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EOYAL SOCIETY OF SOUTH AFRICA. 
PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS. 
By L. PERINGUEY, D.Sc, F.Z.S., F.E.S., &c. 
THE ANTIQUITY OF MAN. 
Introduction. 
I had at first thought to give you to-night a retrospect of what is 
known of the hthic industry, or stone implement-making, in South Africa, 
and its bearing towards not only the Antiquity of Man in this part of the 
world, but also to the antiquity of a certain native race of which a few 
pure-bred individuals only are now left, namely the Bushman. 
I find it, however, impossible to condense the information on record in 
an address, nor would it be possible to bring out my points to your notice 
without a long series of lantern slides. I propose therefore to restrict 
myself to a resum^ of the present knowledge of the antiquity of man. 
During the last fifteen years discoveries of such importance have occurred 
that the prehistorian is now fronted with tangible facts, where a few years 
back he had to be satisfied with hypotheses. Let it be said at once that 
several of these hypotheses have been justified by the newly discovered 
facts. On the other hand, certain doctrines which were considered as 
firmly established are at present seriously assailed. 
I shall now proceed to explain broadly the stages or divisions during 
which man produced artefacts in the shape of stone implements, relics of 
his skill that led not only to his being discovered, but allowed us to follow 
his increasing mental development before his skeleton was brought to 
light. 
These stages are : the Mesvinian or Strepyan, still very much dis- 
cussed ; the Chellean and Acheulean forming the Lower Palaeolithic; the 
Mousterian, or Middle Palaeolithic; and the Aurignacian, Solutrian, and 
Magdalenian, all three belonging to the Upper Palaeolithic. 
The reasons for these divisions are as follows : In the Chellean, Europe 
