Abstract
A CLAIM to have distinguished a new material culture in South Africa is put forward by Dr. Ir. E. C. N. Van Hoepen, director of the National Museum, Bloemfontein (Argœologiese Navorsing, Dl. i St. 5), in describing a remarkable stone pipe from a shelter near Bethlehem. Its peculiarity lies in the ornamentation, a system of curved grooves and on one side a sinuous ridge ending in a reversed E, representing a snake. Similar pipes have previously been described, one of clay from the ash-heaps of stone huts at Vegkop by Van Riet Lowe and another of stone by Stow. Van Riet Lowe attributed the pipe he described to the Leghoya, dating the huts at about 1790, but Dr. Van Hoepen does not consider his reasoning or evidence satisfactory, and points out that stone huts are not a characteristic of Bantu culture, the Leghoya themselves using conical grass thatched huts, according to Stow. He himself sees in the pipes and the shelters closer affinities with Hottentot, Bushmen, and Xosa, but concludes that the three characters, the stone pipes, the stone huts and the ornamentation do not belong to any known African culture. We are, therefore, he holds, dealing with something new, a culture for which the name ‘stone-hut’ culture is proposed. This view, important as it is for the history of South African cultures, should be accepted with some caution. Its confirmation by further evidence will be awaited with interest.
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A New South African Culture?. Nature 131, 393 (1933). https://doi.org/10.1038/131393a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/131393a0