Bochiman

The San or Saan peoples, also known as the "Bushmen" (also Sākhoen, Sonqua, and in Afrikaans: Boesmans, after Dutch Boschjesmens; and Saake in the Nǁng language), are members of various Khoesān-speaking indigenous hunter-gatherer groups that are the first nations of Southern Africa, and whose territories span Botswana, Namibia, Angola, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Lesotho and South Africa. There is a significant linguistic difference between the northern peoples living between the Okavango River in Botswana and Etosha National Park in northwestern Namibia, extending up into southern Angola; the central peoples of most of Namibia and Botswana, extending into Zambia and Zimbabwe; and the southern people in the central Kalahari towards the Molopo River, who are the last remnant of the previously extensive indigenous Sān of South Africa.The ancestors of the hunter-gatherer Sān are thought to have been the first inhabitants of what is now Botswana and South Africa. The historical presence of the San in Botswana is particularly evident in northern Botswana's Tsodilo Hills region. In this area, stone tools and rock art paintings date back over 70,000 years and are by far the oldest known art. Sān were traditionally semi-nomadic, moving seasonally within certain defined areas based on the availability of resources such as water, game animals, and edible plants. As of 2010, the Sān populations in Botswana number about 50,000 to 60,000.From the 1950s through to the 1990s, Sān communities switched to farming because of government-mandated modernisation programs. Despite the lifestyle changes, they have provided a wealth of information in anthropology and genetics. One broad study of African genetic diversity completed in 2009 found that Sān people were among the five populations with the highest measured levels of genetic diversity among the 121 distinct African populations sampled. Certain Sān groups are one of 14 known extant "ancestral population clusters". That is, "groups of populations with common genetic ancestry, who share ethnicity and similarities in both their culture and the properties of their languages".Despite some positive aspects of government development programs reported by members of Sān and Bakgalagadi communities in Botswana, many have spoken of a consistent sense of exclusion from government decision-making processes, and many Sān and Bakgalagadi have alleged experiencing ethnic discrimination on the part of the government. The United States Department of State described ongoing discrimination against San, or Basarwa, people in Botswana in 2013 as the "principal human rights concern" of that country.