( 23 ) 



CHAPTER III. 



The Manner in which the Bouchers were ^Manufactured, 

 AND THE Tools used for manufacturing them. 



The Manner in which the Bouchers were Manufactured. 



All the South x^frican bouchers have been shaped by percussion. 

 Pressure applied with bone or wood could not produce the desired 

 object wuth the material of which they are made. 



The nucleus is of two sorts : water- worn or naturally rounded 

 boulders or large pebbles, and fragments artificially detached from 

 rocks. Either might have been heated and flakes split off by the 

 application of cold water. 



The sudden contraction would not, however, produce the concave 

 fracture of the matrix which invariably corresponds with the convex 

 side of the detached part (Fig. 69, PI. X.). This convexity which 

 coiTesponds with the " bulb of percussion " of smaller imple- 

 ments is very seldom faint; in Fig. 70, PI. X., however, it is not 

 very marked. 



I have, by good luck, been able to make observations on the sile of 

 a most interesting " station," or deposit, extending for several miles 

 (Simondium, Cape Colony), and have collected material illustrating 

 most clearly, and also most abundantly, all the phases of the 

 manufacturing process. 



The primitive man who made the Chellean-type bouchers had, in 

 all likelihood, found by experience that implements are more easily 

 obtained by the fracture of pebbles or boulders than from pieces 

 detached from the outcrop of rock. This opinion is certainly 

 borne out by the very numerous implements of both the Stellen- 

 bosch and Orange River types that retain part of their original 

 contour.* 



So numerous indeed are the bouchers of this type in the Draken- 



* In the Toulouse and Madrid deposits the same thing occurs. 



