The Stone Ayes of South Africa. 33 



Colony there is a narrow gorge in which game-pits and stakes in 

 very good state of preservation are still to be found/'' 



This is clearly a case of survival of methods. Primitive man, or 

 the early South African aboriginal, lived on game, followed game, 

 and entrapped and snared it in the same manner as the present 

 aboriginals did until a few years ago. But unacquainted with the 

 use or making of iron, as he undoubtedly was, how could the pits be 

 dug but with the stone picks or spades ; how were the stakes cut 

 and sharpened for impaling the game at the bottom of the trenches, 

 or for palisading the enclosures for the drives, but with the stone 

 picks or stone axes mentioned ? And as for the hypothesis that his 

 weapon was a club, the survival of type seems to me to be also borne 

 out by the discovery of such an implement in a rock shelter that had 

 been partially filled with bat's dung {of. PI. XIX., Fig. 152). Made of 

 an extremely hard and heavy wood (Olea sp.) it is plainly fashioned 

 with stone tools (scraper-knives). It is shaped as a phallus, the 

 handle has been trimmed so as to make prehension by a small hand 

 more effective. With it was found a stone bead (PI. XVI., Cut 3 of 

 Fig. 186) ; also a small cube of iron pyrites. At the entrance of 

 the shelter there are still traces of bush paintings, and it is not 

 out of place to remind the reader that in .he gorge at Humansdorp, 

 where the game traps are preserved, there occurs a rock engraving, 

 painted with red ochre, t 



Let us assume that primitive man originated in Africa. When he 

 invades Europe in the Chellean times, the climate is attractive ; he 

 brings with him his primitive weapons, the weapons of the chase, 

 defence or offence. Are the /crte natiirce which he has to encounter 

 such formidable and unknown beasts as to daunt his courage ? Cer- 

 tainly not. Hyana spelcea he knows well, it is the present H. crocuta, 

 found only in South and Central Africa ; Hycena brunnea, occurring 

 now from Senegal to South Africa, he also knows well. The tooth- 

 sabred-tiger or the cavern lion could have for him no more terror than 

 his old acquaintance Felis leo or Felis pardus, the present lion and 

 leopard which, besides, he meets again in that country new to him. 

 Is he frightened by Elephas antiquus '? No, it is his old acquaint- 

 ance, now called E. africanus. Hippopotamus major is his old 

 friend H. amphibius ; Bhinoceros mercki he cannot distinguish from 



* Peringuey, " Eock Engravings of Animals, &c.," Trans. S.A. Phil. Soc, xviii., 

 1909, p. 417. 



f But these facts are instanced here merely as cases of survival. It does not 

 in the least follow — in fact, it is to me, at least, certain that neither the club nor the 

 bead here mentioned have any connection whatever with the Chellean-Mousterian 

 boucher industry. 



3 



