H.— ANTHROPOLOGY. 157 



their own, yielded to the pressure of the more progressive peoples, before 

 whose advance (due probably to similar causes) they gave way, eventually 

 being forced down into the cul de sac, whose abundance of game animals, 

 no doubt, afforded compensatory attractions, and where they could 

 establish and maintain themselves unmolested, until a new immigration 

 brought a fresh racial stock into the region and renewed the clash of 

 cultures. 



During long ages, this sequence of irruptions of peoples inevitably 

 induced a resultant congestion of heterogeneous ethnic elements, the 

 weaker units continually giving way to the stronger, who, it may be 

 reckoned, partly absorbed and partly exterminated the earlier occupants. 

 The existing cultures must, at least, have been influenced and altered 

 through contact with the new. Thus it is not difficult to see how, through 

 a long sequence of immigrations into a region devoid of outlets, vast 

 quantities of the more imperishable culture-relics came to be accumulated 

 in South Africa. It is also clear that the inevitable overlapping of cultures, 

 coming into enforced contact in this Ultima Thule, tended to result in not 

 only fusion but also confusion, and to bring about complex, hybrid 

 industries, whose parentage it is the aim of local archaeologists to unravel. 



The process of sorting out the data, and of classifying and evaluating 

 the Stone-age cultures represented in South Africa, is now proceeding 

 apace, thanks to many keen researchers. Already several new names 

 have been at least tentatively adopted for denoting various differentiated 

 industries, which have been provisionally assigned their places in the 

 chronological series. The earlier attempts, by Gooch and others, to reduce 

 the material to some kind of classificatory order, had been followed rather 

 more intensively and with varying success by J. P. Johnson and L. Perin- 

 guey ; and within the last few years, in addition to numerous important 

 papers by various authors in the scientific journals, the Rev. Neville 

 Jones has published a very interesting book on the ' Stone Age in Rhodesia ' 

 (1926). More recently still, Mr. M. C. Burkitt has dealt ably and 

 suggestively with the general subject in his volume on ' South Africa's 

 Past in Stone and Paint ' (1928), in which he has summed up the more 

 important results so far obtained by field-research, and details the im- 

 pressions which he derived from an extensive tour of inspection made at 

 the invitation of the University of Cape Town. This volume will, no 

 doubt, prove a useful guide to collectors, and an incentive to systematic 

 excavation. A basis is suggested upon which scientifically collected 

 material may be tabulated. Incidentally, Mr. Burkitt has indicated in no 

 uncertain manner how exceedingly abundant is the material and what a 

 vast and interesting field of inquiry is open for future research in South 

 Africa. 



This valuable archseological mine has as yet been only partially 

 exploited, but its potential wealth is unquestioned ; and, although 

 prehistoric archaeology must rank as a ' pure ' science, and cannot be 

 regarded as one which materially increases the fiiiancial welfare of the 

 community, the finds which its pursuit brings to light must be regarded 

 as a valuable asset to the country, worthy to be ranked with gold and 

 diamonds and other commercially-productive assets. The dividends re- 

 sulting from the scientific exploration of the archaeological mine, if not to 



