172 Annals of the South African Museum. 



state of preservation — and all the human remains are extremely 

 brittle. 



But in spite of that there is nothing to give us a possible clue 

 to their relative age. These caves and rock-shelters may, and 

 probably have been, resorts of aboriginals until very recently. In 

 a cave-shelter where the bodkin (Cut 4 of Fig. 172, PI. XXIII.) and 

 the double-pierced nacreous beads (Fig. 187, PI. XVI.), were dis- 

 covered together in the Willowmore District, there was also found 

 the small rusty iron blade of what may have been a knife or a 

 spear-head. In the Coldstream cave was found, 2 feet below the 

 surface, a portion of what appears to be the steel striker of a tinder- 

 box, and also a piece of copper, probably a portion of a wreck. 

 These finds are on a par with the piece of Oriental china and brass 

 button at Bloembosch, of the glass beads or clay pipes and brass 

 buttons of European manufacture in the middens of the Cape 

 Flats, &c. 



Buried in the sands of Blaauwberg was found the ornamental 

 brass side of a military bridle, together with the skeleton of a Strand 

 Looper. The pattern of this bridle is said to be Dutch. At Hagel 

 Kraal, in the Bredasdorp District, Cape Colony, two tiny brass 

 bangles, 440 mm. in diameter, one round, the other fiat, were 

 discovered in the sand-dunes, &c. 



These finds point plainly to a continuance of occupation of sites 

 that lasted until, and probably long after, the advent of the colonists. 

 The lamentable account given by Sparrman, which I quote in the 

 chapter on ! kwes, makes it also probable that the wretched Hottentots 

 whom he mentions had taken shelter from their enemies in places 

 difficult of access, as these caves prove to be. These fugitives were 

 provided with ! kwes or perforated stones, similar to some found 

 in this cave debris, and also in the neighbourhood of the shelters. 



But interesting as these finds prove, they throw no light on the 

 relative age of the men who were cave-dwellers, who manufactured 

 the stone and the bone implements, and who executed the paintings. 

 Their culture is strikingly like the Magdalenian ; but a similarity 

 of culture does not imply a similarity of races nor a similarity of 

 date. 



In spite of this proposition, the mode of sepulture of these 

 aborigines, the cave-dwellers especially, have so many points of re- 

 semblance with what we know occurs elsewhere that it is permissible 

 to refer to these occurrences for purposes of comparison. In South 

 Africa, whether buried in a sitting position or lying on one side, the 

 position is that of the " child in the womb." 



