652 TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION H 



Pacific for example, of finding that civilisation has come stealthily and swept 

 away the greater part of the old order. The Sudan has not been civilised to such 

 a point that the ethnologist need feel it his bounden duty to visit the most 

 sophisticated areas in order to record everything that is in danger of being lost. 

 If I seem overbold in trying to present a summary account of so vast an area, 

 I can plead certain extenuating circumstances. Firstly, I had the good fortune 

 to be asked by the Sudan Government to conduct a small ethnographic survey 

 for them, in the course of which I have spent two winters in the field ; secondly, 

 although it is nearly twenty years since the reconquest of the Sudan, the amount 

 of ethnographical material which has accumulated is far less than might have 

 been expected. Nowhere has there been any intensive study of even a single 

 people, though conditions are as favourable as could be desired in at least three 

 quarters of the country. It would be an interesting, if melancholy, task to try 

 to determine v^'hy so little has been done. Certainly the' failure is not due to 

 lack of interest on the part of the Sirdar and his Council, for, apart from the 

 funds provided for my expeditions, the Government has paid the expenses of 

 publishing the only considerable work of serious scientific interest dealing with 

 Sudanese tribes that has yet been written by any of its officers. It is worth 

 noting that archaeologists have been more energetic than ethnologists, partly no 

 doubt owing to the stimulus provided by the discoveries of the Nubian Archcso- 

 logical Survey, but, even apart from this, more interest seems to be taken in the 

 ancient history of tlie country than in its living races. 



Surprisingly little is yet known of the prehistory of the Anglo-Egyptian 

 Sudan. 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, situated on a sandy plateau at the foot of Jebel Katul between two 

 small spurs of the main rock mass, and from Jebel Gule in Dar Fung. At the 

 former site I found a number of roughly worked unpolished stones near the foot 

 of the hill betweten the village and the burial ground, and also within the latter. 

 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 un worked, 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 

 elope and a crenelated edge, one portion of which often shows signs of having 

 been worn down and retouched. These implements, which I had suspected might 

 have been Aurignacian, were considered by M. Breuil to belong to the Mous- 

 tierian 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 (19. 2)1), as well as some 

 implements of other forms which presented a palaeolithic facies. While the 

 Beraeis stones are so rough that they may perhaps be rejects, this does not apply 

 to the specimens from Jebel Gule. Besides the disc and Moustierian points there 

 is one implement which M. Breuil regards as a true, but much worn, cowp-de.- 

 poiiig of Moustierian age. Whether all these really date from the Moustierian 

 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 Aurignacian type (14 Pis. xvi. -■'-^n, xi. 60, xviii. -''-p), or in other 

 words of the Capsien 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 geographical 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 distribu- 



