136 Annals of the South African Museum. 



not improbable also that they were forced towards the coast by 

 other invaders. Some of their household goods, or utensils, are of a 

 type found still in the interior ; ! kwes, mullers, conical pots, small 

 parers, scrapers of different sizes and shapes, but as yet, no palaeo- 

 lithic boucher has been unquestionably found with them. 



There is, however, some difference between the domestic utensils of 

 the Outeniqua-Tzitzikama rock-shelters or caves, and those occur- 

 ring elsewhere, a difference which points to a type of culture, to 

 which I would not hesitate to give a name, as has been done for the 

 Magdalenian, only that in Europe this name is connected with the 

 period of the Reindeer, and that we cannot connect here these 

 shell-mound makers with a period during which certain animals 

 prevailed. 



The Open Kitchen Middens. 



A midden of this kind is usually found quite close to the sea, but 

 never far from fresh water. It is mostly buried under sand-dunes 

 that shift to and fro according to the direction of winds prevailing at 

 the time, but which, owing to their dryness, act often as a preserv- 

 ing medium. When begun on more solid ground, these middens, 

 which are now concealed by more or less dense vegetation, are 

 revealed occasionally through road-cuttings or removal of soil. 



One such midden at Blaauwberg, near Cape Town, is situated 

 close to the sea, but at no great distance fi'om Riet Vlei, a 

 fresh-water lagoon that only at times finds an outlet to the sea. 

 The rolling sand-dunes, when removed by wind agency, leave 

 occasionally exposed, even at some distance from what is found 

 to be a thick stratum of shells, pottery, fragmentary or whole, 

 such as Figs. 174 and 179 (PI. XXIV.). Perforated stones, irregular, 

 rarely spherical, are not uncommon. Occasionally querns or mortars 

 are discovered there. At the time of our visit in search of a human 

 skeleton, the skull of which had been laid bare, only one ridge of 

 the accumulated shells, consisting mostly of Mytilus and Patella, 

 mussels and limpets, was showing. Under this ridge of shells, 

 some 18 to 20 inches in thickness, we obtained the skeleton of a 

 female coated with a very thick deposit of carbonate of lime brought 

 probably by the infiltration of water through these sea-born sands. 

 The cavities of the skull were completely filled with this calcareous 

 deposit, and the skeleton was undergoing fossilisation if it had not 

 already reached it. On removing the calcareous sandy coating there 

 were found round the pelvis two rows of flat, minute, ostrich egg-shell 

 beads of the shape and size of those figured in PI. XIX., Fig. 146. 



