H.— ANTHROPOLOGY. 163 



the north and south affinities and dissimilarities will be realised when the 

 huge intervening area has revealed its archaeological secrets and contri- 

 buted its data for a valuable chapter in the story of the wanderings and 

 sojournings of migrant peoples in the course of their progress southward. 



In the meantime South Africa may well concentrate upon her local 

 prehistoric problems, and proceed with the exploration of her past and 

 the disentanglement of her sequence of bygone industries. This work is 

 being actively pursued, and, thanks to the enthusiastic labours of Mr. C. 

 van Riet Lowe, Mr. A. J. H. Goodwin, Colonel Hardy, Mr. J. Hewitt and 

 many other keen researchers, the scattered threads are being gathered in 

 and marshalled into orderly groups, and are beginning to be woven together 

 into a compact and substantial fabric. That fabric, when completed, will 

 be a record, representing the early history of primitive culture in the 

 region, as based upon concrete facts. 



Such research into the past is surely worthy of every encouragement 

 from the universities, and deserving of Government benediction and even 

 financial support. The material appears to be extraordinarily rich, almost 

 inexhaustible, in fact, and the deductions drawn from carefully verified 

 data in one district can be checked and re-checked by information culled 

 in others, so that the final summing-up should prove authoritative and 

 highly instructive. 



It is recognition of the fact that this vast heritage of archaeological 

 material will prove a national asset of great importance, together with a 

 feeling of gratification at the strides which have been made towards 

 compelling this ancient bequest to yield a scientific dividend, that has led 

 me to devote the address which it has been my privilege to deliver to the 

 Section, to reviewing briefly a few of the factors and issues of South African 

 archaeology, a theme whose popularity will assuredly grow as people realise 

 more and more not only its intrinsic local interest, but also its important 

 bearing upon world-wide archaeological phenomena, the study of which 

 is steadily revealing the progression of successive culture phases which 

 formed, layer upon layer, the foundations upon which were built the 

 higher civilisations. 



M 2 



