the cape khoisan debate. the question at the time of contact with europeans, where there two...

The Cape Khoisan Debate

The Question

• At the time of contact with Europeans, where there two separate cultures and economies at the Cape? – Khoekhoe herders and San hunter-gatherers?

The Main Protagonists

• Carmel Schrire (Rutgers)– Khoi and San mixed from the start (one culture:

two economies)– Richard Elphick’s cycles

• Andrew Smith (UCT)– Khoi and San separate cultures into colonial

times (two cultures: two economies)

ConventionalView

• SE Bantu speakers brought first livestock (Iron Age migrations)

• Khoekhoe in middle Zambezi learned ceramic technology and herding skills

• They spread south and west

Sheep and LSA Pottery DistributionKlein 1986

Early LivestockSealy & Yates 1994

Migration routes

Sealy & Yates 1994

Khoisan Languages

insouthern Africa

• Two main subdivisions– Khoe-Kwadi

– Non-Khoe

Linguistic Model Gueldemann 2008

Kwadi

Proto-Khoe-Kwadi

Proto-Khoe-Kwadi

Pre-Khoe (500 BC – AD 500)mix of Khoe and Non-Khoe

Pre-Khoekhoe•Drying Kalahari, some herders went south to become

•even more “Khoisanized” pastoralists

Nama 17th c.

Summary of Linguistic Evidence

• Migrations models are plausible• Khoe and non-Khoe different language

families, Proto-Khoe were shepherds• Proto-Khoe had words for sheep, livestock

enclosures, and making butter by shaking a container.

• But had neither cattle nor goats.

Summary of Ethnographic Evidence

• Ethnographic evidence shows that Khoe language, society and ideology deeply different from Non-Khoe

• We can be sure proto-Khoe and non-Khoe different people, and Proto-Khoe were shepherds

Conclusion 1

• Linguists and Ethnographers: Khoe and Non-Khoe distinct populations– But 1st millennium AD archaeology no clear

evidence for Khoe-speakers migration from East Africa yet

Conclusion 2• Gueldemann 2008 model suggests hybridization

of Early Khoe with Non-Khoe all along route of infiltration

– LSA archaeology in SW Cape shows no evidence of two cultures/two economies; Khoekhoe/San.

– Only hunter-gatherer-fishers occasionally with livestock

ConventionalView Wrong?

• Radiocarbon dates indicate first sheep at SW Cape three centuries before arrival of Bantu speaking farmers

• SE Bantu words for sheep and cattle are from Khoe language

Questions for next generation

• Suggest a research question to move the Khoisan Debate forward.