South African Archaeological Society

The Springfield Skeleton: A Human Hybrid from the Kimberley District by P. V. TobiasReview by: A. J. H. G.The South African Archaeological Bulletin, Vol. 8, No. 30 (Jun., 1953), p. 31Published by: South African Archaeological SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3887462 .

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As unrolled Kafuan-type artefacts have now been recovered from the upper disturbed layers of the Basal Older Gravels in both high and low terraces, it would appear that the disturbance took place during the decline of the Kageran Pluvial Period, i.e. after the shelves that lie between 200 ft. and 80 ft. in the Barkly West-Windsorton area had been cut, and the Basal Older Gravels aggraded to form terraces upon them. If this is so, then the entire Hand- axe Culture of Chelles-Acheul facies must, as in East and Central Africa, be assigned to the Kamasian Pluvial. The discoveries here described open up a new vista; a vista that will, it is confidently hoped, be more closely examined in the near future; a vista that should bring us nearer and ever-nearer a fuller appreciation not only of man's earliest recognizable attempts to fashion tools of stone, but also more accurately to determine the time-horizon on which he made these attempts.

Whatever the final interpretation may be, there can be no doubt that the artefacts here described and illustrated are the oldest geologically well-documented products of human industry in stone hitherto found in South Africa. We unfortunately have insufficient material to be able to say to what stage of the Kafuan they belong, but my impression is that they represent a developed stage.

REVIEWS

Tobias, P. V. 'The Springfield Skeleton: a human hybrid from the Kimberley District', S. Af. J. Sci., XLIX, 8, March 1953, pp. 261-72.

This painstaking and definitive analysis of a single skeleton-an old woman exhumed on a farm near Ritchie-is a terrifying example of what could be done if the million or more ancestors of our present African population were to be exhumed and reduced to sets of figures. The approach is beyond reproach, the work is essential, excellent and deserving of praise; but inadequately financed scientific journals should be spared metrical detail on this scale, unless the human remains are of exceptional and general importance. Presumably the discussion by itself would have been adequate in this instance.

The amount of hybridization which has necessarily occurred throughout Africa's millenniums can hardly be deduced from a single individual, and detailed work of this nature tends to overlook the fact that each race is essentially a selection made by the physical anthropologist for purposes of definition; was there in fact (after the Adamite period) ever a 'pure race'? The selection of a grouping of racial characteristics and their listing under racial terms is fundamentally a means to an end, a matter of agreement within a school of physical anthropologists. Attacks on such groupings can only show disagreement on non- absolutes. The reviewer's concept of a pure red, blue or yellow will probably differ from that of Tobias; but one supposes that our ideas of what might best be classed adequately as red, blue or yellow agree in the main. That is as far as physical anthropology can take us. It would seem therefore that, once sets of metrical evidence have been collected and collated graphically in the mass, deductions as to the happiest groupings into physical types or races (allowance

having been made for sexual differences) will even- tually be made. Such collations of measurements must be primarily related to known zones of disper- sion, then finally brought together for our sub- continent.

Much difficulty arises from the racial use of such linguistic and cultural terms as Korana, Bantu, Hottentot, Bushman, etc., yet the physical anthro- pologist seems frequently to ignore associated cultural material. How can we study the tree unless we know the fruit of that tree? In this instance 'some glass beads of more or less modern type were found with the skeleton, but nothing else'-hardly an adequate definition of associations. A clear description of the beads might eventually lead to identification.

A.J.H.G.

Kirkman, James. 'The Excavation at Kilepwa', The Antiquaries Journal, XXXII, 3-4, pp. 168-84.

This contribution to the study of the medieval archaeology of the Kenya Coast describes exca- vations carried out on two mangrove-fringed islands in Mida Creek, fifty miles north of Mombasa. The deductions made here rely fundamentally on earlier major excavations carried out at Gedi on the main- land two miles to the north. Mr. Kirkman deduces three main periods of occupation, starting in the mid- twelfth century, and ending in the second quarter of the sixteenth century of our era. These periods cover seven phases, each characterized by appropriate pottery industries. The work is excellent and well carried out; perhaps fig. 2 might have been more clearly arranged, as it takes some little time to discover which scale refers to which plan or section, but a little analysis shows that the figure is correct.

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