Collectors' Corner: 'Sensational' "Prehistoric" Animal-shaped lumps on sale on eBay

Has the PAS seen this? If they had, what would have happened? Emptor caveat, yours for GBP 2,500.00 from emilbal-y0jmlc4z (247 ) a 'finder' based in Clacton-on-Sea, Essex: 

Here is a sensational upper palaeolithic/mesolithic ironstone pottery lion.This sensational example has great form and some how lasted the test of time it sat on the north seabed for thousands of years in pretty harsh conditions considering the turbulent sea with frequent storms. sand and water is a natural abrasive yet this ironstone stoneage pottery relic some how survived. I do not believe this ironstone pottery lion would have lasted had it been on land as the earths acids would have more than likely broken it down.This was discovered within deep north seabed dredge material, the area of dredged material was roughly 8 metres deep and approximately 20 miles off the Essex coastline this area of the north seabed was once lush land where Hunter gatherers lived amongst woolly mammoths woolly rhinos, pygmy hippos walrus and cave lions.Within the dredge material I have also discovered many stone tools I have had some dated which coincide with the neandethals.The area of north seabed which was once land was flooded by the late mesolithic period that's why I date my objects between the palaeolithic to late mesolithic as this land was flooded by this time.

Ironstone pottery mark, note colour

As eBay insist: 'Seller assumes all responsibility for this listing'. Indeed. The guy's spelling would put me off as well as a date supplied by a bloke who reckons there were pygmy hippos and woolly mammoths living together in this submerged pre-Holocene land. The man obviously has not the slightest idea what the term 'ironstone pottery' actually denotes and why it was not being made by hunter gatherers.

This is one of several dozen weird shaped lumps of stone predominantly with shapes that mean if they are held and lit in a certain way, they vaguely resemble an animal of some kind. These are put on eBay by various 'finders' who represent them as (and maybe think they are) ancient 'pocket art'. Since these are natural stones, these people are either ignorant or charlatans.  Taking such objects to the PAS would disabuse the one and provide confirmation of the latter if the objects subsequently appear on sale as an artefact.

In fact any closer inspection of the lithics on eBay suggests there is a huge lack in knowledge about what constitutes a lithic artefact among eBay sellers who try to pass battered stones off as prehistoric tools, and equally clueless 'collectors' buy them. To what extent is fraud being committed here? So far I have not seen any pebbles represented as sculptures of ancient spaceships, I guess its a matter of time.

So this seller - whose other offerings suggest he has a remarkable eye for seeing the form of an animal in a pebble - describes  an object as 'jasper' (it looks like flint) as 'worked' (it is not), is he committing fraud by misrepresenting what he has or just talking bollocks? (he says: "I have tinted some of this pictures to make it easier for those who cannot see the key features clear enough.jasper was a key stone within stone age Europe, and has links with the neandethals, I can understand why they chose this imperial looking material...").

Essex FLO, where is your 'outreach'? Ms Flynn would be doing a finder apparently 'passinitley intristed in the past' a favour by helping him distinguish fact from anything-goes fantasie (the difference between the PAS 'citizen archaeology' and stupidity) and in the process help out duped and deluded fellow collector-partners who have bought this crap under false pretences get their money back.