The role of Australites in Aboriginal customs.

A$45 · Offered by Douglas Stewart Fine Books

Melbourne : National Museum of Victoria, 1957. Series: Memoirs, no. 22, Part 8, 8 November 1957. Mineralogy series, no. 1. Small quarto (240 x 185 mm), original staple-bound printed yellow wrappers; pp. 26, with 3 b/w/ photographic plates illustrating 27 objects, plus a full-page frontispiece map; an excellent copy. The Australian textites [i.e. tektites], formerly called obsidianites, obsidian bombs, obsidian buttons, c., but now known as australites, have been found in considerable numbers strewn over vast areas of the southern portion of Australia. Apart from their geological and astronomical importance, considerable ethnographic interest attached to australites. They are sometimes encountered, among other types of stones, on the sites of ancient aboriginal camps, and are distinctive in being remarkable, black glassy objects, mostly possessing relatively regular shapes . (Introduction).

• Binding: Hardcover

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