The Stone Ages of South Africa. 185 



ments in the shape of flakes. It is therefore necessary to consider 

 this proposition. 



I have in previous chapters mentioned the implements of palaeo- 

 hthie and neohthic types, found so profusely not only in Cape 

 Colony, but also in Southern Rhodesia, a locality still occupied by 

 a Bantu-speaking race, which, whether autochthonous or not, has 

 seemingly been there for a considerable number of years. It thus 

 becomes the purport of this paper to find if these Kaffirs — Baka- 

 langa, Bechuana, or Barotse if not Basuto, or under whatever name 

 they went, or what real tribe or nation they belonged to — had at 

 one commensurable time the stone industry, or if they have 

 retained it. 



The answer is, on the whole, negative, in spite of some superficial 

 discrepancies, which can be easily accounted for by contact. 



During his excavations among the ruins of Ehodesia, Eandall- 

 Maciver never came across paljEoliths that could be said to have 

 been lying pell-mell in the debris, or kitchen-middens, w'ith the 

 copper and iron relics which are of so purely an African type 

 When he came across some " Celts " he found that they were 

 " lying on the surface." " None of them can be said to have come 

 from an actually buried deposit, but two were picked on the top 

 surface of an ash deposit." The reader may, however, dismiss at 

 once from his mind the idea that these two examples were palaeo- 

 liths. The contrary conclusion is proved by the figures of these 

 stone implements (J of the size), and also by their description." 



Thus we read in the finds at Khami : " In various places on the 

 surface we picked up poorly-worked stone implements. Sometimes 

 these were on the actual floors of the huts." 



Ibid. — "In the great kitchen-midden of Dhlo-Dhlo were found 

 stone implements, generally poorly w^orked." Fortunately these 

 implements, both from Dhlo-Dhlo and the Niekerk ruins, are 

 figured. They are of the same type and workmanship as those 

 occurring in the cave-shelters of the Matopos (PL XVII., Fig. 133), 

 where their connection with the Bush people is indubitably proved 

 by surviving parietal paintings ; f and wei'e it necessary to have 

 other proof that it is with the culture of the Bush people that 

 these small stone implements are to be connected, the presence of 



* The palaeolithic implements mentioned and figured in PI. XII. of the same 

 work were found by Mr. Kenny, and have no connection whatever with the exca- 

 vations. They have been already alluded to in a previous chapter. 



t These paintings are being profusely discovered now all over Southern Rhodesia 

 from Buluwayo to the Chibi and Sabi Itiver, and other parts. 



