PREHISTORIC MAN.

Hokitika Guardian, 19 March 1927, Page 4

PREHISTORIC MAN.

POUND IN EAST AFRICA. (By E. N. FALLAIZK, Secretary Royal Anthropological Institute. London.) (Written for Science Service.) A disc every which may prove of the greatest importance in helping to solve me problems of the distribution and migrations of early man in Africa is announced from Nairobi, Uganda. J.. S. Lea key, a member of the Cutler Expedition, which is searching for the remains of dinosaurs in East Africa, has been specially detailed to investigate the archaeology ami early history of man in Uganda. He has now found a complete human skeleton at Nakuru buried in the Hexed position, with knees drawn up to the chin, at a depth of twelve feet. With the skeleton were over a hundred stone implements described as “MCsolithic.” being mostly luantes (crescent-shaped) and backed points of obsidian with u few hone points. The depth at which tile skeleton was found, and the character of the stone implements found with it, would seem to indicate a very great antiquity, though how old it N it is not yet possible to say.

The skeleton is that of a six-foot man. ami is said to be “ not negroid.” flic skull has a nose of medium width, and the jaw is not thrust forward. In tile this man, therefore, did not have the broad flat nose and the projecting jaw characteristic of the usual negro' type.

This is not the first; discovery relating to early man to he made in Uganda. .Just before the war a skull was found which was thought to be oT a very early age, and indeed in the view of some scientists it was thought it might even go hack as far as the old Stone Age. and possibly be contemporary with stone age men of Europe. Numerous discoveries of stone implements have also been made. Although it is not possible, owing to the difference in geological conditions.' to say with certainty how these implements compare with those of the Palaeolithic Europe in actual dating in terms of year, in type the larger chipped implements of rougher and heavier form, belonging clearly to the earliest phases of the Stone Age in Uganda, are similar to those of the early stages of the European Palaeolithic Age and are to he compared with the early implements found in other parts of the world wherever evidences of the existence of the Stone Ago have been found.

In connection with the present discovery, however, the most interesting implements which have been found fire the series of pigmy implements; discovered in Uganda by Mr Waylaml, the Government geologist, which arc* of the same type ns the lunatcs and hacked points or small Knives of stone found with the skeleton at Nakuru. The diminutive implements, most, of them less than an inch long, are characteristically of a very definitely geometrical form, often triangular, and are very widely distributed all over the- world. They have been found in India, the Sudan, North Africa, Australia, Central Asia, and, of course, Great Britain and most of the other countries of Europe, especially France. The, culture to which they belong is called Azilinn from a site in France, Mas d’Azil, a rock shelter in which they were first found. In date they belong to the transitional period between the Clef ami New Stone Ages, which, In Europe, falls perhaps somewhere lietween 9000 and 7000 U.C. It cannot bo said whether the Azilian implements found outside Europe are all as old as tin's ; probably they are not. But it is possible that further research in East Africa mav show that we have here in this discovery a branch ol the

Azilian race migrating south at a date not much later than when this culture flourished in Europe. It is hoped and expected that the Kenya Government will assist Mr Leakey with a money grant to carry on his researches, for which further help is urgently needed