Africa - the Southern Province

AFRICA - THE SOUTHERN PROVINCE Palaeolithic Implements.—Artifacts of rude Chellean type, often larger than the corresponding implements of western Europe, are found over the greater portion of South Africa, nor does there seem to be any reason why these should not be regarded as true palaeoliths perhaps of an age comparable to those of Europe. One of the most satisfactory finds of this order is constituted by a considerable number of implements of chalcedony, quartzite, etc., exactly similar to types characteristic of the River-drift Period of western Europe and Great Britain, associated with and evidently forming part of ancient terrace gravels deposited as drifts by the Zambezi (in the neighbourhood of Victoria Falls) at a remote period. The position of these terrace gravels and surface drifts in regard to the Batoka Gorge indicates their real antiquity, since they must have been deposited by the river when the latter was covering the old valley floor more than 400ft. above its present level. Here Henry Balfour excavated several implements from un disturbed gravel deposits at depths varying from 6in. to 2ft., some greatly water-worn and heavily patinated.

Recently A. J. H. Goodwin ("South African Archaeology," Man, 1927, 14, and "Capsian Affinities of S. A. later Stone age Culture," South African Journal of Science, vol. xxii., 1925) has summarized South African history on the following lines:— The terms Palaeolithic and Neolithic are dropped, the two main periods being termed the Earlier Stone age and the Later Stone age, Peringuey's name for the main coup-de-poing culture of the Earlier Stone age, the Stellenbosch industry, being retained. A second culture, the Victoria West industry, centres round Vic toria West in the south-central Karroo, running north into the Free State and west to Nakob on the S.-W. African border ; the coup de-poing occurs, but the main implement appears to be a core sim ilar to the European Acheulean tortoise-core, but some 8in. or so in length. It is not clear whether core or flake was the desired element, but secondarily worked flakes of this industry have not been found. The last culture of the Earlier Stone age is that of Fauresmith in the Orange Free State, with a flake worked to resemble a coup-de-poing as the characteristic tool.

There is no evidence of the Earlier Stone age developing into the Later Stone age, indeed they probably overlapped. The earliest industry of the Later Stone age is that of Still bay (near Mossel bay) covering most of the eastern part of the Union and extending into the Free State and to Okahandja in South-West Africa. This culture somewhat resembles the Solutrean of Europe, with lance olate implements (usually small) as well as tanged forms, some times with serrated edges.

The Still bay culture was followed by two probably contempo raneous industries which extend into modern times, termed from sites in the Orange Free State the Smithfield and Wilton cultures respectively. The Smithfield culture includes end-scrapers, thumb nail and horse-shoe scrapers, trimmed points (of Chatelperron type), handpicks, bored stones, ostrich eggshell beads, ground stone rings, pottery and human remains. The human remains are of the "Bushman" type, and in a general way this culture is simi lar to the Capsian or the Aurignacian of Europe. The Wilton in dustry is very similar; the chief implements are pygmy lunates, thumbnail, and end-scrapers, as well as geometrical forms; the pottery is similar to that of Smithfield ; bone arrowheads and link-shafts occur ; burials are flexed, with skeletons of the same general type as the Smithfield specimens. Slate "palettes" are also found, and the culture is definitely associated with the cave paintings. Goodwin considers this culture as identical with the last phases of the Capsian of Spain and North Africa, a point of view confirmed by I. Schapera ("Some Stylistic Affinities of Bush man Art," South African Journal of Science, vol. xxii. Nov. 1925, PP. 504-15), who, as the result of a careful comparison of Euro pean Palaeolithic and Bushman art concludes that the Capsian art of Spain shows most affinity with that of the Bushmen.

Information supplied by Goodwin indicates the existence of a true Mousterian—the Glen Grey industry—with high-backed as well as the more usual flat points similar to those found in North Africa and Europe, while in the Later Stone age the recent dis covery at Howieson's Poort of a number of true graving points (burin) is important, both in itself and as further suggesting con tact with the north.

Pottery.—It is not clear that examples of pottery of any con siderable age exist. Those figured by Peringuey (Annals of the South African Museum, vol. viii, 1911), provisionally assigned to Bushmen, Strandloopers and Hottentots, are of the rudest type, predominantly ovoid with conical bottoms, sometimes ornamented, the kneading and baking being very poor.

The Bushmen.—No apology seems necessary for considering the "archaeology" of the Bushmen with that of the kindred Strandloopers (no longer to be regarded as a distinct race, the name describing a mode of life and not implying a constant physi cal difference), for even though the former are not utterly extinct, the few survivors no longer pursue their characteristic arts of painting and graving on rock. It is generally admitted that the Bushmen stock came into South Africa from the north, and Stow was of the opinion that there were two great divisions, each with its characteristic mode of life and art, viz.: (I) cave-dwellers (painters), and (2) kopje-dwellers (sculptors), the latter produc ing their works by "pecking" the rock face on which they worked. This view does not seem to be generally accepted, perhaps it only emphasizes differences in technique due preponderantly to environment.

The paintings of the Bushmen, naturalistic monochrome and polychrome studies of high artistic merit, for the most part record the animals which they hunted and upon which they sub sisted. But paintings of the carnivora are not absent, and cattle raids, dances and magico-religious (?) scenes are also portrayed. Belonging no doubt to the latter class are the fairly numerous ex amples of animal-headed human figures—representations of masked dances—not to be confused with the wearing of animal skins as a hunting ruse to admit approach to the game, as in the famous picture in the Hershel district of Cape Colony of a Bush man wearing an ostrich skin while stalking a flock of these birds.

The character of Bushman paintings has been well summed up by Henry Balfour : They are "remarkable not only for the realism exhibited by so many, but also for a freedom from the limitation to delineation in profile which characterizes for the most part the drawings of primitive- peoples, especially where animals are concerned. Atti tudes of a kind difficult to render were ventured upon without hesitation, and appreciation even of the rudiments of perspective is occasionally to be noted, though only in a crude and uncertain form. The practice of endeavouring to represent more than could be seen at one time . . . is far less noticeable in Bushmen art than might have been expected from the rudimentary general cul ture of these peoples, and one does not see instances of both eyes being indicated upon a profile face, or a mouth in profile on a full face. . . . The colours were usually laid on uniformly over the surface which they individually covered, but a shading off is some times exhibited." (Bushmen Paintings, 1909, p. 9.) Dr. K. M. Barnard points out that examples similar in execution to those described by L. Peringuey (Trans. S. Afr. Philos. Soc., 16, 1906, and 18, 1909) have been discovered at various places in South-west Africa, the farthest north being in the Grootf on tein district. In addition to the usual animals there are representa tions of the human foot, and the spoor of various bucks, while from the position in which these latter occur the explanation that they are "sign-posts" to water cannot be maintained.

Major F. J. Bagshawe (see Man, 1923, 92) has discovered in Tanganyika Territory rock-paintings of Bushmen type of so high an artistic quality that their origin can only be referred to this race, an extension northwards which goes well with the dis tribution of the Bushmen kwe (digging-stick weight), of which specimens, known in Tanganyika, have been discovered in Uganda (Wayland) and even among the Bari of the Southern Sudan (Seligman). The Tanganyika rock-paintings include an eland, cow, ostriches, giraffe and antelope.

Strandloopers.

The Strandloopers are a people of whom, apart from their skeletal characters, we know little, though con cerning these there is a fair volume of reliable if not always con sistent data. Their cultural attainments may be judged, e.g., from the remains found in the caves and rock-shelters of T'zitzikama cliffs, about loom. to the west of Port Elizabeth. One of these shelters explored by F. W. Fitzsimons (described by Sir Arthur Keith, The Antiquity of Man, I., 1925), contained deposits some 3oft. deep. The lower 5ft. and the upper 6ft. were sterile ; below this latter layer was a stratum some 7 in thickness in which numer ous Strandlooper burials were encountered amidst remains of fireplaces, broken pottery, implements and ornaments in stone and bone. Then came the third stratum, over 6ft. in thickness. While removing this stratum and working at a depth of 15ft. below the original floor of the shelter, Fitzsimons found graves containing remains which differed from those he had met with in the stratum. above. Unfortunately the bones in the lower stratum were im perfectly preserved. The graves had been partly protected by slabs of stone some of which had been rudely engraved with human figures. There were lumps of red ochre, necklaces of shell and bone and tools of stone and bone. In a still deeper stratum, also about 6ft. in thickness, there were traces of burials and hearths, the human remains being fragmentary, but considered to belong to individuals of the Boskop type.

Mediaeval Remains in Rhodesia.

The conclusions of D. Randall-Maclver (Mediaeval Rhodesia, 1906) that the Zimbabwe and similar ruins in Rhodesia are negro in origin and modern in date, though not generally accepted in South Africa, have not been disproved. For though there is no inherent improbability in the early Semitic origin of these ruins, it seems unnecessary to seek a foreign colonization where the facts in no way contradict a local origin. No authentic inscriptions have been found, and no objects discovered in the Great Zimbabwe, around which the controversy has chiefly centred, need be more than a few centuries old, while those that are not foreign imports (porcelain, etc.) are of African. type. Moreover, a re-examination of the evidence, including un published material in the library at Lisbon, has led Father Sche besta (Mitt. der Anthrop. Ges. in Wien, 1922-23) to the conclu sion that not only is the Zimbabwe a product of the indigenous kingdom of Monomotapa described by the Portuguese, but that its builders culturally resembled the Baganda, and probably cer tain other of the more advanced peoples of Central Africa.

For bibliography, see the references in the text. (C. G. S.)