South Africa: From the beginning to 200 CE

Updated February 2011

The first evidence that human beings emerged in Africa, and not Eurasia as was thought at that time, was discovered in South Africa and published in 1925 (Brain 2003, 3). Subsequent finds of more fossils in South Africa, Tanzania, Kenya, Ethiopia and more recently in Chad have led to the view that the hominids ancestors of upright walking Australopithecus africanus emerged 6-7 million years ago in north east Africa (perhaps in Chad) and spread to South Africa about 3-4 million years ago; they were still present there c2.1 million BP (Brain 2003, 7-8; ScienceDaily 2003; Thackeray 2006, 4). A few Homo habilis (2.3 - 1.6 million BP) and Homo ergaster (1.8 - 1.5 BP; sometimes regarded as the same as Homo erectus found in Asia) fossils have also been discovered in South Africa (Gräslund, B 2005, 59). While both were tool makers (Early Stone Age), H ergaster was physiologically more human and technologically more developed than H habilis, not only in the production of tools (adding hand-axes, cleavers and choppers to their tool box), but also in the domestication of fire, for which evidence emerges from South Africa, about a million years ago (Thackeray 2006, 4-6; Gräslund, B 2005, 59). About 1 million BP advanced forms of H erectus with larger brain capacities emerged in east Africa that, with time, blurred into Homo sapiens (Middle Stone Age, MSA). This late H erectus/archaic H Sapiens is attested in South Africa from as early as 500 000 BP and is certainly present from around 260 000 BP (Gräslund, B 2005, 59, 60; Stynder 2007, 3, 4).

As far back as 250 000 years ago anatomically human remains were deposited in east Africa and the earliest remains found in South Africa are dated to around 120 000 BP (Gräslund, B 2005, 60; Stynder 2007, 5). The earliest evidence of human abstract thinking, in the form of art, was found at the Blombos Cave and was dated to before 70 000 BP; this comprised of two small pieces of ochre engraved with cross hatching to form a diamond grid pattern (Henshilwood et al 2002). Also found at Blombos, and dated from the same time or earlier (c75 000) were shell necklace beads that formed the earliest known jewelry (Blombos Cave Project 2004). At Border Cave the earliest known tallying devise was found, a 7.7 cm long bone piece from the fibula of a baboon with 29 notches on it and was dated to about 35 000 BP (Bogoshi et al 1987). Also here have been found ostrich eggshell beads dated to 38 000 BP (Mitchell 2002, 7).

There has been disagreement between scholars over whether or not the Late Stone Age (LSA) Khoesan were descended from the MSA populations of southern Africa (Stynder 2007, 6). However, genetic research indicates that the Khoesan uniquely retain some of the oldest Mitochondrial DNA of all humans, reflecting a lineage that stretches back 120 000 years, and suggests that modern humans in general, and the Khosan in particular, arose in Southern Africa (National Research Foundation 2000). The long held theory that the Khoesan migrated into Southern Africa from East Africa has been debunked by careful review of archaeological, linguistic and cultural evidence that had been used to argue for Koesan populations north of the Zambezi River (Robertson & Bradley 2000, 292).

It seems that during the last glacial maximum (24 000-17 000 BP) the climate of the interior of Southern Africa became extremely arid, and the ancestors of the Khoesan were driven to the south coast in search for food and so became cut off from the rest of the human race and, as a result of genetic drift, acquired the anatomical characteristics of the Khoisan; with the return of a more moist climate favourable to hunter-gatherers they were able to recolonise the interior (Stynder 2007, 7-9). At some point, around 2000 BP, some of the Khoesan acquired cattle and sheep in northern Botswana (South African History Online 2006). However, between 2000-1000 BP the archaeological evidence for stock herding is scant, and only after 1000 CE does evidence emerge of the widespread development of a pastoralist lifestyle (Stynder 2007, 9-10). Nevertheless, pastoralism enabled the development of more complex social structures and more sophisticated political structures and enabled those who had access to animal stock to dominate those who did not (Stynder 2007, 10). The pastoral nomads were thus able to migrate southwards to the wetter and richer grazing lands, reaching the southern tip around 200CE, while pushing those who did not have stock or had lost their stock to the arid interior or the less desirable mountains (South African History Online 2006, Stynder 2007, 7).

A genetic study conducted in 2008 of five Koesan groups concluded that genetic data points to a common ancestry for Khoe herders and San hunter-gatherers and that no genetic basis could be found to distinguish between Khoe and San (Soodyall et al 2008).Thus the three groups of Koesan in South Africa, the Strandloopers who exploited the rich marine food resources of the southern coast, the hunter-gathering San of the interior and the pastoral nomadic Khoekhoe should be regarded as being the product of different economic activities by substantially the same people, rather than as divergent ethnic, or even less biological, groups (Marks 1972, 57-60, Stynder 2007, 7).

References

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