1928.68.387

Collection type

Object

Description

Flake implement made from brown stone. Roughly leaf shaped, tapering to a point at the distal edge. [LKG 28/04/2010]

Geographical reference

South Africa

Africa > Southern Africa > South Africa

Eastern Cape Province Grahamstown

Person

Field collector Charles Lyell

PRM source Arthur John Evans

Date

Date collected

circa 1866

Acquisition information

Donated: 1928

Materials and processes

Material Stone, Process Flaked

Dimensions

Width 43 mm, Length 75 mm, Weight 33 g

Object numbers

Accession number: 1928.68.387

Research and responses

This collection was considered by Dr Peter Mitchell as part of the Fell funded project 'Characterizing the World Archaeology collections'. He advised that these objects must have been acquired by an intermediary since Lyell never visited South Africa. [AS 11/03/2010]

Associated publications

Referred to on pages 23-24 of 'Stone Age Sub-Saharan Africa', by Peter Mitchell, in World Archaeology at the Pitt Rivers Museum: A Characterization, edited by Dan Hicks and Alice Stevenson (Oxford: Archaeopress, 2013), pp. 16-34. Mitchell writes: ‘Note, however, that the 9 MSA artefacts listed in the PRM's object database as being collected by Lyell near Grahamstown in 1866 (1928.68.384-392) must also have been acquired by an intermediary since Lyell never visited South Africa. Bain is one possibility, but so too are J.H. Bowker and his brother, the aforementioned T.H. Bowker, both of whom sent stone artefacts to Britain, including some directly to Lyell, around 1866 (Bowker 1884 [Other Days in South Africa, Transactions of the South African Philosophical Society 3(2): 68-73]; Cohen 1999 [Mary Elizabeth Barber, the Bowkers and South African prehistory. South African Archaeological Bulletin 54: 120-127]; Mitchell 2002a: 24 [Catalogue of the southern African Stone Age collections of the British Museum. London: British Museum (British Museum Occasional Papers 180, with contributions from A. Roberts, A. Cohen and K. Perkins]). All the objects mentioned here passed into the possession of John Evans and were donated to the PRM with other elements of his collection by his son Arthur Evans in 1928.’. [MJD 14/11/2014]

Search terms: Tool, Flake