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San

(Encyclopedia)San săn [key], people of SW Africa (mainly Botswana, Namibia, Angola, and South Africa), consisting of several groups and numbering about 100,000 in all. They are generally short in stature; their sk...

Hertzog, James Barry Munnik

(Encyclopedia)Hertzog, James Barry Munnik hûrtˈsŏg, hĕrtˈsôkh [key], 1866–1942, South African military and political leader. Before the South African War, in which he commanded a division of the Boer forces...

Kroonstad

(Encyclopedia)Kroonstad kro͞onˈstät [key], city, part and seat of Moqhaka local municipality, Free State prov., E central South Africa, on the Vals River. It is an agricultural and industrial center. There are g...

Tobias, Philip Valentine

(Encyclopedia)Tobias, Philip Valentine, 1925–2012, South African paleoanthropologist, b. Durban. He graduated from the Univ. of Witwatersrand (Ph.D., 1953) and taught there for five decades. Tobias entered paleoa...

Linton, Ralph

(Encyclopedia)Linton, Ralph, 1893–1953, American anthropologist, b. Philadelphia, B.A. Swarthmore College, 1915, Ph.D. Harvard, 1925. He was (1922–28) assistant curator at the Field Museum, Chicago, then taught...

lake dwelling

(Encyclopedia)lake dwelling, prehistoric habitation built over the shallow waters of a lake shore or a marsh, usually erected on pile-supported platforms, but sometimes on artificial islands or mounds. Such a site ...

savanna

(Encyclopedia)savanna or savannah both: səvănˈə [key], tropical or subtropical grassland lying on the margin of the trade wind belts. The climate of a savanna is characterized by a rainy period during the summe...

Renault, Mary

(Encyclopedia)Renault, Mary, pseud. of Mary Challens, 1905–83, English novelist, b. London. After receiving her nursing degree in 1936, she emigrated to South Africa. She was best-known for her historical novels ...

Herero

(Encyclopedia)Herero hərārˈō [key], Bantu people, mainly in Namibia and Botswana. They number about 75,000. A pastoral tribe noted for their large cattle herds, the Herero probably migrated from the region of L...

isthmus

(Encyclopedia)isthmus ĭsˈməs [key], narrow neck of land connecting two larger land areas. Since it commands the only land route between two large areas and is on two seas, an isthmus has great strategical and co...