In medieval and early modern England, villagers would intend to the most peculiar objects buried in fields, including flint scrapers, arrowheads, and shaped stones which appeared to be too perfect to be natural.
The objects were known variously as “poundstones,” “thunderstones,” or “elf arrows,” and most were believed to have fallen from the sky during thunderstorms or been left behind by ancient supernatural beings.
From Folklore to Early Science
In the late-16th and late-17th centuries, intellectuals such as Robert Hooke and Niels Stensen (Steno) began to notice these curious objects and began to study them in a more systematic way, keeping aside simple folklore or superstition.
Hooke was one of the first to inquire and speculate that some of the “fossils” were preserved petrified remains of “once living” organisms.
In the 18th century, for example, the dairymaids of Oxfordshire had used perfectly rounded “pound stones” to weigh butter and cream with no idea that the objects were in fact fossilized sea urchins, Clypeus ploti, found in the Jurassic limestone.
Fossils and the Birth of Scientific Inquiry
Fossils were about the same shape and weight, making them ideal to be used as units of trade for equalizing exchanges.
How Fossils Shaped Trade and Thought
Thus, not only did the “poundstone” play a part in shaping the English system of weights, it also marked the first steps toward humanity's understanding of Earth's deep past.
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