Page:George McCall Theal, Ethnography and condition of South Africa before A.D. 1505 (2nd ed, 1919).djvu/13



Recent discoveries concerning man in early times.—Antiquity of man in South Africa.—Great shell mound at East London.—The Ancient Shellmound Men.—Positions in which ancient stone implements are found.—Slow progress in knowledge of man in a savage state.—Physical features of South Africa.—Civilising effects of hunger, disease, and war.—Conjectures as to the primeval home of the Bushmen.—Similarity of the Bushmen to the palæolithic pigmies of ancient Europe.—Evidence of their wall paintings.—Points of resemblance between the Bushmen and the Semang.—Probable cause of their difference in colour.—Occupation of the African continent by the Bushmen.—Use made of a Bushman by an ancient Egyptian king.—Mention of the Bushmen by the Greek historian Herodotus.—Discovery of engravings on rock in Northern Africa by Dr. Barth and others.—Migration of various races into Africa.—Extermination of the Bushmen in the greater part of the continent.—Doubtful existence of other people in Africa before the Bushmen.—Notes on treatises on stone implements.—Note upon the glacial period in Europe.

Condition of primitive man.—Neglect of the study of the Bushmen by the first European colonists.—Information concerning the Bushmen given in official records and by various individuals.—Language of the Bushmen.—Researches by Drs. W. H. I. Bleek and L. C. Lloyd.—Cause of the loss of their language by the