So who were these early Homo sapiens? Genetic surveys suggest that the Khoi-San people of south-western Africa are the oldest surviving human population as they have the greatest genetic variation.6 Note that Khoi-San is a composite term derived from the hunter–gatherer San people, also known as Kalahari ‘bushmen’, and the closely related Khoi people who engage in herding. Right at the onset, let me clarify that the Khoi-San are not a relic population of ‘living fossils’. They are modern Homo sapiens who happen to carry the wider genetic mix from which the rest of us derive our ancestry.
