South African Archaeological Society

Essai sur le Chameau au Sahara Occidental by Vincent MonteilThe South African Archaeological Bulletin, Vol. 9, No. 33 (Mar., 1954), p. 36Published by: South African Archaeological SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3886798 .

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REVIEWS Sankalia, Hasmukh, D. 'The Godavari Palaeolithic

Industry.' Deccan Coll. Mono. Ser. 10, Poona, 1952, pp. 1-60. Illus. Price: Rs. 12.

I have for long observed with a great deal of interest, that the developed Acheulian Culture of India is almost a mirror-image of that of Africa. Illustrations that Bruce-Foote used to enlighten the discoveries of Acheul-type hand-axes and cleavers he made near Madras and elsewhere as long as three-quarters of a century ago, could literally be used to depict and describe hand-axes and cleavers found at Stellenbosch soon after. Subsequent discoveries down the decades have merely strengthened the typological and technical ties that seemed to have linked Africa and India much more closely to each other than either was linked to Europe during Old Palaeolithic or Earlier Stone Age times.

As discovery followed discovery over more wide- spread areas, both in India and in Africa, this link continued to gain strength-whether one examined assemblages from the east, west, or central areas of Peninsula India and then compared them with assemblages from south, central or north Africa. Even the quartzite selected for the manufacture of hand-axes and cleavers in India is often superficially indistinguishable from that selected in Africa- Morocco, the Belgian Congo and South Africa.

All these factors combine to lead one to suspect that man migrated from Africa to Asia in appreciable numbers during Middle Pleistocene times. The dis- coveries of Acheul-type hand-axes in Palestine, Arabia and beyond to India reveal the routes that the migrants probably followed when climatic conditions were more congenial than they are at present.

Among the latest discoveries reported from India is one from near the head-waters of the Godavari. It was made by Dr. Hasmukh Sankalia in excavations undertaken during the building of a dam near Gangawadi (Gangapur) and has been fully described by him in a well-illustrated monograph entitled 'The Godavari Palaeolithic Industry', published by the Deccan College of Postgraduate Research at Poona. This valuable contribution should be studied by all prehistorians who are interested in the origin, development, content and spread of the Hand-axe Culture, but especially by those who work in the Ethiopian Region.

Dr. Sankalia makes it abundantly clear that the Indian Acheulian is a core-cum-flake cultural entity; that flake tools (especially cleavers, choppers and scrapers) predominate markedly over bifacially trimmed hand-axes, and that the Faceted Platform (or Levallois) technique is an integral part of the Culture. The position in India is almost precisely what it is in Africa. He illustrates prepared cores and flakes of both Proto-Levallois II and Old Levallois form that he found in deep-buried deposits that yielded typical Acheulian hand-axes and cleavers.

Dr. Sankalia is to be congratulated on the stress he has laid on the many flake-elements within the Culture: both Clacton and Levallois types. His Godavari Palaeolithic Industry is clearly an expression of the Indian Acheulian, which, in turn, is almost a mirror- image of the African Acheulian in which Levallois elements do not constitute an admixture as so many erroneously imagine, but occur actually as an integral part of the culture, having developed within it.

It is a pity that more prehistorians, especially those who work in Africa, are not as clear-sighted as Dr. Sankalia is. It is also a pity that so many fail to describe the flake-elements they find with hand-axes. Many important contributions on occurrences in Africa are marred and misleading because of this neglect. May these workers soon learn to take a leaf out of Dr. Sankalia's book! And then give us the more complete descriptions we need. I could name at least one major African Acheulian site, the available, almost monumental, descriptions of which give the reader no idea of the flake-elements, including we1l- prepared cores and the application of the Faceted Platform technique, that abound within the cultural whole: that form part and parcel of it and do not come from without to form an admixture or a blend between different cultures.

Dr. Sankalia continues to do such splendid work in India that we may look forward to many more contri- butions. Our debt to him is an ever-increasing one.

C. v. R. L.

Monteil, Vincent. 'Essai sur le Chameau au Sahara Occidental.' Etudes Mauritaniennes, II, Ifan- Mauretanie, 1952.

Dr. Monteil divides his excellent little work into three parts: anatomy, reproduction and history. Only the last is of interest to us here. Published shortly before Lhote's paper (reviewed in last issue) on engravings and rock paintings, the author relies on earlier sources, mainly a recapitulation of the twenty classic pages on the Camel by E. F. Gautier, Le passe' de I'Afrique du Nord, 1937, but augmented from other sources. The evidence of the late appearance of the camel rests on three sources: the absence of ancient (or even old) petroglyphs in the Sahara, the complete silence in Greek, Latin and Egyptian records of any camels in Africa, and the ignorance of the Hamitic peoples of the Sahara on the camel, as their terms for the camel, its trappings and habits are all Arabic.

Monteil points out that in Egypt itself figures of laden camels occur in XII dynasty graves, while on the Egyptian-Libyan-Sudan border apparently ancient petroglyphs occur, etc. The problem is thus still open for research, especially in the western Sahara. It is worth noting that wild camels existed in the Sahara in the early Quaternary period, but there is no evidence of any later domestication in Africa, the traditional trappings seem to belong to Arabia.

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