AFRICA - THE EASTERN PROVINCE Palaeolithic Artifacts.—Here discoveries have so far been imited to the Sudan, Uganda, Somaliland and Kenya Colony, while surprisingly little is yet known of the early pre-history of even these territories. Except possibly in the extreme north, within a few miles of Half a, no implement of River-drift type is known to have been found in the Sudan. This fact may be due to incomplete exploration, but is of some significance considering the abundance of specimens which have been found on the surface in Egypt and Libya, in Somaliland (where H. W. Seton-Karr has collected countless specimens of River-drift and Mousterian types), South Africa, and recently, in deposits, by Wayland in Uganda, though the majority of the implements he discovered are perhaps to be associated with the Le Moustier facies rather than that of the River-drift. Be this as it may, Wayland has collected Chellean hand-axes in gravels, considered of Pleistocene date, capping quartzite hill-tops some 3ooft. above the present level of the lake, and also implements of a well-developed Mousterian type, includ ing "points, side-scrapers, flake knives, tortoise cores and tortoise points," as well as two typical side-scrapers in a cave under some five feet of cave earth. (A. A. Smith and E. J. Wayland, Some Primitive Stone Implements from Uganda; Uganda Protectorate, Geological Survey Dept., 1923.) No typical Mousterian specimens have yet been found in the Sudan, but certain specimens collected from two sites, namely, Jebel Katul in north-west Kordofan, and Jebel Gule in Dar Fung, are considered by the Abbe Breuil to belong to the Mousterian period. So far as is known no implements attributable to the latter part of the Palaeolithic age have been found anywhere in the East ern Province, certain pygmy implements which will be mentioned later being regarded as Neolithic. (C. G. Seligman, "A Neolithic Site in the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan," J.R.A.I., vol. 40, 1910.) Neolithic Age.—Evidence concerning the Neolithic age is f ur nished by a number of finds made on widely scattered sites in the Sudan, Uganda and Kenya Colony, and there are hints that in parts of Negro Africa, which nowhere had a Copper or Bronze age, stone implements may have persisted to within the last few cen turies and the use of iron be quite recent. The distribution of the most typical of Neolithic implements, the ground stone axe, makes it necessary to refer to the conditions prevailing north of latitude 16 degrees. Unknown in pre-dynastic Egypt polished axe heads are common in Nubia, where a number have been found in pre-dynastic and early dynastic tombs. Many examples have come from Meroe, and specimens probably occur on every site of Neolithic date in the Sudan; they have been found, e.g., at Jebel Geili, 9om. east of Khartum, at Jebel Gule, and at Faragab in northern Kordofan; moreover, the grooves in the rock faces on which they were ground exist both at Jebel Gule and Jebel Geili, while stone axes of a peculiar type have been found in western Darfur by D. New bold. These facts all support the idea put forward (Rep. Brit. Assn., Pres. Address, Section H, 1915) that the ground stone axes of the Nile valley are of negro origin, a view consistent with their occurrence in the Congo, and, in relatively enormous numbers, in the Gold Coast. Perforated discs or rings, and hollow conical and spherical stones, all ground in the usual Neolithic style, have been found at Meroe, on Jebel Haraza (Kordofan) and at Jebel Geili, where stone discs and axe heads can be definitely associated together and with Meroitic potsherds.
Besides the types already alluded to, Jebel Gule yielded a large number of pygmy implements of quartz, carnelian and hornstone (similar to those found in South Africa and attributed to Bush men), and there is reason to believe that this industry also existed at Faragab, where these "points" were used to bore the innumer able disc heads of ostrich egg-shell which cover the ground. The British Museum has a number of beautifully worked dos abattu specimens of obsidian from the neighbourhood of Njoro in Kenya Colony; typical lunates, of jasper and of carnelian respectively, have been found in Uganda (Wayland), while to pass northwards of latitude 16°, G. A. Reisner (Sudan Notes and Records, vol. 2, No. 4, 1919) has found in tombs dating to the Egyptian 25th dynasty in Upper Nubia, perfect lunates of carnelian, in such num bers that there can be no question of their inclusion in the tombs being accidental.
This may close the account of stone implements which may be assigned to the Stone age cultures, so long as it is realized that the Neolithic certainly comes down to a period vastly more recent than the Neolithic of even northern Europe, and that in the Sudan, at least, it is overlapped by the Meroitic civilization, numerous outliers of which have been found, including those of Jebel Geili, another in the neighbourhood of the Makwar dam on the Blue Nile, notable for its Greco-Roman bronze vessels, and at Abu Sofi an in western Kordofan. Although there is no evidence to show that they are Meroitic it will be convenient here to refer to the discoveries made by H. S. Wellcome at Jebel Moya near the Blue Nile and by Seligman in the mounds near Faragab, a village of sedentary Arabs some 20M. east of Bara in northern Kordofan. Though made about 1910 only the most meagre descriptions of the Jebel Moya discoveries have been published, although they are of prime importance to the history of the Sudan. Besides stone im plements, were found beads and amulets, a number of scarabs and small plaques bearing Ethiopian and Egyptian cartouches, ranging from about 700 B.C. or perhaps going back to an even earlier date (Brit. Assn. Reports, 1912), while a paper by Prof. D. E. Derry (Proc. 17th Internat. Congress of Medicine, Sec. 1, Pt. 2, 1913), giving anatomical details of skeletons from graves at this site indi cates that the inhabitants were tall negroes resembling in height and cephalic index some of the present day negroes of the hills of southern Kordofan (C. G. Seligman, J .R.A.I. vol. 40, 1910. Plate xxxv., figs. 8 and 9). At Faragab the mounds extend over acres and their surface and the areas between them are literally covered with disc beads of ostrich egg, fragments of bone debris and other foreign objects, including fragments of imported rocks. Two types of potsherds are of special interest, one consisting of a fabric bear ing the impression of the string mat on which it was made (such mats are still used in the hills of northern Kordofan), and in this resembling the coarser wares found by Garstang in the graves of Meroe, the other oblong-oval in shape and rather shallow, often decorated with geometrical designs and produced at each end into a solid mass (handle?), its general appearance recalling that of many Melanesian wooden food bowls. This type seems to be hith erto unknown anywhere in Africa. The beads are of ivory, dolo mite and scolectite ; the single dolomite bead is definitely not of a type hitherto regarded as negro, while a single carnelian bead, if Egyptian, as no doubt it is, is regarded by Sir Flinders Petrie as certainly not later than 18th dynasty. (C. G. Seligman, "Prehis toric Site in Northern Kordofan," Annals of Archaeology and Anthropology, vol. 7, 1915.) The presence of many pieces of worked ivory is noteworthy. Of Meroitic monuments of any size, apart from those found at Soba, e.g., the "lamb" now in the Palace gardens at Khartum, the rock drawings discovered by Crowfoot at Jebel Geili, representing a king wearing the uraeus crown wor shipping a rayed solar divinity, which may be taken to be of late Meroitic date, is of special interest.
Rock Drawings.—The rock drawings of the Sudan are in Kordofan and Darfur. Generally they are outlined in red or black ish pigment, but examples roughly graved on masses of granite also occur in the Jebel Haraza massif. Drawings with pigmented outlines are found on Jebel Haraza and Jebel el `Afarit, and seem to form two groups. (H. A. MacMichael, "Rock Pictures in North Kordofan," Journ. Roy. Anthrop.-Inst. vol. xxxix., 1909, pp. 562 68.) To the first belong rough but spirited sketches of men on horseback, camels and giraffes. The workmanship of the second group is rougher and much less vigorous; it includes representa tions of camels, men on horseback and men marching or dancing, carrying the small round Hamitic shield. This, together with their general resemblance to the "Libyo-Berber" rock pictures of the southern Sahara, indicates a comparatively recent date. Moreover, the work is faint and indeterminate, and there is no trace of grav ing; in other words the Neolithic tradition has not persisted. Probably the drawings are more recent than the stone discs and hollow conical and spherical stones found on Jebel Haraza, already mentioned.
It is as yet too early to estimate the significance of the objects found by D. Newbold (Sudan Notes and Records, vol. 7, 1924) on his recent journey from Bara in Kordofan to the international boundary (long. 24° E.) between the Sudan and French Equatorial Africa. Evidence of former occupation of the country, now desert or the poorest steppe, was abundant, including cairns, pottery (some Meroitic), a small brick pyramid at Abu Sofian (i6° N., 28° E.), and five ground axes of glauconite of hitherto unknown type from the Wadi Hawa. Drawings roughly incised on boulders, e.g., at Sobat el Hammad, showed tailed and phallic men, ele phants, giraffes, ostriches, oryx, cattle and several other animals which could not be identified. At Umm Tersawen there were also a number of human figures, some tailed, some armed with bows. "At Abu Sofian two groups of pictures, obviously of the same date and 'school,' were within a day's march of one another. Here the drawings were incised on rough boulders, and were very num erous. Camels are shown literally in hundreds ; giraffes and os triches still appear ; but the cattle dwindle in numbers, while the elephant is not represented, and the bowmen give place to men armed with spears and carrying shields." The latter armament appears to bring these drawings into the Libyo-Berber class.
Another monolith of much the same dimensions has been described and figured by J. W. Crowfoot from Assarema Derheib, inland from 'Aqiq (Geog. Jour., May i9i 1), and in this instance there seems nothing to suggest its origin in a Beja grave. Farther south megalithic monuments have been reported from the Madi, while stone circles are made by the Lotuko-speaking tribes where ever stone is abundant, as squatting places for the men, though in no case could evidence be obtained of stones large enough being carried even a few miles. Again. although megalithic structures occur among the Lotuko and the Bari-speaking tribes of Mongalla Province, it is certain that some are recent erections over graves, e.g., the examples discovered by E. E. Evans-Pritchard among the Moro of the eastern Bahr el Ghazal. Although megalithic neither in structure nor form there is a type of stone monu ment some 8oft. long and about 5f t. high occurring in some number in the neighbourhood of Erkowit. These (Jour. Egypt. Archaeology, vol. 2, 1915) are constructed without any cement or mortar ; the face consists of a limiting wall of more or less flat slabs of local rock, while the spaces between the containing walls are filled in. Each monument may be considered as of three main elements, viz.: (I) an oblong rectangular portion, (2) two oval masses, to each of which is attached an expansion shaped somewhat like a fish's tail and (3) the curved walls uniting the other elements. Their orientation seems to have been toward the rising sun, while each oval element is interrupted at a constant point in its circumference by the interposition of from. two to four upright slabs. There is no chamber or space behind these stones, but from their constant presence and the uniformity of their position it is obvious that they must have had a perfectly definite significance to the builders, indeed they recall the false doors of Egyptian monuments. J. W. Crowfoot found human bones under the filling of the rectangular portion but no objects with them. They may provisionally be regarded as mediaeval, but as ante dating the spread of Mohammedan influence which was becoming dominant towards the middle of the isth century.
Littman, the leader of the German expedition to Aksum, holds that the carved and decorated monuments generally termed "obe lisks" are in fact stelae (of huge dimensions it is true, e.g., from 15 to 33 metres) and therefore each to be regarded as part of a tomb, a point of view rendered the more probable by the presence at their base of stone slabs, of ten carved, which have every appear ance of being altars. All this seems to imply a cult of the dead, but, apart from this, inscriptions dating from the r st and 4th cen turies record the names of the gods of the Semitic conquerors of northern Abyssinia. A Greek inscription of Adulis, no longer in existence but copied in the 6th century by Cosmos Indicopleustes, states that the king of Aksum of the ist century, who caused this record to be cut, worshipped Zeus, Ares and Poseidon. A later document of King Aizanas (about A.D. 350) is in Greek, Sabaean and old Ethiopic. An analysis by Littman of this inscription, to gether with one dating from about a century later, indicates that worship was rendered to Heaven, Sea and Earth, together with Mahren "who begat the King," the latter being identified with Ares. Other monuments include rude monoliths, some ornamented with bands, and a most spirited rock-carving of a lioness in low relief.
The recent work of Father Azais shows that Abyssinia is re markably rich in stone monuments, of types hitherto unsuspected. The following is derived from the well illustrated, but summary, account of the rev. father's investigations given by A. Kammerer (Essai sur l'Histoire antique d'Abyssinie, Paris, 1926). Most of the discoveries were made in an area stretching southwards from Addis Ababa beyond Lake Zwai to the neighbourhood of Lake Margherita. Large tumuli, some surrounded by a circle of mega liths, and a number of dolmens in excellent preservation, were found about loom. south-east of Harrar, i.e., on the edge of the Ogaden Somali country. These dolmens are said to be of the same general type as is found in western Europe. One which was sys tematically explored yielded, besides human remains, potsherds, a silver ring and a heavy metal bead.
Menhirs are particularly abundant in Sidamo Province, where they are generally of dressed stone, phallic in form, and may attain a height of 20 feet. A number of menhirs with anthropoid designs in low relief were found near Silte, the capital town of Guragwe. Further south, not far from Lake Margherita, statue menhirs carved in the round occur. These may show geometric designs which suggest tattoo or cicatrices, while to the west and north west of Lake Zwai, hundreds of short stout uprights of dressed stone, "stunted menhirs," have been discovered, each bearing in relief representations varying in number from one to 13 of a short broad-bladed sword which vaguely suggests the short Ro man sword. In this district, too, were found several stele bearing Arabic inscriptions in the Nasri script.
Recent Discoveries in Kenya and Tanganyika.—Important (and at the time of writing unpublished) discoveries have been made in East Africa. In 1913 a human skeleton was found by Dr. Hans Reck at Oldaway, in northern Tanganyika, on the borders of the Seringeti plain. This lay some three metres deep, in undis turbed deposits of the last Pluvial period, associated with a fauna of which more than 50% represents extinct species, including E. antiques Hipparion sp., and an extinct sheep (Pelorovis oldawayensis). The skull from this skeleton is said to resemble that from Elmenteita, found by L. S. B. Leakey, whose important discoveries in Kenya in the neighbourhood of Lake Nakuru may provisionally be summarized as follows : A partial excavation of a flat-topped kopje at Eburu yielded crouched burials of a people with long slender limb bones and long narrow skulls, probably Negro-Hamitic. There was an iron toe-ring on one of the skeletons. At Nakuru a series of forcibly contracted burials was found along the side of a cliff ; the skulls which are not negro—it is too early to discuss whether they are in any degree negroid—are long and massive with a long face and well developed and narrow nose. The muscular impressions are well marked, the longbones long and relatively slender. With these skeletons were found obsidian microliths, including lunates, small dos abattu blades, stone bowls and mortars, grinding-stones, pot tery, simple bone tools and two beads of foreign origin which may possibly date about 2,000 B.C. At Elmenteita, near the Makalia river, there were found bones, including skulls, probably represent ing burials disturbed by flood, and some of these bones are defi nitely fossil. Here the skulls are of more than one type, (I) strongly built, dolichocephalic, and, apart from the lower jaw, somewhat resembling the Combe Capelle skull, (2) smaller, brachycephalic, represented only by women. The associated in dustry consists of fair-sized flakes, lunates and end-scrapers of ob sidian, ostrich-shell beads and pearl shell pendants, as well as at least three types of pottery. Besides the effects of flood this site was disturbed some ten years ago, so that the original stratification may have become confused and the associated objects be of differ ent ages.