The Transfer of Stone Artefacts from the Geological Museum to the British Museum Alison Roberts Department of Antiquities, Ashmolean Museum, University o.fOxford, Oxford INTRODUCTION In 1988, the trustees of the British Museum (Natural History) (BM NH) decided to transfer the collection of stone artefacts previously held by the Geological Museum (GM) to the British Museum (BM) under the terms of the British Museum Act of 1963. These artefacts had been transferred to the BM(NH) from the British Geological Survey in 1985. The Geological Museum was formerly known as the Museum of Practical Geology, and was opened in 1851 in Jermyn Street. It had its origins in a small geological museum which was joined with the newly formed Geological Survey in 1845. The Museum moved to South Kensington in the 1920s, and was amalgamated with the BM(NH) in the 1980s. The BM(NH) subsequently changed its name to the Natural History Museum (NHM) The physical transfer of the material began in 1989, but was not completed as it was agreed that various specimens would remain on display at the GM for the foreseeable future. In 1995, the old GM galleries were dismantled to make way for the new NHM Earth Galleries, and the transfer was concluded. The objects are now incorporated in the collections of the BM Department of Prehistoric and Romano- British Antiquities (accession number 1989.3-1). The transfer included material from both the GM Mineral Inventory and the Economic Collections, as well as a few objects from earlier registers (all registers now held by the NHM). There was little paper archive concerning the objects. The collection is of considerable historical interest both for the study of Palaeolithic archaeology and stone artefacts in general, but has never been well known to archaeologists. It is hoped that this note will acquaint the members of the Lithic Study Society with this remarkable collection. THE COLLECTION The collection ,vas amassed over the entire course of the GM's history, and a high proportion appears to have been found by geologists during the course of their work. A majority of the material is from England, but there is a small proportion from elsewhere in Britain and the rest of the world. The earliest find recorded is a Neolithic axehead from BorstalL Buckinghanishire \vhich was found in 1838. The most recent acquisition ,vas a Mesolithic pick 49 from Sonning, Berkshire, donated in 1980. However, most of the material was found during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The collection is dominated by Lower Palaeolithic material, which presumably reflects the close relationship between the fields of geology and prehistoric archaeology at this time. An unusually high proportion of material was acquired by the Museum in the mid-1930s. Judging from notes in the accessions register concerning the purchase of material from Warsash and Cams, Hampshire in 1935, it is likely that the influx of material relates to the mounting of a series of displays on the regional geology of Britain. This hypothesis is supported by the quantity of the mid-1930s acquisitions which were still on display in the Regional Geology Galleries until 1995, or were associated with plaster exhibition mounts when collected in 1989. Objects from both of the other small collections purchased in the mid-1930s were included in the material left on display until 1995 (Ebbsfleet, East Anglian eolithic material). The purchases were unusual, and most of the material acquired in the mid-1930s was by donation, as is the case for the collection as a whole. The GM collection can roughly be divided into three parts on the basis of archaeological association: stray finds; type series; and complete collections. As would be expected in a museum where archaeology was a peripheral interest, the first 1\vo categories predominate. Indeed the latter is restricted to 1:\vo collections of Lower Palaeolithic material frOlll Southeast England: the Sir John Flett collection of material from Milton Street Kent; and the Hugh Beevor collection of material from Croxley Green, Rickmansworth, Hertfordshire (donated in 1935). The stray finds category makes up roughly 35% of the remaining English material, and c. 90% from the rest of the Britain and the world. The type series are small representative groups of material from important sites, a majority of them Lower Palaeolithic in age and English in provenance. The primary parts of these collections are usually housed in other museums, along with their associated paper archive. During the transfer of material there were several examples of material from the GM being reunited \vith material from the same site already held at the BM. Very little archaeological material was purchased by the Geological Museum, presumably as such objects were outside the direct remit of the museum. With the exception of the material for the 1930s exhibition