Notes on the Pens Collection of Australites in the Tate Museum, University of Adelaide

Abstract

The Tate Museum holds a large collection of (tektites) australites including the Pens Collection from the Florieton area in east-central South Australia. Many of these specimens are intact or near-so and have the various forms ascribed to their behaviour as they entered the Earth’s atmosphere. However, a significant number, some of which may have been initially fractured and broken by erosional processes on the Earth’s surface, were later reworked by Aboriginal Australians to form small tools and hence are important artefacts. Of the Florieton specimens, 6.5% have been reworking into microlithic flakes. This note points to the historical value of the Pens Collection, discusses the nature of the environment in which they were found, and speculates about the collecting and adaptation of australites by Aboriginal Australians.