146 Annals of the South African Museum. 



animals' bones. The remains had been disturbed before a proper 

 examination was made. When this took place, the humus of the 

 crevices yielded very few human remains, but the skulls were either 

 complete, or when incomplete (2), the parts had merely become 

 separated; the sutures were intact. None of these remains has been 

 interfered with by hyaenas. Therefore they must needs have been 

 deposited there before the advent of the latter. They had by this 

 time been so dessicated that they could prove no tempting morsel. 

 The dismemberment of the human skeletons is probably caused by 

 a " remaniement," or disturbance of the cavern fissures, with their 

 accumulation of animal remains. 



But these remains do not represent whole skeletons of animals. 

 If they did, it would go to show that they belonged to animals that 

 took refuge there to die. This absence corresponds to, or coincides 

 with, what is known to have obtained in the caves or rock-shelters 

 of Europe. There the hunter seems to have been especially fond of 

 the head and marrow bones. He seldom brought to his shelter or 

 cantonments the whole of his quarry, especially when it was a large 

 one. He carried to it those parts only which he relished — the head 

 and fleshy parts. Vertebrae and ribs are seldom met with in these 

 stations. 



In this Hawston cave ribs are rare, and vertebrae scarce in pro- 

 portion to the remains. 



Several of the skulls of animals of prey are fractured, and it is 

 therefore probable that these beasts were slain by man, and that the 

 skulking hytena or the daring jackal, taking advantage of man's 

 absence, entered the shelter and feasted on his leavings 



Two frontal parts — one that of a young ox, the other that of an 

 antelope — are so clearly severed that it could have been done by man 

 only, and this with a cleaving instrument. 



It is therefore probable that the cave was used first as a place of 

 burial, in the manner described further on, in the Outeniqua caves. 

 Game being more abundant, or edible shells less common, the 

 accumulation of the debris did not form a shell mound. The dead 

 would be buried or deposited in the fissures. The presence, how- 

 ever, of domesticated animals can only be explained by the assump- 

 tion of a reoccupation by man at a later date. 



At no very great distance from the Hawston cave another was 

 found, consisting of one chamber without traces of fissures, but the 

 only things met with there were two ostrich egg-shell bead-disks 

 and a small scraper-knife. 



This cave, situated in proximity to the other, has a parallel in the 



