ISO 



NATURE 



[September 30, 191 5 



the subject. I have great hopes that such a com- 

 mittee will be formed, but I have n6 hopes of either 

 our own subcommittee or the committee of the asso- 

 ciation as a whole doing any good, unless they are 

 prepared with definite suggestions and advice which 

 cannot be ignored and put aside. I have not the 

 slightest faith in the mere formation of a committee 

 which will content itself, let us say, with the mere 

 offer of its services, even to a Government department, 

 and the mere pious expression of certain opinions. If 

 a committee does not want to become ridiculous, it 

 must show that it is in earnest. To show that it is in 

 earnest it must take care that its reports have a prac- 

 tical object, can be at once grasped by overworked 

 Ministers and officials, and are of real value. 



Fortunately the British Association is a powerful 

 body with great traditions, and will be listened to if 

 such work is carefully and energetically done. We 

 can at least congratulate ourselves that whatever 

 the evils of the war, the country as a whole has 

 been moved from its usual attitude of self-com- 

 placency, and that the numerous new departments 

 and organisations are showing a desire to utilise every 

 force and agency for the service of the State, and to 

 grapple with the great problem of its more efficient 

 organisation. It will be no small work of a British 

 Association committee if it can supply sound ideas 

 and recommendations on the many thorny problems 

 which must be solved. We cannot all of us be, as so 

 many would like, in the fighting line, either in France 

 or the Dardanelles, but we shall be just as deserving 

 of contempt as those who have shirked their responsi- 

 bilities, if we content ourselves with mere offers cf 

 service, and having as we think shelved responsibility 

 by leaving initiative to others, we pass along our way 

 sheltering ignobly behind those men and women who 

 are doing their duty to the'r country. 



SECTION H. 



anthropology. 



Opening Address ^ by Prof. Charles G. Seligman, 



M.D., President of the Section. 



It is impossible to pass to the subject of my address 

 without first referring to the heavy losses which the 

 Teutonic lust of power has Inflicted upon our science, 

 no less than upon every other department of humane 

 and beneficent activity. Whatever loss we may yet 

 be called upon to endure there can scarcely be any 

 more regrettable than the death of Joseph Ddchelette, 

 whose acknowledged eminence makes any detailed 

 account of his labours superfluous. His valour was 

 no less than his erudition, for though his age exempted 

 him from all military duties, he insisted on taking 

 his place at the head of his old company of Territorials, 

 and was killed last October while leading his men in 

 a charge that carried the line forward 300 yards. 

 We have also to mourn the death of Robert Hertz, 

 a regular contributor to L'AnnSe Sociologique, and 

 of Jean Maspero, son of Sir Gaston Maspero, an 

 authority on ^ the Byzantine period and Arabic geo- 

 graphy. The* other men whose premature death we 

 deplore belong for the most part to that brilliant band 

 of French soldier-explorers to which African ethno- 

 graphy owes so much, and includes Captain Rend 

 Avelot, whose name will be known to every reader 

 of L' Anthropologic. 



in my address I shall endeavour to outline the early 

 history of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan from the point 

 of view of the ethnologist, and thus indicate some 

 of the lines upon which future research may most 

 usefully proceed. 



1 Abridiied by the author. 



NO. 2396.. VOL. 96] 



Surprisingly little is yet known of the prehistory of 

 this great area. No implement of river-drift type 

 appears to have been found, and while admitting that 

 this may be due to incomplete exploration, the fact 

 seems of some significance considering the abundance 

 of specimens of this type which have been found on 

 the surface In Egypt, southern Tunisia, and South 

 Africa. With regard to Implements of Le Moustier 

 type, I may allude to certain specimens which I have 

 myself collected from two sites, namely, from Beraeis 

 in north-west Kordofan, and from Jebel Gule in Dar 

 Fung. At the former site I found a number of 

 roughly worked unpolished stones. The majority 

 are moderately thin broad flakes, showing a 

 well-marked bulb of percussion, and little or 

 no secondary working ; other specimens are shorter 

 and stouter. One surface is flat and unworked, 

 the opposite curved surface shows a number 

 of facets separated by rather prominent crests, all 

 except the central facets sloping more or less steeply 

 to the working edge. In some specimens the crests 

 are sufficiently prominent to give a somewhat fluted 

 aspect to the slope and a crenelated edge, one portion 

 of which often shows signs of having been worn down 

 and retouched. These implements, which I had sus- 

 pected might have been Aurlgnacian, were considered 

 by M. Breuil to belong to the Moustlerian period, and 

 he referred to the same period and industry some thick, 

 fluted, and engrailed scrapers from Jebel Gule, which 

 I have described as resembling the Palaeolithic discs 

 from Suffolk and other localities, as well as some 

 implements of other forms which presented a Palaeo- 

 lithic facies. Besides the disc and Moustlerian points, 

 there Is one implement which M. Breuil regards as a 

 true, but much worn, coup-de-poing of Moustlerian 

 age. Whether all these really date from the Mous- 

 tlerian period or not, certain of the specimens from 

 Jebel Gule show a surprising resemblance to South 

 African specimens figured and described by Dr. L. 

 Peringuey as of Aurlgnacian type, or, in other words, 

 of the Capslen type of Tunisia. 



Evidence concerning the later Stone age is furnished 

 by a number of finds made on widely scattered sites ; 

 but though no explanation can be offered It should 

 be noted that no stone Implement of any kind has been 

 recorded from the Red Sea Province, although it is 

 one of the best known parts of the Sudan, and has 

 been the scene of considerable engineering efforts. 

 This is the more remarkable In view of the geo- 

 graphical features of the country ; the absence of 

 forest, the weathered plateaux, the valleys filled with 

 deposits through which innumerable wadis have been 

 cut, all suggest that if stone implements existed some 

 at least should have come to light. Much interest 

 attaches to the distribution of ground-stone axes In 

 the Nile valley. While there is probably no museum 

 with any pretence to an Egyptian collection which 

 has not a number of these, and though they can be 

 bought in almost every curio shop in Cairo, I have 

 been unable to find any record of their discovery In a 

 tomb group or undisturbed burial in Egypt ; SQ that 

 considering the number of prehistoric burials that have 

 been examined, it can be said that they were scarcely 

 If at all known in predynastic Egypt. On the other 

 hand, they are common In Nubia, where a number 

 have been found In predynastic and' early dynastic 

 tombs. Many examples have come from Meroe, and 

 I believe that specimens occur on every site of Neo- 

 lithic date in the Sudan. Moreover, the rock faces on 

 which they were ground have been found both at 

 Jebel Gule and Jebel Geill. We may therefore attri- 

 bute a southern source to the ground-stone axes of the 

 Nile valley, and In the light of our present knowledge 

 regard them as of Negro origin. This view Is sup- 



