Current Topics and Events

Abstract

ELSEWHERE in this issue is an article by Prof. Raymond Dart dealing with certain evidence which, on his view, reveals a long history of cultural contact between South Africa and the outside world from an early date. It is scarcely necessary to emphasise the importance of Prof. Dart's views in relation to the “diffusionist” theories which have been put forward by Prof. Elliot Smith and his colleagues. Perhaps the most striking piece of evidence with which Prof. Dart deals is the parallel drawn between the head-dress and clothing of certain figures in the Bushmen paintings of the Kei River Valley and of figures in the art of Babylonia and Western Asia. Bushmen paintings are thought by some, for good reason, to be relatively modern; the evidence of the incrustation of which Prof. Dart speaks is of little value without further information as to its character and rate of deposit. If the identification of the Babylonian cap were accepted, it would suggest the eighth century B.C. as a probable date, but without a strong corroborative evidence the identification is precarious, especially as this type of cap is of extreme rarity in Babylonian art. Prof. Dart is on surer ground when he points to the problem presented by the extensive traces of early mining activity in Rhodesia. It may be that the researches of the Committee of the British Association which is investigating the composition of early bronzes may point to South Africa as one of the possible sources of supply and thus afford some clue to the date of some of these workings. It is, however, beyond question that the discovery by Dr. Randall-Maclver in the ruined structures of Rhodesia of Nankin china which could not be dated at the earliest much before the fourteenth century, is a great stumbling-block in the way of those who seek to prove an early date for the Zimbabwe culture.