This article is about the Khoisan ethnic group. For the Khoisan language group, see Khoisan languages. The Khoisan languages (also Khoesaan languages) are the indigenous languages of southern and eastern Africa; in southern Africa their speakers are the Khoi

Khoisan
Total population
Regions with significant populations
Southern Africa
Languages
Khoisan languages
Religions
Animist
Related ethnic groups
perhaps Sandawe

Khoisan (increasingly commonly spelled Khoesan or Khoe-San) is the name for two major ethnic groups of Southern Africa. Southern Africa is the Southernmost Region of the African Continent, variably defined by Geography or Geopolitics. The Khoisan languages (also Khoesaan languages) are the indigenous languages of southern and eastern Africa; in southern Africa their speakers are the Khoi Animism (from Latin anima ( Soul, Life) commonly refers to a religious belief that Souls or Spirits exist in Animals Southern Africa is the Southernmost Region of the African Continent, variably defined by Geography or Geopolitics. They are also called by some the Capoid race. See also Khoisan The Capoid race (named after the Cape of Good Hope) is regarded by many as a separate race from the Congoid (formerly The term race or racial group usually refers to the concept of categorizing Humans into Populations or groups on the basis of various sets 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 Upper Paleolithic (or Upper Palaeolithic) is the third and last subdivision of the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age as it is understood in Europe Africa The Sangoan industry is the name given by Archaeologists to a Palaeolithic tool manufacturing style which may have developed from the earlier Acheulian Rain is Liquid precipitation. On Earth it is the condensation of atmospheric Water vapor into drops heavy enough to fall often making it to 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. The Bantu expansion was a millennia-long series of migrations of speakers of the original proto- Bantu language group 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. The Bantu languages (technically Narrow Bantu languages) constitute a grouping belonging to the Niger-Congo family

Culture

Culturally they are 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). A hunter-gatherer society is one whose primary subsistence method involves the direct procurement of edible plants and animals from the wild Foraging and Hunting The Bushmen, San, Sho, Basarwa, ǃKung or Khwe are indigenous people of southern Africa that spans most areas of South Africa The Khoisan languages are noted for their click consonants. The Khoisan languages (also Khoesaan languages) are the indigenous languages of southern and eastern Africa; in southern Africa their speakers are the Khoi Clicks are speech sounds such as English tsk! tsk! used to express disapproval or the tchick! used to spur on a horse

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. See also Xhosa language The Xhosa (ǁʰɔsɑ( people are speakers of Bantu languages living in south-east South Africa, and in the last two The Zulu ( IsiZulu: amaZulu) are the largest South African ethnic group of an estimated 10-11 million people who live mainly in the province of KwaZulu-Natal 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. The Republic of South Africa (also known by other official names) is a country located at the southern tip of the continent of Africa Namibia, officially the Republic of Namibia, is a country in Southern Africa on the Atlantic coast The Republic of Botswana (Lefatshe la Botswana is a Landlocked nation in Southern Africa. Today many of the San live in parts of the Kalahari Desert where they are better able to preserve much of their cherished culture.

The distribution of the Khoi-San language family can be seen in this map (in green) of African language families. The Khoisan languages (also Khoesaan languages) are the indigenous languages of southern and eastern Africa; in southern Africa their speakers are the Khoi

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). In Human genetics, Haplogroup A (M91 is a Y-chromosome haplogroup. In Human genetics, a Human Y-chromosome DNA haplogroup is a Haplogroup defined by differences in the non- recombining portions of DNA from the Patrilineality (aka agnatic kinship) is a system in which one belongs to one's father's lineage it generally involves the Inheritance of property names or titles The Khoisan also show the largest genetic diversity in matrilineally transmitted mtDNA of all human populations. Genetic diversity is a level of Biodiversity that refers to the total number of genetic characteristics in the genetic makeup of a species Matrilineality is a system in which lineage is traced through the mother and maternal ancestors Mitochondrial DNA ( mtDNA) is the DNA located in Organelles called mitochondria. Their original mtDNA haplogroups L1d and L1k are one of the oldest-diverging female lineages as well. In Human genetics, Haplogroup L1 is a human mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA haplogroup. However, analysis of neutral autosomal (inherited through either parent) genes finds that the Khoisan are similar to other sub-Saharan African populations. An autosome is a non-sex Chromosome. It is an ordinarily paired type of chromosome that is the same in both Sexes of a species.

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. East Africa is the Easternmost Region of the African Continent. ^[1]

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. A population bottleneck (or genetic bottleneck) is an Evolutionary event in which a significant percentage of a population or species is killed or otherwise prevented In human Genetics, Y-chromosomal Adam ( Y- MRCA) is the patrilineal Human Most recent common ancestor (MRCA from whom all Mitochondrial Eve ( mt-mrca) is the name given by researchers to the woman who is defined as the Matrilineal most recent common ancestor (MRCA for all currently 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 (e. g. 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. In Paleoanthropology, the recent African origin of modern humans is one of two hypotheses of the origin of anatomically modern humans Homo sapiens sapiens The Sahara Pump Theory explains how flora and fauna left Africa to penetrate the Middle East and beyond to Europe and Asia According to the Toba catastrophe theory, 70000 to 75000 years ago a supervolcanic event at Lake Toba, on Sumatra, reduced the world's human population

This does not show that the Khoisan were particularly isolated through history and prehistory; in fact, the autosomal genes demonstrate interchange with other African populations.

References

Bibliography

• Barnard, Alan (1992) Hunters and Herders of Southern Africa: A Comparative Ethnography of the Khoisan Peoples. New York; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992.

• Barnard, Alan (2004) Mutual Aid and the Foraging Mode of Thought: Re-reading Kropotkin on the Khoisan. Social Evolution & History 3/1: 3-21. Social Evolution & History (sometimes abbreviated as SEH) is an international journal focused on the development of human societies in the past present and future

• Lee, Richard B. (1976), Kalahari Hunter-Gatherers: Studies of the !Kung San and Their Neighbors, Richard B. Richard Borshay Lee (born 1937 is a Canadian Anthropologist. Lee has studied at the University of Toronto and University of California Berkeley Lee and Irven DeVore, eds. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

• Lee, Richard B. (1979), The !Kung San: Men, Women, and Work in a Foraging Society. Richard Borshay Lee (born 1937 is a Canadian Anthropologist. Lee has studied at the University of Toronto and University of California Berkeley Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

• Coon, Carleton: The Living Races of Man (1965)

• Rick Kittles and S. O. Y. Keita (1999), Interpreting African Genetic Diversity, African Archaeological Review, Vol. 16, No 2. [1]

• Knight, Alec, et al. : African Y chromosome and mtDNA divergence provides insight into the history of click languages. Current Biology, 13, 464-473 (2003). [2]

• 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. The Harmless People.

• P. Underhill et al. (2000), "Y chromosome sequence variation and the history of human populations": Nature Genetics, 26, 358-361 [3]

External links

• The Khoisan
• Home of the Southern African San
• "Khoesan languages" from Web Resources for African Languages