San
Africahunter-gatherersMap
expand_more Description
The term "San" has largely replaced "Buchman" (Bushmen) as an ethnographic term designating both the contemporary and the precolonial southern African peoples who live primarily in northwestern Botswana (Ngamiland), adjacent parts of Namibia, and southern Angola. The San languages are usually classified as being in the Khoisan language family and are distinct in containing a number of click consonants. Settlements are generally composed of anywhere from one to a dozen dispersed, extended family homesteads, with residence being based on bilateral kinship. The San are frequently described as hunter-gatherers or foragers, but in the twentieth century fewer than five percent depend on foraging for their bulk of subsistence, depending instead on herding and limited agriculture, supplemented with some limited hunting and gathering.
Identifier
Region
- Africa
Subregion
- Southern Africa
Subsistence Type
- hunter-gatherers
Samples
Countries
- Angola
- Botswana
- South Africa
- Namibia