400 Million Year Old Hammer discovered In Texas The London

Seriously... There's a time-honored tradition amongst the folk of the Ozarks and probably other places too, one might suspect it goes back to their Scottish ancestors and their love of a good hoax, or IOW a bullshit story, like fish stories.

I knew a guy who was from that time and place who was not unfamiliar with such stuff. Have you ever heard of a "whip snake"? It'll slither up and wrap itself around you and whip you and make you run yourself to death. How about a lizard called a "mountain boomer"? Oh, don't even ask, it's unspeakable what a mountain boomer will do to you.

How 'bout a "joint snake"? Its natural defense is to break itself into pieces so that a coyote or hawk or whatever will only eat one piece, and then it joins itself all back together and goes on its way.

I heard these things when I was a kid. Then, many years later I was thumbing thru a Foxfire book and there it was, the authors had included a chapter on lying. Not like bank fraud or whatever but the honored tradition of seeing who can make up the biggest bullshit lie to tell to some city dude, with a straight face. In half American English, half Scottish accent: "Oh yeah, I've seen joint snakes".

I don't know if there was ever a prize involved, other than a good laugh over a jug of 'shine at the expense of some dude who "wan't from aroun' here".

Zero chance of being ancient. Would have rusted away in about 2000 years.

I did see, however, an article about how this might have formed, in which it was stated: “They aren’t “million year old rocks.” These are iron oxide concretions, and are known to form relatively quickly when iron or iron containing objects are left in moist soil. ... Shipwrecks are often found only by the nail concretions, which can remain long after the timbers have decayed away to nothing.”

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