^g8 SCIENCE IN AFRICA 



relationship is often expressed in artifacts, particularly those which 

 the African uses for obtaining food. Moreover, the study of such 

 artifacts, when their functional aspect is stressed, can often lead 

 to conclusions regarding the adaptive or inventive ability of a 

 given people. For the study of material culture and also for that 

 of archaeology, museums are essential, so a fev/ of the most impor- 

 tant ethnographical collections may be mentioned. In Great 

 Britain the British Museum is in a leading position for purposes of 

 archaeology, but for systematized material culture the Pitt-Rivers 

 Museum at Oxford has been placed in an eminent position by the 

 activities of Professor Henry Balfour. The Museum of Archaeology 

 and Ethnology at Cambridge, formerly under the curatorship of 

 Dr. Louis Clarke, who has carried out studies in the field on 

 several occasions, particularly in Abyssinia, is likewise important, 

 and the ethnological collections under Mr. R. U. Sayce at Man- 

 chester are of high value. The Musee du Congo Beige at Tervueren 

 has unique collections of African material culture, with a large 

 staff of workers devoted to their arrangement, sorting, and analysis. 

 Dr. Lindblom and his assistants at the Stockholm Museum are at 

 present producing a series of studies on special artifacts, such as 

 fish hooks, fish baskets, game traps, etc., with the object of show- 

 ing their origin, distribution, and evolution in the whole continent 

 of Africa. 



It is certain that one or two whole-time anthropologists attached 

 to the administrations of each of the larger colonies would be of 

 great value, but the exact form which such an organization should 

 take for the greatest efficiency is a matter for debate. Special 

 pieces o^ ad hoc research, on such subjects as the effects on particu- 

 lar native societies of new legislation, are continually being 

 required by administrative departments, so that official anthro- 

 pologists as government servants would have no lack of occupa- 

 tion. On the other hand, in anthropology even more than in other 

 sciences, the research worker should be enabled to direct his own 

 activities, and since native life itself is his material, it is desirable 

 that he should be free from association with the administrative 

 activities, the effect of which forms part of his field of study. For 

 these reasons it may be undesirable that anthropologists should be 

 absorbed directly into the colonial or dominions services. The 



