Fossil Or Human Design

[southcoker]

Don’t know if these are fossils or not. One of South Carolina’s most famous naturalist told me they were worm hole (or tube) fossils. They came from the bottom of a central South Carolina sand hill, in an area being cleared for a pond. Indian pot shards and arrowheads were also found in the vicinity. I once had four pieces. One I gave to the naturalist, two I have, one I misplaced. The lost one was the most interesting in that it was similar to the large one in the picture, but a small flat stone was completely surrounding the middle of the fossil, as if the stone had been drilled by the fossil. The stone seemed to be of much harder material than the fossil itself so it is somewhat hard to believe it was being used as a one inch diameter drill. Perhaps I will locate the lost piece one day.

The small piece in the pic contains enough iron to be able to be picked up by a magnet.

I have Googled pictures of worm holes, Indian drills, and even Indian phallic symbols and have never seen anything else like them. My neighbor has (or used to have) more examples. Some of his were 50% larger in diameter. They are all almost perfectly cylindrical.

Steve

[Auspex]

These are intriguing. My first thought is that they are iron-bearing concretions.

[howard_l]

I have seen some very odd shaped nodules especially in the Pennsylvanian, most are siderite but others are limestone. I say your are natural formed nodules.

[dinodigger]

No shark coprolites?

[JohnBrian]

I think it's man-made. Possibly grapeshot, but that's usually round balls, so . . . ?

[jgcox]

You said other native American artifacts were found at the same site. Some native Americans used small mortar and pestles to grind ochre to make face or war paint. the items look like broken pestles--the ends appear to be stained with some faded red and brownish color.

[Auspex]

No shark coprolites?

This at first startled me, but having slept on it and then restudying the images, I agree that there are signs of them being coprolitic.

Note the spiral nature of the cross section:

[BobWill]

Good eye Auspex, I never saw that. This is not something I have any knowledge about but I was under the impression that the spirals In shark coprolites were due to something in the sharks digestive tract that formed the spiral grooves on the outer surface as the material passed through the animal. I may have gotten this completely wrong and I can't find the reference now. The grooves on the rounded ends don't appear to be spiraled, more like concentric circles but we don't have a straight-on look to tell for sure.

[Al Dente]

The close up view of the broken end shows a lot of quartz sand grains. I wouldn't expect this from a coprolite.

[RyanNREMTP]

Wouldn't the pestles be completely smooth from all the grinding?

[jgcox]

not usually the grinding ends on ones we found as kids had grooves.

[howard_l]

These could be borrows (worm or other wise), a burrow could contain quartz grains that could have been washed into it. Burrows are holes in the soft strata made by some animal that is later filled in and then preserved by a more resistant material. Where I am from it is either siderite or pyrite and sometimes quartz. Since he said it was slightly magnetic I would say it was either hematite or magnetite which can be identified by a streak test, hematite is red, magnetite is black. Burrows could also be considered similar to coprolites since they would typically contain a large amount of feces or biologic material from what ever made it or lived in it. It sounds like they were not found were they formed since it was said they were found associated with native American artifacts, they could still be burrows and be used as a pestle or even a drill since they were very resourceful people and would use anything in nature instead of having to manufacture it from scratch. Burrows tend to be very common in the horizon where they occur since what ever animals made them were usually communal. Native Americans would have found a lot of them in a close proximity. If we could cut it in half and make a thin section a lot more could be determined but I doubt the owner would want to do that.

[Auspex]

The close up view of the broken end shows a lot of quartz sand grains. I wouldn't expect this from a coprolite.

The apparent composition, along with the iron oxide looking 'veining', is what led me to originally suggest concretion (or more accurately "accretion") in the first place. That the veining, on close inspection, is not concentric takes the wind out of that sail.

It is not only some sharks with a spiral to the gut, though, and I thought it possible that a skate (or similar 'sandy bottom feeder') might ingest enough sand for it to comprise a high percentage of their excreta.

[southcoker]

A couple of end view shots. Most of the coral and other odd rocks come from a single layer on the sand hill, but erosion has deposited a good deal down the slope to the creek at the bottom. There is perhaps as much as a 200 to 250 foot drop from top to bottom. There is a “sandstone” layer where above is sand and below is clay (mostly). There are many odd geological “rock” formations. I will post an odd one in a new topic shortly.

The circles on the tapered end do not appear to be spirals, just concentric circles.

The rock colors in the area vary greatly from deep red to white stones

I do wish I could find the one with the stone attached.

Steve C.

[non-remanié]

I dont think these are coprolitic. They appear man-made to me. I dont know artificacts very well, but the quartz grains apparent on the edge are reminiscent of the composition of some indian pottery that i have found along the potomac river in Md. I wondered about the weird shaped pieces and even broke a couple while pondering them. I had no clue it was pottery until a friend who knows artifacts found a larger piece that had some linear engravings on it.

[non-remanié]

I presume "sandhills area" means youre within the tertiary or quaternary outcrop belt where sharks teeth and marine fossils can be plentiful. Someone would have seen burrows like this if thats what they are. Trace fossils like burrow structures are extremely common.

Edited August 29, 2014 by non-remanié

[southcoker]

I have never found shark teeth, only coral and very small sea shells embedded amongst other marine scraps. And the cylindrical items could very well be of human design. I have pounds and pounds of pottery shards mostly taken from one single sand bar on the Congaree River. I see some relationship to pottery, but generally the grain size of pottery is uniform (at least in this area). I also have never seen items like these in any native American artifact display.

[Herb]

I believe they are man made