Preferrably called the San, these hunter-gatherers have inhabited South Africa for at least the last 100 000 years. The last remaining San people live in the Khalahari area of the Northern Cape.

The Bushmen (also known as Basarwa in Tswana, or San in Nama) are an indigenous population of the Kalahari Desert, which spans South Africa and neighboring Botswana and Namibia as well southern Angola. They were traditionally a hunter-gather peoples, part of the Khoisan group and are related to the traditionally pastoral Khoikhoi, but starting in the 1950's though the 1990s they switched to farming with only minor hunting and gathering activities.Elizabeth Marshall Thomas (). The Old Way.