440 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1958 
All the known tool-making hominids had brains considerably larger 
than those of apes. The earliest known toolmakers, the Chinese rep- 
resentatives of the genus Pithecanthropus, had skulls with average 
capacity about twice as great as that of Australopithecus. In the 
second place, Professor von Koenigswald had reported remains of an 
early Pithecanthropus in the Djetis Beds of Java which he claimed 
were of Villafranchian age. In other words, Australopithecus and 
Pithecanthropus evidently existed in the world contemporaneously, 
and at Peking at least there was evidence that the latter was capable 
of tool making. Thus it seemed most probable on the evidence avail- 
able in 1954 that the pebble tools in the Vaal valley terrace had been 
made by true men, of the Pithecanthropus group, who had penetrated 
into South Africa before their more backward relatives the Australo- 
pithecines had died out. The above hypothesis seemed to be strongly 
supported by the absence of pebble tools from all the sites where re- 
mains of Australopithecines had been discovered, suggesting that 
although pebble toolmakers existed contemporaneously with the Aus- 
tralopithecines, the two groups frequented different environments. 
The whole picture has now been altered by further discoveries. Two 
years ago, some possible pebble tools, mostly of dolomite, were found 
in the gravel bed overlying the main Australopithecine deposit in the 
Limeworks Cave at Makapan in the Transvaal. These were com- 
mented on in Antiquity, vol. 30, p. 6, March 1956, and one of the 
chipped pebbles was illustrated (pl. 11). There was considerable doubt 
as to whether these were artifacts, and the general opinion was that 
unless more convincing specimens came to light in the same bed they 
were better discounted as evidence bearing on the cultural status of 
Australopithecus. 
In May 1956 Dr. C. K. Brain discovered indubitable pebble tools of 
Oldowan type in the upper part of the Australopithecine breccias at 
Sterkfontein in South Transvaal. This is possibly the most impor- 
tant discovery in the field of paleoanthropology since the finding of 
implements with Peking man. Excavations at Sterkfontein carried 
out this year by Dr. J. T. Robinson and Revil Mason have confirmed 
beyond all doubt that the artifacts observed by Brain are part of an 
industry occurring in situ in a layer of breccia containing teeth of 
Australopithecus. 
It is worth reiterating that the hypothetical attribution of the 
pebble tools, not to Australopithecines themselves, but to some higher 
type of hominid living contemporaneously with Australopithecus in 
the Transvaal, has rather depended on the assumption that the two 
types would have occupied different ecological niches. As Bartholo- 
mew and Birdsell (1953) pointed out: “By analogy with the ecology 
