852 TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION H. 



6. Prehistoric Archceology in Japan, By N. Gordon Munro. 



DLiring the past quarter of a century the observations of Japanese and foreign 

 investigators have enabled some general conclusions to be made. Features not 

 shared by other cultures have been isolated, -while the resemblance of culture 

 vestiges to tliose of other lands agrees with the general verdict of prehistoric 

 intercommunication. Here also the great number of crude stone implements and 

 the persistence of horn and bone harpoons of pala5olithic form suggest a direct 

 survival from the earlier culture, while some indications of an evolution are 

 present. But no remains of undeniably palaeolithic status have been found. 

 Stones have been recovered from the drift gravel of the Sakawa Valley, but their 

 human manufacture is not positively determined. Excavations of shell-mounds 

 and other neolithic sites in Japan have revealed some connection between the 

 pottery of this phase and that of the iron culture which accompanied the agri- 

 cultural invaders from the mainland of Asia. These formed the core of the 

 present Japanese nation. The neolithic inhabitants were gradually driven to the 

 east and north, but miscegenation took place to a greater extent than is generally 

 supposed. 



The present school of Japanese archaeology, led by Professor Tsuboi, is mostly 

 in favour of the view that the primitive inhabitants of Japan were not of the 

 same stock as the surviving Ainu. The opposite thesis has been maintained by 

 Professor Koganei, Messrs. Sato, Takabatake, and others. The discovery of Ainu 

 remains in the shell-heaps and underlying soil proves that this people played 

 a part in the neolithic culture. 



The characters of the dolmens and other vestiges of the Iron phase, and the 

 incidence of the former with the neolithic sites, favour the view that the progress 

 of the invaders towards the east and north was slow, and might have commenced 

 about live centuries B.C., or even earlier. Observations on the orientation of 

 dolmens have been made, but exact work of this kind is slow, on account of the 

 necessity of correcting the compass declination l)y star observations. Sufficient 

 material has not been accumulated to place it beyond question that alignments 

 were made to the rising or setting sun or to stars. 



7. Smm Ancient Stone Implement Sites in South Africa — their hearing en 

 the Prohlem of the Antiquity of Man. By Eev. W. A, Adams, B.A. 



The sites examined were five in number: — 



1. The hill-slope near the coast at Bosman's Crossing, Stellenbosch, yielding 

 rudely chipped picks and other implements of the palajolithic type, embedded in 

 clay. 



2. The Karoo, near Kimberley. From this were collected weather-worn 

 specimens, chiefly, showing the transition from the older form of palseolithic 

 implement to the neolithic axe. 



3. The Vaal River terraces, near Kimberlej-. Here is an extensive stone 

 implement site at Pniel, where the process of manufacture, from the block of 

 ttone to the finished implement, can be clearly traced. 



Higher up the banks ' pygmy ' implements were also discovered. 



4. The uplands of Rhodesia, near Bulawayo. Roughly chipped disc-like 

 scrapers were procured, and well-made ' pygmies.' 



5. The headlands at the Victoria Falls. Palteolithic implements were here 

 collected, some of them of chalcedony, of large size and highly glazed. A few 

 flakes are water-worn. Was ancient man on the headlands here when the river 

 was flowing along the high levels ? 



