Abstract
A NUMBER of interesting articles are contained in the Transactions of the Bhodesia Scientific Association, 37 (April, 1941). It is good to learn that the study of the rock-shelter paintings of Southern Rhodesia continues, and the Hon. L. Cripps speaks of thousands of sites of which he has visited and made copies of paintings at some six hundred. This is no mean work, and his little paper, scientifically written so far as it goes, is, one hopes, only the precursor of a larger work. The author has continued to study the superpositions of the different coloured paintings (though making no mention of any changes of style or subject-matter) and by th se means makes out an age-colour sequence not materially differing from that which I was able to suggest in 1928. Further, he considers that the paintings were connected with the burial of the dead, and that the present-day natives are the descendants of the artists. I venture to suggest that some at least of the paintings go back to a very remote period, and that much migration into the country has taken 'place since they were made. It is always difficult ito deny continuity of blood in any given instance, -but I doubt whether there is any general direct descent from the earliest painters to the modern inhabitants. Indeed, I am not even sure that the painters in claret were themselves the direct descendants of those who used the earlier colours. May I perhaps remind Mr. Cripps that the problem of dating the paintings will surely involve excavations in the sites and that Bambata and Nswatugi seem to point the way and have in fact already helped in this direction?
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BURKITT, M. SOUTH AFRICAN PREHISTORY. Nature 149, 225 (1942). https://doi.org/10.1038/149225a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/149225a0