Genetic structure of a unique admixed population: implications for medical research

摘要

Statement: In naming population groups, we think a chief aim is to use terms that the group members use themselves, or find familiar and comfortable. The terms used in this manuscript to describe populations are as historically correct as possible and are chosen so as not to offend any population group. Two of the authors (DCP and REvdR) belong to the Coloured population, with one of the authors (REvdR) having contributed extensively to current literature on the history of the Coloured people of South Africa and served as Vice-President of the South African Institute of Race Relations. According to the 2001 South African census (http://www.statssa.gov.za/census01/HTML/CInBrief/CIB2001.pdf), ‘Statistics South Africa continues to classify people by population group, in order to monitor progress in moving away from the apartheid-based discrimination of the past. However, membership of a population group is now based on self-perception and self-classification, not on a legal definition. Five options were provided on the questionnaire, Black African, Coloured, Indian or Asian, White and Other. Responses in the category “Other” were very few and were therefore imputed’. We have elected to use the term Bushmen rather than San to refer to the hunter-gatherer people of Southern Africa. Although they have no collective name for themselves, this decision was based on the term Bushmen (or Bossiesman) being the more familiar to the communities themselves, while the term San is the more accepted academic classification.