German educational film: Children of East Africa

This film seems to closely parallel documentation regarding other films that were shot by Dr. Ludwig Kohl Larsen and his research team during the German Africa Expeditions that took place from 1934 to 1936 and again from 1937 to 1939. This expedition went to East Africa to study the hunter gatherer tribe of the region near Lake Eyasi. This tribe was called the Hadzabe, a nomadic tribe from Tanzania. This particular short ethnographic film features mainly children at play. They are young boys, running naked and swimming in the lake, climbing trees, eating coconuts, and fishing in the lake. It is not yet confirmed if the people in this particular film are actually members of the Hadzabe tribe. Dr. Ludwig Kohl Larsen (Germany, 1884-1969): During the 1930s several research expeditions were conducted by the German ethnologist and physician Professor L. Kohl-Larsen in the region east and south of Lake Eyasi. Although he was mainly interested in ethnology, he and his wife Margit undertook important archaeological excavations, one of which was at Mumba Rock Shelter at the north-eastern end of Lake Eyasi. This excavation, which lasted about nine months, yielded not only more than one hundred thousand cultural remains, but also skeletal remains of 18 individuals from the Later Stone Age and Iron Age (Bräuer 1978a, 1979b). Moreover, he discovered the well-known, probably early Upper Pleistocene jaw fragments from Garusi and the Eyasi cranial remains, which are hitherto the only representatives of the East African remains with Neandertaloid features. (Protsch 1977). In the spring of 1935 the Kohl-Larsens excavated another important rock shelter, which yielded more skeletal material The shelter is situated south of Lake Eyasi about 12 kilometres east of Mkalama village and was named Strauss-Höhle (Strauss Rock Shelter) because it showed the painting of an ostrich (German: Strauss), about 30 cm in height and red in colour (see Kohl-Larsen 1958). The shelter which is called Kinto Rock Shelter by the local inhabitants is situated on a small hill, and is made up of two rocks which are open to the east and west. The main rock, which is the bigger of the two, has a length of 8 to 9 m and lies upon the smaller one, so that the shelter is closed at the top. The eastern side is protected by rock blocks against the wind and rain (Kohl-Larsen 1943). A comprehensive analysis of the cultural remains (Tomsky, in preparation) and the human skeletal remains was conducted only recently.