Points

One of the largest accession of Old World archaeology at the PAHMA includes the assemblages collected during the University of California African Expeditions in 1947 and 1948. The availability of these collections for teaching and scholarly research raised an interest that, within few years, contributed to turn the Berkeley campus as one of the world's most active center for African prehistory.

As customary for museum collections devoted to teaching, assemblages were sometimes broken down in smaller sets that represent specific periods or technological phases. Over the years, students and researchers left notes and comments - most often than not on scrap pieces of paper - about the items they were studying. One note was found at the bottom of a small box containing these three objects from a locality near the Taungs Limeworks, Republic of South Africa. The author signed the comment though the signature is unfortunately hard to read making it impossible to date it with certainty. In my personal opinion it could be from the early 1950's. Here is the note's transcription:

The larger specimen (brown) is an excellent evolved Middle Stone Age point with reduction of the bulb of percussion on the cleavage face. Such points occur in developed phases of the M.S.A. but are never common. The dark chert point is also evolved M.S.A. The curvature is probably merely fortuitous. The white quartz specimen is not significant.

Hearst Museum 5-8902
Middle Stone Age Points
Republic of South Africa; Cape Province; Taungs Limeworks
Collected by Charles L. Camp and Frank E. Peabody, 1947-1949

Hearst Museum 5-8901
Quartz crystal
Republic of South Africa; Cape Province; Taungs Limeworks
Collected by Charles L. Camp and Frank E. Peabody, 1947-1949

African beads

Regarding Old World archaeology, African assemblages (including the Reisner Egyptian collection) constitute the largest part of the museum holdings. The bulk of it was deposited at the museum between the mid fourties and the mid seventies. One of the earliest major collection is the University of California African Expedition directed by Frank E. Peabody in 1947. A second expedition with Charles L. Camp followed in 1948. They excavated extensively at a number of important sites in South Africa; places like Gladysvale Cave, Witkrans, Powerhouse Cave. Although the team focus was on the Early Stone Age, thousands of artifacts come from later periods. I spent a good part of the Summer 2009 re-housing these early, well-documented, collections. Here are some perforated beads from the rock shelter of Little Witkrans.

Hearst Museum # 5-2822
Ostrich egg shell beads; Wilton culture
South Africa; Cape Province; Taungs Area; Little Witkrans Shelter
Collected by UC African Expedition, Frank E. Peabody, Sept. 7, 1947