Re: Khoisan is very old

On Apr 3, 1:27 am, "jfm" <nss2...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Darkstar wrote:

The mtDNA L1 haplogroup is the best evidence I have. Besides, Khoisan
languages are not directly related to any other families, so it's
difficult to suppose they're newcomers to the region. The third piece
is that they're hunter-gatherers, which is another unique feature.
Reverting to hunter-gathering is extremely rare, so it's easy to
suppose this type of economy is original. That's enough for me to call
them "archaic", and I don't think there's anything politically
incorrect with the word, if that is what you mean below.

In southern African history, it's very common to switch betweem
hunting-and-gathering and pastoralism, and even farming. Quite a
number of people in the entire sub-Saharan region alternate
subsistence types depending on a lot of circumstances.

It's not as common nowadays because modern infrastructure has
solidified societies to an extent that was unheard of, say, one
hundred years ago.

One of the reasons why some of the southern African Khoisan-speaking
peoples are known as hunter-gatherers today, is because they have been
driven to semi-desert living by, first, Bantu-speaking farmers and,
later, by white colonists.

Earlier, they switched freely between hunting-gathering, fishing,
pastoralism, horticulture, depending on where they happened to be
living.

The same has been true for many Bantu-speaking peoples, too.

Also, the Khoisan languages do not form one single language family,
but at least three separate unrelated families. Linguistically, they
have nothing in common except the clicks, which they share also with
neighbouring Bantu languages.

Starostin's research doesn't count, of course.

Labelling or assuming Khoisan-speakers to be "archaic" is severly
incorrect, not only politically but also factually. There's nothing
"archaic" about the subsistence system of peoples who have been forced
to that subsistence system by sociopolitical conditions.



You're nothing but a relic from old colonial times. It's as if you've
read one of those horrible 19th-century ethnographic generalizations
and nothing else. Or are you just making things up as you go along?

Oh come on. I'm not a racist or anything like that, you got me wrong.

I wouldn't call you racist. I see no reason to. I would rather call
you intellectually archaic or obsolete. The idea you purporting is the
same as that purported by the 19th-century colonials. Actually, it has
persisted till quite recent times, and is still to be found in popular
science magazines and news media.

---
jfm

In other words, you mean there are archeological and historical facts
confirming that Bushmen were farmers in the past, and then they took
out their bows and reverted to hunting again? They are not
prehistorical hunter/gatherers but farmers like Bantu?

.

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