Aiide7i : Anthropology at the British Association. 439^ 



dynasty period from Sakkara. By the time of the Middle Empire, 

 the technique of the operation had attained the stage which was- 

 the conventional procedure for the succeeding two thousand 

 years ; the highest development was reached in the time of the 

 New Empire, when elaborate measures were taken for restoring 

 the body to a greater semblance to the form which it had had 

 in life. Further stages in the evolution of embalming were 

 followed by a rapid decline. 



A second paper — ' Anthropological Work in Egypt,' demon- 

 strated that on comparing the earliest known human remains 

 with those of later times, it was evident that in pre-dynastic 

 times, Egypt and Nubia were inhabited by one and the same 

 race, which has persisted with little or no change up to the 

 present day. There is some slight evidence of a small amount 

 of infusion of negro blood, w^hich was probably a negligible 

 factor in early pre-dynastic times, but becoming more pro- 

 nounced in later and especially so in modern times. The 

 people of Nubia from the time of the earliest Eg^^ptian dynasties, 

 became transformed by negro infusions into a hybrid race. 



In Mr. W. Crooke's paper — ' Rajputs and Mahrattas ' — it was 

 shewn that there was no historic justification for the assumed 

 Sycthian or Hun entry into the Deccan. It was suggested that 

 the influence of environment and sexual selection probably 

 explained the uniformity which characterises the physical 

 character of the people of the Punjab. 



Mr. C. T. Currelly's paper was an attempt to arrange in 

 correct sequence, the stone implements of Egypt by the degree 

 of patination found upon them. An examination of several 

 thousand pieces shewed that form and patination go together, 

 and that each type of implement has definite limits of 

 patination. 



An account of a collection of laws of the Dinkas of the 

 Egyptian Soudan was given by Mr. E. Sidney Hartland. This 

 pastoral people have a patriarchal government, and now reckon 

 descent in the male line only. Some details of their customs, 

 were given, amongst others, a probably unique legal fiction by 

 which an heir is provided when the male line has died out. 



The Rev. W. A. Adams gave a description of the stone 

 implements found at the following five sites in South Africa : — 

 Bosman's Crossing, Stellenbosch, the Karoo and the Vaal 

 River Terraces, near Kimberley, Bulawayo, the Victoria Falls. 



' Pre-historic Archaeology in Japan,' by Mr. N. Gordon Munro, 



qo8 December i: 



