Abstract
IT is satisfactory to find that there is a sufficient interest in the subject of South African archaeology to require a second edition of Mr. J. P. Johnson's book on “The Pre-historic Period in South Africa” within two years. In the new edition some new finds are referred to, and there is an appendix by Mr. A. S. Kennard on the sequence of the stone implements in the Lower Thames Valley. Mr. Johnson describes and figures chipped stones from Leijlontein, below the Campbell Rand, which closely resemble those from the plateau of Kent, and he does not hesitate to call them “eoliths.” Implements of river-drift types are distributed all over South Africa. “Among the amygdaliths [his term for the common type of implement] every gradation is met with between the thick Chelleen form with unworked butt, the thinner Acheuleen type with edge carried all round, and the proto-Solutreen form pointed at both ends”; he calls them all “Acheulic.” He also recognises “Solutric” implements; amongst these are “pigmy implements” of chert. Dr. Peringuey found implements at Bloemsbosch in what Johnson considers a Solutric site, apparently contemporary with a large extinct buffalo and horse. In the present state of our knowledge it is rather begging the question to apply without qualification to South African finds the terms used to designate special “industries” of European archaeology. It would be a wiser plan to use non-committal designations while pointing out the similarities in the forms of the implements.
The Pre-historic Period in South Africa.
By J. P. Johnson. Second edition, revised and enlarged. Pp. iv + 115 + plates + map. (London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1912.) Price 10s.
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The Pre-historic Period in South Africa . Nature 91, 184 (1913). https://doi.org/10.1038/091184a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/091184a0