THEAFRICANS
tected her eyesfrom the sun: at her back, and entirely hid excepting the head,
she carried her infant, whose exceedingly small features presented to me an
amusing novelty>
The ways of life of these early Southern Africans varied greatly in the
different environments of the region-the
coastline and its immediate hin-
terland; the highlands rising to the escarpment; the grasslands of the east-
ern plateau; the area of good winter rainfall in the southwest; and the vast
arid lands of the Karoo and the Kalahari and Namib deserts. Linguists
demonstrate that in each area the people spoke a distinctive language but
that all the languages were distantly related; all, for example, included
strong click sounds that are difficult to render in .the modern Western
alphabet." Ray Inskeep, an archaeologist, concludes that one should visu-
alize "stable populations living in well-defined territories overlong periods
of time."?
'
The basic social unit was the nuclear 'family,but several families usually
formed bands numbering between twenty and eighty people. These bands
were not closed, reproducing entities. People identified 'with members of
other bands who spoke the same language and livedin neighboring territo-
ries in the same general environment. They occupied cavesor camps con-