First People

The Lost History of the Khoisan

Andrew Smith

• Publisher: Jonathan Ball
• Year: 2022
• ISBN:
  9781776191604
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World History
• Index: History

Southern Africa's first people communities are the groups of hunter-gatherers and herders, representing the oldest human lineages in Africa, who migrated from as far as East Africa to settle in what is now Namibia, Botswana and South Africa. These groups, known today as the Khoisan, are represented by the Bushmen (or San) and the Khoe. In First People, archaeologist Andrew Smith examines what we know about southern Africa's earliest inhabitants, drawing on evidence from excavations, rock art, the observations of colonial-era travellers, linguistics, the study of the human genome and the latest academic research.

Richly illustrated, First People is an invaluable and accessible work that reaches from the Middle and Later Stone Age to recent times, and explores how the Khoisan were pushed to the margins of history and society. Smith, who is an expert on the history and prehistory of the Khoisan, paints a knowledgeable and fascinating portrait of their land occupation, migration, survival strategies and cultural practices.

FIRST

PEOPLE

The Lost History of the

KHOISAN

Andrew Smith

JONATHAN BALL PUBLISHERS

cape town • johannesburg • london

To Belinda and Alessandra

Also by Andrew Smith

Pastoralism in Africa: Origins and Development Ecology (1992)

The Khoikhoi at the Cape of Good Hope: 17th Century Drawings in the South African Library (with RH Pheiffer) (1993)

Einiqualand: Studies of the Orange River Frontier (1995)

The Cape Herders: A History of the Khoikhoi of Southern Africa (with E Boonzaier, P Berens and C Malherbe) (1996)

The Bushmen of Southern Africa: A Foraging Society in Transition (with C Malherbe, M Guenther and P Berens) (2000)

African Herders: Emergence of Pastoral Traditions (2005)

Excavations at Kasteelberg, and the Origins of the Khoekhoen in the Western Cape, South Africa (2006)

The Origins of Herding in Southern Africa: Debating the ‘Neolithic’ Model (2014)

CONTENTS

Title page

Dedication

Also by Andrew Smith

Foreword

Introduction

1. Khoisan Peoples

2. Modern Humans in Southern Africa: The Middle Stone Age and Later Stone Age

3. Hunter-Gatherers in the Southern African Landscape

4. Rock Art and Symbolism

5. Khoekhoen and the Development of Herding in Africa

6. Adaptive Strategies of Khoekhoen

7. Herders Meet Hunters

8. Configuring Khoisan Linguistics and Genomics

9. Where Are the Khoisan Today?

10. How Did the Khoisan Lose Their History?

Appendix

Acknowledgements

References: Medicinal Plants Used by the Descendants of Khoekhoen in South Africa

About the Book

About the Author

Imprint page

FOREWORD

Not many South Africans understand the sheer scale of this country’s human development and past, which stretches back to the early hominids of 3.5 million years ago. Archaeology is a complex discipline that through a detailed forensic process enhances our knowledge of past people, events and climates. Archaeological methods evolve over time as the discipline makes use of scientific discoveries to help it put together the jigsaw puzzle of the past.

This vast depth of South African archaeology is generally difficult for ordinary people to access, as the language in scientific journals and university-level textbooks is tiring to read, sometimes overly formal and uses terminology that is generally outside daily use. In some ways this has not only put people off but also given rise to half-truths and the development of alternative, untested histories, many of which are in circulation today.

In First People: The Lost History of the Khoisan, Andy Smith has wisely limited the time scale covered to the period in which we believe the ancestors of modern humans and the people of the Cape existed – a complex but fascinating period of our existence. In South Africa today there are actually a number of people and groups that are rediscovering a heritage that was effectively lost to the colonisation process. They are beginning to form groups as they rediscover their identity. A number of these groups are political in their agendas and are informed by hearsay and legend, while others are historically well-informed. At the bottom of this is the deep need for communities to rediscover history and identity – a very positive thing for society at large. The problem is that there are few up-to-date, modern history/archaeology books to assist communities to do this.

At last, we have a considerately written book that fills this gap in a major way. Not only does it abandon old colonial ideals and versions of the past, but it is also sensitively written and full of up-to-date knowledge on scientifically based findings and modern techniques. However, most important is the fact that First People is easy to read and accomplishes the almost impossible task of marrying academically based knowledge into a well-written and carefully executed book. It can be kept at home and read from cover to cover, yet would also be comfortable as a teaching book in a university or school. This book needs to find its way into family homes, school libraries and academic settings.

In a way, First People also parallels Andy Smith’s life. He is an expert in the subject as a result of a lifetime of research, physical excavation and accumulation of knowledge, yet the book does not indulge in self-praise but gives knowledge to us all.

Tim Hart (MA)

Director of ACO Associates CC

Archaeology and Heritage Specialists

INTRODUCTION

The name ‘Khoisan’ was created to encompass the ‘click-speaking’ people of southern Africa assuming that they were all genetically connected, before it was recognised that there are three separate languages (two Bushman languages, and Khoe), all of them mutually unintelligible. These were the aboriginal hunters and herders of the subcontinent. The genetics of the San (or Bushmen) are the most complex and diverse in the world today. This means it is possible that they are ancestral to all living humans. The Khoekhoen were the herding people who introduced domestic animals and occupied the winter rainfall areas in the west that precluded the expansion of Bantu-speaking Iron Age farmers whose crops were summer rainfall. This book is dedicated to the descendants of these fascinating people who survive today, even though, in the 21st century, they are still pushed aside by black (beginning 5th century) and white (beginning 17th century) colonial interests.

My first experience with traditional herders was on the Persian Gulf coast in Iran in 1964 where I used camels and donkeys to get my camping gear and equipment to the top of the mountains to give offshore seismic operators a navigation fix during oil exploration.

In 1968, after I had finished my undergraduate studies at the University of California, Berkeley, I hitch-hiked from Glasgow, Scotland, where my parents were living, to Nairobi, Kenya, to meet up with one of my professors, Glynn Isaac. During my stay in East Africa I had the opportunity to visit Maasai homesteads (manyattas), my first contact with Africa’s pastoral people. While in Nairobi, I got a message from one of my other professors, J Desmond Clark, inviting me to be part of the scientific contingent to the Ennedi Mountains of Libya to start at the end of the year (1969).

Unfortunately, Muammar Gaddafi seized power in Libya in September of that year and our plans had to change, so the expedition became the British Aïr Mountains Expedition to Niger. On this expedition I had my first contact with Tuareg herders, who helped us with finding camels and with the logistics of working in the Central Sahara. The excavations I conducted in Niger included work on early pastoral sites of the Sahara, and this became the focus of my doctoral research.

I was able to formulate an additional programme to do the second half of my the...

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• 9781776191604