Rare and Ancient Banaba fossils discovered in 1960s

[Stacey King]

I am sure many of our young Banaban generation will find these photos very interesting. They are photos of fossilized ancient and extinct Shark's tooth and other shells and phosphate rocks that were discovered by Roger Anderson in the 1960's amongst the phosphate diggings topside on Banaba.

Roger has had the Shark's Tooth dated and identified by an Australian Museum. Roger was the younger brother of Peter Anderson who also had a wonderful artifact collection from Te Aka village that he returned to the Banaban community during the writing of our book Te Rii Ni Banaba. Details and photos of Peter's artifact collection is catalogued and photos appear in the book.

Roger finally lost his battle against ill health just the week before Christmas. Both of the Anderson brothers have preserved a lasting legacy of Banaban artifacts that would have been lost to the miner's bulldozer without their efforts. They both spent the later years of their lives saving and preserving Banaban related documents, photos and artifacts that have now been saved for future Banaba generations. Roger came to visit us every year and share with us any new information or material he had sourced for us to photograph and catalogue.

In honour or Roger Anderson's memory we publish these rare and unseen photos.

Kam raba and our condolences to the Anderson families.

Stacey King