442 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1958 
D. A. Hooijer’s further analysis of the fauna of the Djetis Beds in 
Java, which contained the remains of the earliest known examples of 
Pithecanthropus, has indicated that they are probably early Middle 
Pleistocene and not Villafranchian as previously claimed by von 
Koenigswald. While the last word on this question may not yet have 
been said, it is nevertheless true to say that there is no undisputed 
evidence that any hominids higher in type than Australopithecus were 
in existence in the world at the time when the Sterkfontein tools were 
manufactured.® 
So it is only our belief that systematic tool making requires a larger 
brain than the ape-size brain of Australopithecus (a belief which 
may prove to be ill founded), that makes us hesitate to infer that the 
Sterkfontein tools were probably made by that creature. 
Another reason for doubting that the tools were made by Australo- 
pithecus is the fact that “they have no background” at this or any 
other Australopithecine site. No pebble tool or any kind of stone 
artifact has been observed in the series of underlying layers at Sterk- 
fontein which yielded relatively abundant Australopithecine skeletal 
remains (traces of at least 16 individuals, including the skull known 
as Sterkfontein 5 and the associated spinal column and pelvic girdle). 
Robinson has suggested that the absence of pebble tools from the 
underlying layers is against Australopithecus being a toolmaker “since 
on all other Stone Age sites remains of the tool-manufacturer are ex- 
tremely rare.” I believe the relevant point is that, cannibalism aside, 
primates do not as a rule die or leave the remains of their dead at the 
living place (Oakley, 1954b, p. 66). In other words the substantial 
quantity of Australopithecine skeletal remains in the main bone- 
bearing breccia at Sterkfontein is consistent with the late Dr. Broom’s 
suggestion that the cave was originally a carnivores’ den rather than 
the actual living place of the hominid.? The red-brown breccia con- 
taining the stone tools (and a few isolated teeth of Australopithecus 
and fragmentary animal remains) was, on the other hand, accumu- 
lated at a time when the cave had temporarily become a site of hominid 
occupation. 
There are many related issues to be considered in the light of the 
new evidence from Sterkfontein. For example, in the breccia of the 
nearby site of Swartkrans, accumulated at a later date, numerous 
remains of an aberrant Australopithecine named Paranthropus have 
®The antiquity of the fragmentary mandible of Homo ef. sapiens recorded from the 
Kanam Beds of Kenya is now considered too doubtful to stand in the way of this 
generalization. 
®° The evidence collected in South Africa recently indicating that modern hyenas do not 
carry carcasses or bones into caves (Dart. 1957) has little bearing on the activities of ex- 
tinct species or varieties of hyena. Behavior of mammals is modified in response to en- 
vironmental, particularly biotopic, changes. There is evidence that under subglacial condi- 
tions in Europe the hyena Crocuta took bones into caves, at least as long as competition by 
man did not preclude it. 
