IV.

History of the Kalahari

The San have lived in the Kalahari Desert for more than 30,000 years. Bantu-speaking Tswana and Kgalagadi arrived by 1800, the Tswana migrating north from what is now South Africa and the Kgalagadi from the east. Europeans entered the region in the early 19th century, primarily as missionaries, hunters, and traders, but few settled in the Kalahari. In 1849 Scottish explorer and missionary David Livingstone crossed the desert, finding Lake Ngami. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Herero peoples migrated into the Kalahari from the west. In the second half of the 20th century settlement in the Kalahari increased as mining and tourist operations grew. Today, perhaps the largest threat to the Kalahari is rising livestock populations and the associated destruction of the desert’s scant plant life.