It is indeed :) PhD done; all chapters published bar one and I’ve got a lab full of new scaphopod beads and fragments of Melo to investigate :)

Hope you are well too

Great research Chris !

The oldest shell beads are from Morocco. 142,000 years old - and made from Tritia gibbosula

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

I’ll be there. I arrive in Darwin last night. I’m presenting in the T1/8. Palaeolandscapes and People in Australian Deserts on the consumption and use (as tools and ornaments) of marine invertebrates for 51,000 years in north Western Australia.

One day I’ll come visit - it looks amazing !

They are an amazing species indeed! I have more research to come on their manufacture into large bowls using fire and percussion.

Ooh I can’t wait to read this!

There is also no evidence of resin on any of the knive and Boodie Cave. Ethnographically in the Wellesley Islands they had wrapped bark handles.

The shoulder spines are a natural part of Melo amphora. The shell was broken using a hammer stone detaching the lip of the shell which is the knife blade and retaining part of the shell with the spines still attached. Flaking Melo doesn’t work very well owing to its micro structure

The spikes are known as spines and yes they were kept by the makers to allow for a handle wrap of some sort. Perhaps melaleuca.

This would be wonderful!

Can you add me please :) my two latest papers are on Australian Aboriginal shell beads and shell knives using experimental archaeology to investigate manufacture characteristics, debitage patterns and usewear.

I get to research scaphopod shells used as ornaments 13,000 years ago in Australia :)

Who needs a cure from archaeomalacology awesomeness ! Plus a dose of experimental archaeology too

bsky.app/profile/did:...

Whhohoo ! I put together a feed for archaeomalacologists last year - if you want to see what fellow researchers are posting