke of the Vredefort impact structure, which may have spiritual significance regarding the rain-making mythology of the Khoisan.{{Cite web|last=EDT|first=Hannah Osborne On 6/13/19 at 11:49 AM|date=2019-06-13|title=8,000-year-old carvings by ancient humans discovered in world's biggest asteroid impact crater|url=https://www.newsweek.com/ancient-carvings-biggest-impact-crater-1443822|access-date=2020-09-17|website=Newsweek|language=en}}

{{Main|Herero and Nama genocide}}

During the Herero and Nama genocide, about 10,000 Nama, a Khoekhoe group, and an unknown number of San people were killed in an extermination campaign by the German Colonial Empire between 1904 and 1908.

{{See also|Ancestral land conflict in Botswana}}

In Botswana, many of the indigenous San people have been forcibly relocated from their land to reservations. To make them relocate, they were denied access to water on their land and faced arrest if they hunted, which was their primary source of food.{{cite news |url= https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-24821867 |title=Botswana bushmen: Modern life is destroying us |work=BBC News |access-date=24 July 2016 |date=7 January 2014 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20160325015238/http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-24821867 |archive-date=25 March 2016 |url-status=live}} Their lands lie in the middle of the world's richest diamond field. Officially, the government denies that there is any link to mining and claims the relocation is to preserve the wildlife and ecosystem, even though the San people have lived sustainably on the land for millennia. On the reservations they struggle to find employment, and alcoholism is rampant.

{{main|Khoisan languages}}

Image:African language families en.svg spoken by Khoi and San peoples, plus the Sandawe language of the Sandawe people and Hadza language of Tanzania.]]

The "Khoisan languages" were proposed as a linguistic phylum by Joseph Greenberg in 1955.{{cite book |last1=Greenberg |first1=Joseph Harold |title=Studies in African Linguistic Classification |date=1955 |publisher=Compass Publishing Company |oclc=654476975 }}{{page needed|date=June 2023}}{{primary source inline|date=June 2023}} Their genetic relationship was questioned later in the 20th century, and the term now serves mostly as a convenience term without implying genetic unity, much like "Papuan" and "Australian" are.{{cite book |last1=Sands |first1=Bonny Eva |title=Eastern and Southern African Khoisan: Evaluating Claims of Distant Linguistic Relationships |date=1998 |publisher=R. Köppe |isbn=978-3-89645-142-2 }}{{page needed|date=June 2023}} Their most notable uniting feature is their click consonants.

They are categorised in two families, and a number of possible language isolates.

The Kxʼa family was proposed in 2010, combining the ǂʼAmkoe (ǂHoan) language with the ǃKung (Juu) dialect cluster. ǃKung includes about a dozen dialects, with no clear-cut delineation between them. Sands et al. (2010) propose a division into four clusters:

• Northern ǃKung (Sekele), spoken in Angola around the Cunene, Cubango, Cuito, and Cuando rivers (but with many refugees now in Namibia),
• North-Central ǃKung (Ekoka), spoken in Namibia between the Ovambo River and the Angolan border,
• Central ǃKung, spoken around Grootfontein, Namibia, west of the central Omatako River and south of the Ovambo River
• Southeastern ǃKung (Juǀʼhoan), spoken in Botswana east of the Okavango Delta, and northeast Namibia from near Windhoek to Rundu, Gobabis, and the Caprivi Strip.Sands, Bonny (2010). Brenzinger, Matthias; König, Christa, eds. "Juu Subgroups Based on Phonological Patterns". Khoisian Language and Linguistics: the Riezlern Symposium 2003. Cologne, Germany: Rüdiger Köppe: 85–114.

The Khoi (Khoe) family is divided into a Khoikhoi (Khoekhoe and Khoemana dialects) and a Kalahari (Tshu–Khwe) branch. The Kalahari branch of Khoe includes Shua and Tsoa (with dialects), and Kxoe, Naro, Gǁana and ǂHaba (with dialects). Khoe also has been tentatively aligned with Kwadi ("Kwadi–Khoe"), and more speculatively with the Sandawe language of Tanzania ("Khoe–Sandawe"). The Hadza language of Tanzania has been associated with the Khoisan group due to the presence of click consonants.

{{anchor|Genetics}}

{{further|Haplogroup A-P305|Haplogroup A-L1085|Haplogroup L0}}

The Khoisan are one of the only populations with epicanthic folds outside of East Asia. They typically have hair texture of the tightest possible curl, a form of kinky hair sometimes referred to as "peppercorn" because of how it can roll into separate rounds on the scalp.

Charles Darwin wrote about the Khoisan and sexual selection in The Descent of Man in 1882, commenting that their steatopygia, seen primarily in females, evolved through sexual selection in human evolution, and that "the posterior part of the body projects in a wonderful manner".{{cite book | title = The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex | author = Charles Darwin | year = 1882 | location = London | publisher = John Murray | page = 578 | url = http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?itemID=F955&viewtype=text&pageseq=1}} Historically, some females were observed by anthropologists to exhibit elongated labia minora, which sometimes projected as much as 10 cm below the vulva when standing.{{Cite book|last=Schapera|first=Isaac|title=The Khoisan Peoples of South Africa: Bushmen and Hottentots|publisher=Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd.|year=1930|location=London|pages=59, 62–63, 243|language=English}} Though well documented, the motivations behind this practice and the voices of the women who perform it are rarely explored in the research.{{Cite journal|last1=Bagnol|first1=Brigitte|last2=Mariano|first2=Esmeralda|date=2008|title=Elongation of the labia minora and use of vaginal products to enhance eroticism: Can these practices be considered FGM?|url=https://d1wqtxts1xzle7.cloudfront.net/14927587/fjem_2_2008-with-cover-page-v2.pdf?Expires=1643362359&Signature=crkfz7e8SWl60cIXqewObu7uSfvLSRG7QG1KG1q8Q8RXJDcHYHmSQsBRQCMH41XFY-heyCmpAMHcFl3fcVV5Ef08L8qp5-0fvNd941UxgfvK26f1dvUnIfn3s22Oq5lEUMJlxiY4YeM1ZQaZJ37t7~DjqMliyv1nThAuE3yTjsnSNIFyAR2125dRftlNctLPmisgkQWZhLy14vyVRfyYn2rQF5H7eDjXxW9kDr4BhoXiNDbUpnMhF0Kgg3Oi43qUhOUEVXLq6SXratum-RszjZu3dgSaX-llWdqsYtDo3he8ai6ouRWT4FpPbQ~X2g1IXL1LxnANAMUbHVMi9w2ENA__&Key-Pair-Id=APKAJLOHF5GGSLRBV4ZA#page=42|journal=Finnish Journal of Ethnicity and Migration|volume=3|pages=42–53|access-date=2022-01-28|archive-date=2022-01-28|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220128084548/https://d1wqtxts1xzle7.cloudfront.net/14927587/fjem_2_2008-with-cover-page-v2.pdf?Expires=1643362359&Signature=crkfz7e8SWl60cIXqewObu7uSfvLSRG7QG1KG1q8Q8RXJDcHYHmSQsBRQCMH41XFY-heyCmpAMHcFl3fcVV5Ef08L8qp5-0fvNd941UxgfvK26f1dvUnIfn3s22Oq5lEUMJlxiY4YeM1ZQaZJ37t7~DjqMliyv1nThAuE3yTjsnSNIFyAR2125dRftlNctLPmisgkQWZhLy14vyVRfyYn2rQF5H7eDjXxW9kDr4BhoXiNDbUpnMhF0Kgg3Oi43qUhOUEVXLq6SXratum-RszjZu3dgSaX-llWdqsYtDo3he8ai6ouRWT4FpPbQ~X2g1IXL1LxnANAMUbHVMi9w2ENA__&Key-Pair-Id=APKAJLOHF5GGSLRBV4ZA#page=42|url-status=dead}}

In the 1990s, genomic studies of the world's peoples found that the Y chromosome of San men share certain patterns of polymorphisms that are distinct from those of all other populations.{{cite news|url=https://www.science.org/content/article/dwindling-african-tribe-may-have-been-most-populous-group-planet|title=Dwindling African tribe may have been most populous group on planet|work=sciencemag.org}} Because the Y chromosome is highly conserved between generations, this type of DNA test is used to determine when different subgroups separated from one another, and hence their last common ancestry. The authors of these studies suggested that the San may have been one of the first populations to differentiate from the most recent common paternal ancestor of all extant humans.{{cite journal|title=Complete Khoisan and Bantu genomes from Southern Africa| volume=463 |issue=7283 | doi=10.1038/nature08795|journal=Nature|pages=943–947|pmid=20164927|pmc=3890430|year=2010 | last1 = Schuster | first1 = SC | bibcode=2010Natur.463..943S |display-authors=etal }}{{cite web|author=Mayell, Hillary|title= Documentary Redraws Humans' Family Tree|url=http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2002/12/1212_021213_journeyofman.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20021222062034/http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2002/12/1212_021213_journeyofman.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=December 22, 2002|date=December 2002|work=National Geographic}} {{update inline|date=May 2018}}

Various Y-chromosome studies{{cite journal|title=African Y chromosome and mtDNA divergence provides insight into the history of click languages|doi=10.1016/S0960-9822(03)00130-1|year=2003|last1=Knight|first1=Alec|last2=Underhill|first2=Peter A.|last3=Mortensen|first3=Holly M.|last4=Zhivotovsky|first4=Lev A.|last5=Lin|first5=Alice A.|last6=Henn|first6=Brenna M.|last7=Louis|first7=Dorothy|last8=Ruhlen|first8=Merritt|last9=Mountain|first9=Joanna L.|journal=Current Biology|volume=13|issue=6|pages=464–73|pmid=12646128|s2cid=52862939|doi-access=free|bibcode=2003CBio...13..464K }}{{cite journal |last1=Hammer |first1=Michael F. |last2=Karafet |first2=Tatiana M. |last3=Redd |first3=Alan J. |last4=Jarjanazi |first4=Hamdi |last5=Santachiara-Benerecetti |first5=Silvana |last6=Soodyall |first6=Himla |last7=Zegura |first7=Stephen L. |title=Hierarchical Patterns of Global Human Y-Chromosome Diversity |journal=Molecular Biology and Evolution |date=July 2001 |volume=18 |issue=7 |pages=1189–1203 |doi=10.1093/oxfordjournals.molbev.a003906 |pmid=11420360 |doi-access=free }}{{cite journal|vauthors=Naidoo T, Schlebusch CM, Makkan H, Patel P, Mahabeer R, Erasmus JC, Soodyall H |title=Development of a single base extension method to resolve Y chromosome haplogroups in sub-Saharan African populations|doi=10.1186/2041-2223-1-6|year=2010|journal=Investigative Genetics|volume=1|pages=6|pmid=21092339|issue=1|pmc=2988483 |doi-access=free }} since confirmed that the Khoisan carry some of the most divergent (oldest) Y-chromosome haplogroups. These haplogroups are specific sub-groups of haplogroups A and B, the two earliest branches on the human Y-chromosome tree.{{update inline|date=May 2018}}

Similar to findings from Y-chromosome studies, mitochondrial DNA studies also showed evidence that the Khoisan people carry high frequencies of the earliest haplogroup branches in the human mitochondrial DNA tree. The most divergent (oldest) mitochondrial haplogroup, L0d, has been identified at its highest frequencies in the southern African Khoi and San groups.{{cite journal|vauthors=Chen YS, Olckers A, Schurr TG, Kogelnik AM, Huoponen K, Wallace DC |title= mtDNA variation in the South African Kung and Khwe, and their genetic relationships to other African populations|doi=10.1086/302848|year=2000|journal=The American Journal of Human Genetics|volume=66|issue=4|pages=1362–83|pmid=10739760|pmc=1288201}}{{cite journal|title= History of click-speaking populations of Africa inferred from mtDNA and Y chromosome genetic variation|pmid=17656633|year= 2007|last1= Tishkoff|first1= SA|last2= Gonder|first2= MK|last3= Henn|first3= BM|last4= Mortensen|first4= H|last5= Knight|first5= A|last6= Gignoux|first6= C|last7= Fernandopulle|first7= N|last8= Lema|first8= G|last9= Nyambo|first9= TB|last10=Ramakrishnan|first10=U.|last11=Reed|first11=F. A.|last12=Mountain|first12=J. L.|volume= 24|issue= 10|pages= 2180–95|doi= 10.1093/molbev/msm155|journal= Molecular Biology and Evolution|display-authors=8|doi-access= free}}{{cite journal|vauthors=Schlebusch CM, Naidoo T, Soodyall H |title=SNaPshot minisequencing to resolve mitochondrial macro-haplogroups found in Africa|doi=10.1002/elps.200900197|year=2009|journal=Electrophoresis|volume=30|issue=21|pages=3657–64|pmid=19810027|s2cid=19515426}} The distinctiveness of the Khoisan in both matrilineal and patrilineal groupings is a further indicator that they represent a population historically distinct from other Africans.{{cite journal |last1=Pickrell |first1=Joseph K. |last2=Patterson |first2=Nick |last3=Loh |first3=Po-Ru |last4=Lipson |first4=Mark |last5=Berger |first5=Bonnie |last6=Stoneking |first6=Mark |last7=Pakendorf |first7=Brigitte |author7-link=Brigitte Pakendorf|last8=Reich |first8=David |title=Ancient west Eurasian ancestry in southern and eastern Africa |journal=Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences |date=18 February 2014 |volume=111 |issue=7 |pages=2632–2637 |doi=10.1073/pnas.1313787111 |pmid=24550290 |pmc=3932865 |arxiv=1307.8014 |bibcode=2014PNAS..111.2632P |doi-access=free }}

Some genomic studies have further revealed that Khoisan groups have been influenced by 9 to 30% genetic admixture in the last few thousand years from an East African population who carried a Eurasian admixture component.{{Cite journal |last1=Schlebusch |first1=Carina M. |last2=Malmström |first2=Helena |last3=Günther |first3=Torsten |last4=Sjödin |first4=Per |last5=Coutinho |first5=Alexandra |last6=Edlund |first6=Hanna |last7=Munters |first7=Arielle R. |last8=Vicente |first8=Mário |last9=Steyn |first9=Maryna |last10=Soodyall |first10=Himla |last11=Lombard |first11=Marlize |last12=Jakobsson |first12=Mattias |date=2017-11-03 |title=Southern African ancient genomes estimate modern human divergence to 350,000 to 260,000 years ago |journal=Science |volume=358 |issue=6363 |pages=652–655 |doi=10.1126/science.aao6266 |issn=1095-9203 |pmid=28971970|bibcode=2017Sci...358..652S |s2cid=206663925 |doi-access=free }} Furthermore, they place an East African origin for the paternal haplogroup E1b1b found in these Southern African populations,{{Cite journal |last1=Bajić |first1=Vladimir |last2=Barbieri |first2=Chiara |last3=Hübner |first3=Alexander |last4=Güldemann |first4=Tom |last5=Naumann |first5=Christfried |last6=Gerlach |first6=Linda |last7=Berthold |first7=Falko |last8=Nakagawa |first8=Hirosi |last9=Mpoloka |first9=Sununguko W. |last10=Roewer |first10=Lutz |last11=Purps |first11=Josephine |last12=Stoneking |first12=Mark |last13=Pakendorf |first13=Brigitte |date=2018-09-07 |title=Genetic structure and sex-biased gene flow in the history of southern African populations |journal=American Journal of Physical Anthropology |language=en |volume=167 |issue=3 |pages=656–671 |doi=10.1002/ajpa.23694 |issn=0002-9483 |pmc=6667921 |pmid=30192370}} as well as the introduction of pastoralism into the region.{{Cite journal |last1=Vicente |first1=Mário |last2=Lankheet |first2=Imke |last3=Russell |first3=Thembi |last4=Hollfelder |first4=Nina |last5=Coetzee |first5=Vinet |last6=Soodyall |first6=Himla |last7=Jongh |first7=Michael De |last8=Schlebusch |first8=Carina M. |date=2021-12-07 |title=Male-biased migration from East Africa introduced pastoralism into southern Africa |journal=BMC Biology |volume=19 |issue=1 |pages=259 |doi=10.1186/s12915-021-01193-z |issn=1741-7007 |pmc=8650298 |pmid=34872534 |doi-access=free }} The paper also noted that the Bantu expansion had a notable genetic impact in a number of Khoisan groups. On the basis of PCA projections, the East African ancestry identified in the genomes of Khoe-Kwadi speakers and other southern Africans is related to an individual from the Tanzanian Luxmanda.{{Cite journal |last1=Oliveira |first1=Sandra |last2=Fehn |first2=Anne-Maria |last3=Amorim |first3=Beatriz |last4=Stoneking |first4=Mark |last5=Rocha |first5=Jorge |title=Genome-wide variation in the Angolan Namib Desert reveals unique pre-Bantu ancestry |journal=Science Advances |date=2023 |volume=9 |issue=38 |pages=eadh3822 |doi=10.1126/sciadv.adh3822 |issn=2375-2548 |pmid=37738339|doi-access=free |pmc=10516492 |bibcode=2023SciA....9H3822O }}

Geneticists in 2024 sampled ancient 10,000 year old remains from South Africa, Oakhurst Rockshelter. The examined population had a strong genetic continuity with the San and Khoe. The later advent of pastoralism and farming groups in the last 2,000 years would transform the genepool of most parts of Southern Africa, but many Khoisan preserve, and are identical to the genetic signature of the older hunter-gatherers.{{Cite journal |last=Gretzinger |first=Joscha |last2=Gibbon |first2=Victoria E. |last3=Penske |first3=Sandra E. |last4=Sealy |first4=Judith C. |last5=Rohrlach |first5=Adam B. |last6=Salazar-García |first6=Domingo C. |last7=Krause |first7=Johannes |last8=Schiffels |first8=Stephan |date=2024-09-19 |title=9,000 years of genetic continuity in southernmost Africa demonstrated at Oakhurst rockshelter |url=https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-024-02532-3 |journal=Nature Ecology & Evolution |language=en |pages=1–14 |doi=10.1038/s41559-024-02532-3 |issn=2397-334X|doi-access=free |pmc=11541196 }}

On 21 September 2020, the University of Cape Town launched its new Khoi and San Centre, with an undergraduate degree programme planned to be rolled out in the following years. The centre will support and consolidate this collaborative work on research commissions on language (including Khoekhoegowab), sacred human remains, land and gender. Many descendants of Khoisan people still live on the Cape Flats.{{cite web | title=UCT launches milestone Khoi and San Centre | website=UCT News|first=Helen|last= Swingler | date=23 September 2020 | url=http://www.news.uct.ac.za/article/-2020-09-23-uct-launches-milestone-khoi-and-san-centre|publisher=University of Cape Town | access-date=4 January 2021}} 50px Text may have been copied from this source, which is available under a [https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)] licence.

{{Notelist}}

• African Pygmies, group distinct from the Khoisan
• Bantu peoples of South Africa
• Boskop Man
• Early human migrations
• Ethnic groups in South Africa
• Indigenous peoples of Africa
• San religion

{{Clear}}

{{Reflist|30em}}

• Barnard, Alan (2004) Mutual Aid and the Foraging Mode of Thought: Re-reading Kropotkin on the Khoisan. Social Evolution & History 3/1: 3–21.
• Coon, Carleton: The Living Races of Man (1965)
• {{Cite book |last=Diamond |first=Jared |author-link=Jared Diamond |year=1999 |title=Guns, Germs, and Steel |location=New York |publisher=W.W. Norton & Company |isbn=978-0-393-31755-8 |title-link=Guns, Germs, and Steel }}.
• Hogan, C. Michael (2008) [http://www.megalithic.co.uk/article.php?sid=22373&mode=&order=0 "Makgadikgadi"] at Burnham, A. (editor) The Megalithic Portal
• Lee, Richard B. (1979), The ǃKung San: Men, Women, and Work in a Foraging Society. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Smith, Andrew; Malherbe, Candy; Guenther, Mat and Berens, Penny (2000), Bushmen of Southern Africa: Foraging Society in Transition. Athens: Ohio University Press. {{ISBN|0-8214-1341-4}}
• Thomas, Elizabeth Marshall (1958, 1989) The Harmless People.
• Thomas, Elizabeth Marshall (2006). The Old Way: A Story of the First People.

{{commons category}}

• [http://khoisanpeoples.org The Khoisan-speaking Peoples]{{Dead link|date=June 2025 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}
• [http://khoisan.org/ The Khoisan]
• [http://www.san.org.za/ Home of the Southern African San] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210126091535/http://www.san.org.za/ |date=2021-01-26 }}
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20081210183349/http://www.africanlanguages.org/khoesan.html "Khoesan languages"] from Web Resources for African Languages
• [http://uk.news.yahoo.com/africas-khoe-san-were-first-split-other-humans-195425010.html Africa's Khoe-San were first to split from other humans]
• [https://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2012-09/24/earliest-human-genetic-split Khoisan people represent 'earliest' branch off human family tree], By Ian Steadman, 24 September 2012.
• [https://www.gov.za/sites/default/files/gcis_document/201911/4286528-11act3of2019tradkhoisanleadership.pdf Traditional and Khoi-San Leadership Act, 2019] {{in lang|en|af}}

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Category:African nomads

Category:Indigenous peoples of Southern Africa