The San

A name used to describe the first, or closest ancestors to the first, homo sapiens of Africa, and possibly the Earth. They have also been called ‘Bushmen’, or ‘First People’. They are/were purely hunter gatherers and not pastoralists so although often associated with the Khoi, were not Khoi.

The Relevance of ‘SANSENSE’

The cultural behaviour and ‘common sense’ of the San enabled their remarkable survival and general wellbeing for tens of thousands of years, even under the harshest of conditions.

In contrast, the prospects for humankind today are looking bleak. There should be no need to elaborate on the multiple threats to human survival posed by loss in biodiversity, loss in top soils, climate change, and general pollution of air, water and soils, mental ill-health and societal decay.

All of these threats can be attributed to modern human behaviour, described as ‘anthropocentric’.

The Bushmen, however, provide living proof that not all humans are guilty of self-centred egocentric behaviour, and that humans are not innately anthropocentric. How did they achieve this?