MEN OF 250,000 YEARS AGO.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXIII, Issue 4433, 28 June 1922, Page 4

MEN OF 250,000 YEARS AGO.

> RELICS FOUND IN VELDT CAVES. 1 ! ' “DAILY MAIL’’ EXPEDITION ' REPORT. The report of Mr. Harold Scott Harger, the best-known geologist in South; Africa.. who has just explored for “The Daily Mail” the recently discovered mummy caves at Koster, 100 miles west of Johannesburg, shows that while the caves themselves resemble many others in the Transvaal, the surrounding district reveal's ample evidence of occupation by a race of considerable intelligence at a very remote period. The expedition penetrated a long . way underground, ultimately reaeh- : ing a place probably more than 150 ft ' below the surface, where a steep, j i dangerous descent leads apparently to | another series of caverns still farther 1 underground. I I It was here that a boy who explored i the place a little while ago says he ‘ heard rushing water, and Mr. Harger I concluded that there probably was ! once an underground stream. I Owing to insufficient rope it was impossible to descend lower into tne bowels of the earth, and Mr. Harger did not think such a descent would' disclose anything of great value, so he retraced his steps. ,| HaiHLplancd Bones. The freshness of the air pointed to connection with other caverns, opening to the atmosphere, but owing to the vast maze of caverns and fissures

no additional outlet could be discovered. It is possible that traces of primitive man might be found beneath several feet of bat guano covering the floor of the main cave, though Mr. Harger thinks it probable that the first entrance —down a 70ft vertical shaft—would deter human beings In the second cave, more accessible from the veldt, Mr. Harger a.nd Mr. Robeits, of Pretoria Museum 1 , found bones which had been planed down by the hand of man, possibly the work of bushmen. In the surrounding district Mr. Harger found stone implements which pointed to the occupation of the area by a somewhat superior race, possibly white, at least 250,000 years ago. These included well ground and drilled implements of symmetrical proporitions typical of the Neolithic period in Europe and Asia.

He considers the Koster area the finest in South Africa from an anthropological standpoint, and inclines to the theory that it was once occupied by primordial men who subsequently moved northwards 1 towards Europe. Mr Harger says it might be that diamonds had been found underground at Koster, but he saw nothing to support the theory of; the existence of a river of diamonds in any underground stream. Millions of Bats. Tn one part of the caves the party found millions of bats, which flew wildly at them, dinging to their faces and hair, and even getting in one man’s mouth.