408 Transactions of the South African Philosophical Society. 



gravels,"^' and it is perhaps a moot point if the geological circumstances 

 now obtaining differ much from those found in the post-pleisto- 

 cene, or perhaps the pleistocene period. 



Stow, however, does not think so, and in dealing with what he 

 terms the evidence of great antiquity of these stone implements, 

 he mentions a bed of sandy marl in which he discovered a number of 

 finely chipped stones, and comes to the conclusion f that the " Vaal 

 Eiver itself did not flow in the same channel in which we now see 

 it. . . . The hunters who made or used these weapons must have 

 lived at a period so remote that the physical features of the country 

 were really different from what we see at the present time." 



In order to prove the antiquity of the Bushman race — which he 

 considers to have been the first aboriginal — he quotes also finds 

 including "finely shaped stone armlet," "Bushman beads made of 

 ostrich egg-shell," "a stone hammer and a well-formed chipped 

 stone," "Bushman pottery," " maal stones, stone implements, and 

 an awl made of ivory," &c., found at various and sometimes con- 

 siderable depths. 



Unfortunately I cannot find from a careful perusal of his book 

 that Stow knew how to distinguish between implements of the 

 neolithic and palaeolithic types. No evidence has as yet been 

 obtained of pottery, bone awls, or perforated stones being found 

 associated with palaeolithic forms, whereas they are always asso- 

 ciated with the neolithic or recent period in South Africa. 



The presence of these stone implements found close to the sculp- 

 ture themselves, or in the immediate neighbourhood justifies, however, 

 the assumption that the two must be associated. The flakes which 

 I figured \ bear plain evidence of having been used as engraving 

 tools ; but these flakes cannot, unfortunately, be said to belong either 

 to the palaeolithic or to the neolithic type. 



What we know of the Stone Age in South Africa does not allow of 

 discrimination between very remote, ancient, or recent periods. If 

 the celts of palaeolithic type are very ancient, so are many of the 

 rock-engravings ; if they are not, the evidence drawn from their 

 association with these implements settles the question of their 

 antiquity. 



But to me a point of great importance is the total absence in the 

 scenes of the better and more ancient manufactures of figures repre- 

 senting the ox, the Cape sheep, or any other domesticated animal. 



* Cape, Stellenbosch, Paarl, Worcester, Tulbagh, Piquelberg, Knysna, Cradock, 

 &c., Districts in the Cape Colony, 



t " The Native Races of South Africa," p. 25. 

 I Trans. S. Afric. Phil. Soc, xvi., 1906, p. 412. 



