Rock art provides evidence of human culture in the subcontinent dating back nearly 30,000 years and represents southern Africa's oldest and most enduring artistic tradition. The artists were hunter-gathers, sometimes called Bushmen but more commonly San , a relatively modern term from the Nama language with roots in the concept of "inhabiting or dwelling" to reflect the fact these were South Africa's aboriginals. The most direct descendants of the late Stone Age, San people have survived in tiny pockets, mostly in Namibia and Botswana, making theirs the longest-spanning culture in the subcontinent. At one time they probably spread throughout sub-Saharan Africa, having pretty well perfected their nomadic lifestyle , which involved an enviable twenty-hour week spent by the men hunting and the women gathering. This left considerable time for artistic and religious pursuits. People lived in small, loosely connected bands comprising family units and were free to leave and join up with other groups. In this egalitarian society, the concept of private property had scant meaning because everything required for survival could be obtained from the environment.

 

About two thousand years ago, this changed when some groups in northern Botswana laid their hands on fat-tailed sheep and cattle from northern Africa, thus transforming themselves into herding communities . The introduction of livestock had a revolutionary effect on social organization, creating the idea of ownership and accumulation. Animals became a symbol of both wealth and social status and those who were better at acquiring and holding onto their animals gradually became wealthier. Social divisions developed, political units became larger and centred around a chief, who had important powers, such as the allocation of pasturage.

These were the first South Africans encountered by Portuguese mariners, who landed along the Cape coast in the fifteenth century. Known as Khoikhoi (meaning "men of men"), they were not ethnically distinct from the San, as many anthropologists once believed, but simply represented a distinct social organization. According to current thinking it was possible for Khoi who lost their livestock to revert to being San and for San to lay their hands on animals to become Khoi, giving rise to the collective term "Khoisan". This dynamic view of history is significant because it throws out the nineteenth-century idea that race was an absolute determinant of history and culture - a concept that found great popularity among apartheid apologists.