The Stone Ages of South Africa. 9 



that might correspond with the Aurignacian, Sohitrian, and Magda- 

 lenian cultures, especially the last, have an indescribable facies of 

 their own which may be said to be South African. On the other 

 hand, the " p3'gmy " implements, and others with the " bord abattu " 

 of the French, cannot be very readily distinguished from the English, 

 French, and Indian implements of the same type, except, of course, 

 by the material of which they are made ; but they more closely 

 approximate the Algerian and Morocco examples. 



The South African Aurignacian or Magdalenian type, may have 

 been, and probably was, as old as that of the corresponding period 

 of Europe ; but it has outlived it. The "pygmy " culture lasted in the 

 Cape Colony until the sixties of the last century, or thereabouts, 

 and is lasting still in the Kalahari.* 



Truly we have not here a definite line of separation between the 

 artefacts that are hacked stones or those that are polished stones, in 

 so far as concerns weapons or tools that might have been used as 

 weapons ; but we have here an abundance of household utensils 

 that might prove a counterpart to the age of the polished stone, but 

 which have a facies eminently South African. 



This peculiar feature of what I prefer, rightly or wi-ongly, to term 

 the South African Neolithic type is that, although for certain 

 purposes stones were polished, yet it cannot be said that an attempt 

 was made to make the weapons of the same period more serviceable 

 or more effective by this polishing or grinding process. There is 

 thus a big hiatus in the evolution of South African stone implements. 



* We find it connected also in some Cape caves with large implements of 

 palseolithic type. 



