460 STRANDLOOPER INSTRUMENTS AND ORNAMENTS. 



which contains a number of red paintings, mostly very inferior 

 and all very indistinct — were found pygmy crescents and small 

 rounded scrapers as before, but, in addition, a considerable num- 

 ber of coarse flakes and large end-scrapers, more or less like 

 those from Cossackpost or Modder River : and pieces of coarse 

 pottery were relatively much more plentiful than at the rock- 

 shelter. The floor of the cave was covered with ash and debris 

 forming a layer nowhere more than two feet deep, usually less, 

 and in it were the shallow burial places of four people, the skele- 

 tons, as before, being covered over by flat stones painted red on 

 the under surfaces. In several cases a few bone beads and great 

 numbers of ostrich-shell beads, were found with the skeletons, 

 which beads, like those at the shelter, were small and delicate, 

 much smaller indeed than those made now by the Kalahari Bush- 

 men. 



Now, the skulls from this cave are not of the orthodox Bush- 

 man type. One is markedly long and narrow, being distinguish- 

 able at a glance from skulls ordinarily attributed to Bushmen : 

 two others are also distinctly too narrow and too high for such 

 identification. They may, however, contain a Bushman element, 

 if the characters of the mandible and the shape of the eye-sockets 

 have any racial importance. These burials, in any case, cannot 

 be very ancient, the skeletons being penetrated and largely 

 absorbed by the roots of shrubs growing at the entrance of the 

 cave. A relatively modern age for the skulls is also in agreement 

 with Dr. Shrubsall's conclusions that the oldest type of Strand- 

 looper aboriginal was more short-headed and orthognathous than 

 recent types. 



In the light of knowledge obtained at the rock-shelter, my 

 interpretations of the data are as follows. The skulls belong to 

 a comparatively recent branch of aborigines. Some of the bone 

 and ostrich-shell beads are certainly associated therewith, and 

 probably also the pottery and the end-scrapers. The pygmy 

 crescents and small round scrapers may possibly belong to the same 

 association, but are more probably relics of earlier occupants 

 who made temporary use of the cave, the same people who lived in 

 the large rock-shelter. The ostrich-shell beads may, on this view, 

 belong to both cultures, for we know that they have persisted as 

 the characteristic ornament of Bushmen up to the present day, 

 long after the use of stone implements was abandoned : but the 

 bone beads belong mainly, if not entirely, to the later occupants. 

 I had provisionally arrived at these conclusions some months 

 before they received support from data obtained at another small 

 cave on the farm Spitzkop, some six miles away from Wilton. On 

 this site a number of skeletons were unearthed recently by Mr. 

 W. W. Austin. These agree well with two found in the Wilton 

 cave, being relatively long and high, not flattened on the vault, 

 and very noticeably prognathous. A great number of bone beads 

 was found with them, also shell beads, a few pieces of pottery, 

 a stone borer suitable for grinding the perforation of digging 

 stones, and several elliptical stone palettes with ground edges, 



