The San are said to be descendants of Early Stone Age ancestors. They were to the first people to migrate out of Africa to Asia. Asians developed out of early San homo erectus. They are nomadic group living in temporary shelters, caves or under rocky overhangs. With the arrival of the first Europeans settlers in 1652 in Southern Africa sparked clashes as they sought new territory they exterminated the Sans whom they deemed to be inferior like wild animals. They called them “Bushmen” and proceeded to wipe out 200,000 of them in 200 years. They also sold them in slave markets and to traveling circuses.
According to Dr Ben Smith, genetic evidence suggests they are one of the oldest, if not the oldest, peoples in the world, going back to perhaps 60,000 years. They have genetic traces that no one else in the world has, that put them at the root of the human tree – we are related to them, but they are not as closely related to us. They were in South Africa thousands of years before, the iron age Bantu people arrived with their superior technology.
The San have a rich oral history and have passed stories down from generation to generation. The oldest rock paintings they created are in Namibia and have been radiocarbon-dated to be 26 000 years old. The San rock art gives us clues about their social and belief systems.
BY: Kweku Darko Ankrah