SKELETON KIDDLE

Evening Star, Issue 18159, 27 December 1922, Page 6

SKELETON KIDDLE

PREHISTORIC MINER OR INVADER’S SLAVE? A full account of tho discovery of a mysterious skeleton in -what has been supposed to bo a prehistoric cold mine is now to hand from tho actual discoverer, Mr Duncan Simpson .(says a London paper). Tlio skull of a man and several bones were found 1 in July in a vej;y old working near G-wanda, Rhodesia. From tho position of tho find, tho man had evidently been working at the face of a gold reef, and had probably been killed by a fall of rock. A heavy stone hammer lay by in the position in 'which it would have been held l if the worker had been lying prone. Tho skull and bones are .now in charge of Dr Arnold, of the Rhodesian Museum, and are to ho examined by experts to decide what was the race or character of the man to whom they belonged. On a

cursory inspection they are thought to have been Bantu or African negro. If so, a point of great importance will have been established. There is a tradition that certain comers from Asia—Pliomicians or oilier Semites—mined gold in South Africa; and tho workings by “ the Ancients ” with which Rhodesia is covered have been generally attributed to them. But never before has a skeleton been found in one of these workings in such conditions that it can bo said (as in the case of the present find) that it was tho skeleton of one of the original miners. The skeleton lay under 20ft of debris in the old mine, and within a few inches of the stone hammer discovered near it was an undetached portion of tho gold! reef, which probably indicated the worker’s point of attack. The stono hammer does not necessarily indicate extreme age, as there are parts of Africa where iron is rare, and where Mono implements were used in quite recent times. In some of the Rhodesian workings made by “the Ancients ” iron tools have been discovered, but these do not fix the date, as the use of iron goes back to very remote times and overlaps the use of atone. The examination of tho old workings has left many mysteries which have to be solved. The first is as to the race which made them, and some light may be thrown on this when the verdict on the recent skull is known. The second is | as to the methods which they employed. In some of the workings ore nas been re-

moved which contains only the merest fraction of an ounce per ton —such a small fraction of gold as could not have been extracted by civilised man until the modern cyanide process was introduced. Again, how the ore was cut cleanly out of the rock is another mystery. Apparently the work was performed by the application of great heat, very carefully controlled, as the ore body, according to an account published in the Johannesburg ‘ Sunday Times,’ has been so skilfully removed that it is rare to find a piece adhering to the walls. It is, of course, possible tliat the work was done for Semites by African slaves and that the engineers and directors came from the Mediterranean or Asia, and wore! Cielana, Philistines, ior Phoenicians, or j possibly even Egyptians. This has been i conjectured, but as yet, beyond some pottery finds, there has been nothing to give it support. Tlie systematic archaeological examination of Southern. Africa is, however, only just beginning, and may solve many of the mysteries mentioned.