Tlic Stone Ages of South Africa. 89 



With our paintings/'' on the other hand, are associated simple, 

 small flakes, of a type and size which are met with nearly every- 

 where, but no paliBolith. 



In the Matoppos, Southern Khodesia, the paintings are getting 

 fainter every year, and the place is too much exposed for these 

 glyptics to be of great antiquity. The stone relics left by the 

 aborigines, the authors of the paintings, are repx'esented in 

 PI. XVII., Fig. 133. 



Pig. 134 represents the implements discovered at the foot of a 

 rock-shelter, hardly, however, deserving this name, on which are 

 found remarkable paintings, at Modderpoort, Orange Free State. 



Fig. 136 is the representation of forms similar to those of the 

 three preceding Figs., found close to a cave-shelter full of paintings. 



A comparison with the shape of these tools and those of the Cape 

 Flats, especially that of Cut 2 of Fig. 136, with the same number in 

 Fig. 120, PI. XV., is very instructive. The material used differs, 

 but the technique and also the purpose is the same. The notched 

 scraper. Cut 10 of Fig. 134, from Modderpoort, has served the same 

 purpose as the more broadly or crescentic ones in Fig. 138 from 

 the Cape KaiToo, and the Cuts of Fig. 135 from a Free State rock- 

 shelter where no paintings occur show that, with the exception of 

 Cut No. 1, a bevelled edge specimen, the others can match in size and 

 shape many that have been found in rock-shelters where paintings 

 are displayed. 



The technique, poor as it is, is the same, and however old the 

 survival may be, there is no reason to endow these relics with a 

 great antiquity, because the paintings with which they are connected 

 cannot be of any antiquity. 



Nevertheless, in spite of the evidence adduced, it would be unsafe 

 to conclude that only these most primitive chips are co-related with 

 artistic skill. 



Text-fig. 8 is one that goes far to disprove this theory. It is 

 that of as fine a Mousterian-type scraper as any found in South 

 Africa. It was discovered in a cave full of well-preserved paintings. 

 With it was a small, round, dolerite pebble, of the same size as 

 Cut 1 of Fig. 185, and which, from its appearance, might have been 

 a muUer for preparing paint or poison. On the floor were a number 

 of broken reed-shafted arrows, some retaining still the cement that 

 served to fix the feather ; the sinews binding the notch are also well 

 preserved. Some of these arrows, more diminutive than the others, 



* These paintings are usually found in, or close to, rock-shelters. None has, 

 as yet, been found in deep caves. 



