The Stone Ages of South Africa. 167 



bone awls (Nos. 6 and 7 of Fig. 185), or the scraper (No. 8 of the 

 same Fig.) and the elliptical impressions on No. 2 also by the 

 same tool. 



These fragments of pottery are not sufficiently large to enable us 

 to restore the original contour and to decide whether they were 

 conical or not. 



In the same shelter were found undecorated pieces of enormously 

 thick earthenware (No. 2 of Fig. 192), as well as some of a thinner 

 kind (No. 1 of the same Fig.), and also a large fragment (Fig. 191), 

 which is the flat bottom of an evidently massive earthen pot. 

 The connection of that kind of pottery with the mobilier here 

 described is, however, doubtful. 



Of the bill of fare of the inhabitants of this shelter we have 

 also traces. There were found several valves of the fresh-water 

 shell Unio caffer (Fig. 188, Cut 2) ; part of the lower jaw of the 

 porcupine (Cut 3) ; bits of ostrich egg-shells (Cuts 5 and 6), that 

 probably might have been eventually turned into perforated 

 disks. Cut 4 is a piece of the leg-bone of an antelope blackened 

 with age, Cut 1 is that of an ostrich and deserves special mention. 

 In the inner part is an artificial groove made in such a way that 

 either part when eventually detached, would be already adapted 

 partly for the grooved sharpeners (Fig. 171 of PI. XXIII.), by 

 means of which it would become ultimately the bone head tipping 

 the arrows (Fig. 142, Cut 1). 



Small and few are the household goods of the occupier of this 

 shelter : his industry is indeed primitive, for there is no reason 

 to believe that he has removed the greater part of his mobilier. 



He is a nomad ; in his pursuit of game, perhaps also to avoid 

 being pursued, he must not be hampered in his movements which 

 perforce must be rapid. Hence the paucity of utensils, hence also 

 their 'reduced size. Discai'ding the pottery he will take with him 

 his tiny tools — certainly a not overwhelming burden in his search 

 of pastures new. 



I have selected for illustration the contents of this up-country 

 rock-shelter from among many known to me, or the contents of 

 which are stored in the Museum, but the diminutive size of 

 most of the implements found in the caves or rock-shelters other 

 than those of the littoral is apparent throughout. Whether occur- 

 ring in place with paintings, from which we would conjecture 

 that these shelters had been occupied in somewhat more than 

 a spasmodic manner by a clan or a number of people, or in places 

 from which the number of these utensils implies occupation by 

 either a single, or at most a few families ; or, again, whether these 



