106 Annals of the South African Museum. 



2 of Fig. 156, and in spite of their thinness, they have Ukewise 

 been bored from both sides for suspension. 



Boring a hole in a stone is not one of the most easy of under- 

 takings, and when the stone is of a diameter exceeding 11 cm., 

 as in many of the ! kwes the difficulty is enhanced when the Ijore 

 is started at each end. 



In South Africa, however, one cannot but be struck by the 

 primitiveness displayed by the makers, a primitiveness that seems 

 to denote : — 



1. That they were unacquainted with the bow-drill. 



2. That the method was adopted on account of the great thick- 

 ness of the ! kwes. 



3. That they were not inventive enough to devise a simpler 

 method, such as punching, for thin flat surfaces. 



The beads figured are diminutive tikoes. The ostrich egg-shell 

 disks are not. For the manufactvire of both, however, diminutive 

 drills have been made. 



In the perforated stones of Chile, the same system of perforation 

 was in use, and it is, or was, followed in New Guinea. 



If we continue our comparison with the ornaments of the Mous- 

 terian, Solutrian, and Magdalenian periods of Europe, we find 

 there : Bone and ivory pendants, beads, perforated shells for making 

 necklaces or tiaras ; stringed vertebrae of fish ; perforated teeth of 

 various animals intended for neck or waist wear, some of the teeth, 

 mostly canines, bearing graved striie, figures of barbed harpoons, 

 fish, seals, &c. 



In South Africa all the ornaments differ, with perhaps the exception 

 of the perforated sea-shells of some o the Outeniqua Caves. The 

 stone beads, with an unique type of perforation, are different ; un- 

 heard of in the European epochs mentioned are the earthenware 

 beads ; the steatite and other stone pendants. Fig. 207, have a shape 

 of their own, and so have the shell ornaments, with double longi- 

 tudinal holes. Fig. 187 ; the olive-kernel-like beads with prospectively 

 one or two holes. Fig. 206 ; the large flat stone-disks. Cuts 1-2, of 

 Fig. 156, to say nothing of the egg-shell discoidal beads bored 

 in the centre. 



We have no ivory or bone pendants, no suspended teeth of wild 

 animals, as if the hunter disdained to wear such commonplace 

 objects. 



Could it be that the neolithic South African race was so primitive 

 that man himself did not appreciate ornaments ? 



