Khoe-San ancestry did not disappear from South Africa’s Coloured communities.

In sampled groups from the Cederberg, Great Karoo and Middle Orange River, the paper reports average Khoe-San ancestry of 41–53%. A wider geographical comparison finds averages rising from about 40% near Cape Town to 80% in the southern Kalahari.

The study adds 620 newly sampled people to a regional dataset of 997. Their Khoe-San DNA shows affinities between Nama and ≠Khomani San references, connecting these communities to southern African population history that predates colonial rule.

Later migrations added further layers. European settlement and the forced movement of enslaved people brought ancestry from Europe, other parts of Africa and Asia. The Southeast Asian component matches Indonesian references, including Java and Sulawesi, with some affinity toward Flores. South Asian ancestry is roughly twice as abundant across the sampled populations, but its precise regional sources remain unresolved.

European segments resemble French and British references; Dutch genomes were unavailable, so the study cannot rank those countries’ actual contributions. Other African ancestry also varies, from about 11% in the Cederberg to 22% in the Karoo and Middle Orange River.

These are model-based estimates and reference affinities, not fixed percentages for every person or literal ethnic ingredients. “Coloured” is a South African community identity used by participants. The cover portrait illustrates the context, not that person’s DNA results.

📚 Source: Edington et al. (2026), Science Advances
Recovering the precolonial population structure of Khoe-San descendant populations

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