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1910.75.158

Coscinopora globularis fossil bead. [ZM 28/11/2006]

1910.75.158

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Collection type
Object
Description
Coscinopora globularis fossil bead. [ZM 28/11/2006]
Date / Period
Archaeological period: Palaeolithic
Date collected
1910
Acquisition information
Purchased: 1910
Materials and processes
Material Fossil, Process Perforated
Object numbers
Accession number: 1910.75.158 Other numbers: 1910.ß.396
Research and responses

According to http://www.irsociety.co.uk/Archives/17/Beds_1.htm the gravel pit at Biddenham was '... owned by S.W. Jarvis & Son, a firm of stone and monumental masons in Alexandra Road, Bedford.' [AP 28/07/2006]

Coscinopora globularis appears to be a fossilized sponge [AP 13/12/2007]

F.H.S. Knowles carried out some analysis of his own collection from Biddenham and used the collection to furnish examples for his publication "Knowles, F.H.S. 1953. Stone-worker's progress: a study of stone implements in the Pitt Rivers Museum. Oxford:University Press" [CB 28/10/2009]

Associated publications
A string of 30 of these fossils was published as plate 3.8 on page 123 of Als der Mensch zum Schöpfer wurde: An den Wurzeln der Kultur, by Martin Kuckenburg (Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 2001). Copy in Balfour Library. See accompanying caption and related text for further information. [MdeA 12/11/2001; JC 24 4 2002] For a report on the analysis of the PRM's collection of such beads, see 'Critical Reassessment of Putative Acheulean Porosphaera globularis beads', by Solange Rigaud, Francesco d'Errico, Marian Vanhaeren, and Christian Neumann, in Journal of Archaeological Science, Vol. 36, no. 1 (January 2009), pp. 25-34. These thirty beads are illustrated in colour, strung and unstrung, as Figure 2a on page 28. (Printout of PDF file in RDF: Researchers: Rigaud.) [JC 15 3 2019]

Search terms: Specimen, Geology, Animalia, Picture and Graphic Art, Fossil

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