Page:George McCall Theal, Ethnography and condition of South Africa before A.D. 1505 (2nd ed, 1919).djvu/30

6 None of them were ground or polished, as chipping comprised all the labour that was bestowed upon them. They were the products of the skill of man still in a very low stage of his existence. Workshops where they were manufactured have been discovered in various places, and to some of these the raw material, or unchipped stone, must have been brought from a considerable distance. The artisans may have lived there permanently, or, what is more probable, some superstition may have been connected with the localities. At these factories a quantity of stone from which flakes have been struck, some raw material, a very few finished articles, and a great many broken ones usually lie wholly or partially hidden by drift sand or mould, and it is generally by accident that they are discovered. They prove that already man had learned the lesson of the value of a division of labour, for it can be taken for certain that every one was not his own manufacturer, but that only the most skilful were employed in making the best-formed tools.

The implements used at this stage of man's residence in South Africa were almost as well fashioned as those of the people termed by us Bushmen were found to be when Europeans first visited the country, so that it is reasonable to assume that the race was continuous, especially as no indications can be found of any subsequent intrusions until the arrival of the Hottentots and Bantu only a few centuries ago. Several improvements, though with one exception trifling, are observable, but no race, however backward, can continue to exist for an enormously long period of time without making some progress in knowledge and in manufactures. The stone implements therefore became gradually more varied and a few of them were more nicely finished, bone came into use for some purposes, and the spherical perforated stone, which shows the greatest advance of all, and which is not found with any of the early tools, was invented. Thus there was progress, though exceedingly slow, during the countless centuries that passed away.