New Zealand Gold Prospecting & Metal Detecting Forums Archive

Wow thanks for that john...very interesting read gets the mind boggling well beond the realms of a cave man just looking for a feed !!...makes you wonder how long gold has been highly sort after...and further more how much gold is still buried along ancient river bed,s that have never been discovered...and probably wont be eather...
gbm

OK, I didn’t get very far reading this; 500 million years ago the only vertebrate life on earth were some rudimentary fish. I find it unlikely that they or their clam neighbours built an iron hammer. I also find it unlikely that it would have a wooden handle since there were no vascular plants and therefore no wood. If the clams did build a hammer with a wooden handle it would not still be in tact in 1930. Sorry to be a sceptic, but this is so unbelievably unbelievable that I couldn’t bring myself to finish reading it.

i agree when you read the whole thing it is posible that humans have been around longer than they say..

kiwijw,

OK, that one had a fair bit of speculation but it is conceivable. They are talking about a few thousand years difference in an area that is known to have shifted from hunter gatherer to agricultural based settlements early on.

I tried to read that first one again but it was such a bunch of nonsense I couldn’t get through it. There they are talking about hundreds of millions of years difference. Think about it; they say the hammer is over 500 million years old. That is before ‘modern’ plants, before dinosaurs, and 480,000,000 years before modern humans. Then they say it was encased in rock that is 100,000,000 years younger. What did the hammer do for 100,000,000 years before it was encapsulated in rock to keep it from rusting and rotting away to dust? Must have been in a pretty good toolbox. If you are going to make something up it should at least be in the realm of possibility. Putting references in the text to make it look scientific without listing the sources at the end was a nice touch.

Oh, and I found this: http://paleo.cc/paluxy/hammer.htm

Edited by user Friday, 19 August 2011 10:48:54 AM(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

Yesterday i was detecting at the beach and found a rusty lump. Roughly 30cm long and shaped like a rugby ball, it was made up of quartz pebbles just like the conglomerate a few metres away. However there was also shells attached to it which are not found in the conglomerate. Basically i smashed it open and there was an old knife inside. Had there been no shells in the lump then it would have had a very similar composition as the conglomerate which had kindly provided the material that was cemented by the rust. All the same its an interesting read JW but who knows if its true or not, peple tend to have a habit of making up stories to support their arguments.

p.s- mine is true

Good on you Gavin. :) As I said.....the hammer story is only the first one. Move on from that one & look at the others. Dont suppose you saw the one about the alien space craft on the dark side of the moon. :) 1.5 billion years old......& with a body on board as well. :) that will get you going.

JW

Runs a chip shop just outside Dunedin by all accounts... :)

Thats true Chris. I for one have been around a lot longer than I say.