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The London Hammer: An Alleged Out-of-Place Artifact (C) 1997-2008, Glen J. Kuban E-mail author Paluxy Home page Acknowledgments : I wish to thank Glenn Morton, Jim Moore, Don Horne, John Tant, and David Woetzel for offering helpful comments and corrections; however, I take full responsibility for any errors that remain, and invite readers to contact me with any additional comments or corrections. Abstract An iron and wooden hammer, sometimes called the "London Artifact" or "London Hammer," found by local hikers in a creek bed near London, Texas in 1936, has been promoted by Carl Baugh and other strict creationists as an out-of place artifact. They maintain that the hammer, which was partially embedded in a small, limy rock concretion, originated in a Cretaceous rock formation (or an Ordovician or Silurian one, depending on the account), thus contradicting the standard geologic timetable. However, the hammer was not documented in situ, and has not been reliably associated with any specific host formation. Other relatively recent implements have been found encased in by similar nodules, and can form within centuries or even decades under proper conditions (Stromberg, 2004). The hammer in question was probably dropped or discarded by a local miner or craftsman within the last few hundred years, after which dissolved limy sediment hardened into a nodule around it. Although a brief rebuttal to Baugh's hammer claims was made by Cole (1985), Baugh and a few other creationists continue to promote it. This review provides further analysis of the hammer and creationist claims about it. Fig. 1. Hammer showing separated chunk of matrix containing what appears to be a modern clam shell. Fig. 2. Hammer with broken section of concretion repositioned. Fig. 3. Top view of hammer head Above photos (C) 1986, Glen J. Kuban Background Mr. and Mrs. Max Hahn were hiking along the Red Creek near the small town of London, Texas, in June 1936 (or 1934, according to others), when they happened upon a small rock nodule with a piece of wood protruding from it. According to Helfinstine and Roth (1994), Max Hahn's son George broke open the rock nodule in 1946 or 1947, revealing the rest of the hammer, including a metal hammer head. It is important to note that even some creationist accounts (Baugh 1997, Mackay, 1985) acknowledge that the hammer bearing nodule was not attached to the surrounding rocks of the creek. Mackay (1985) explicitly states "The rock was sitting loose on a ledge and was not part of the surrounding ledge." Likewise, creationist David Lines notes that the rock containing the hammer was found "sitting loose on a rock ledge beside a waterfall outside London, Texas."(Lines, 1996). Evidently no photos or other reliable documentation exists to confirm the exact circumstances of the original discovery. However, the lack of sharp marks on the nodule seems to confirm the reports that it was found loose and not chiseled from a larger rock. Reportedly the hammer head showed little oxidation when first revealed, and that it was smooth, with a brownish "fossil" [sic] coating, which has since become somewhat rusted and "rough" (Helfinstine and Roth, 1994). The hammer head is basically rectangular, with one end featuring concave bevels forming a pattern resembling a + sign; the other end is less distinct but contains a protrusion in the center. The handle appears to be largely unmineralized wood, although it shows some small areas of black carbonization at the ends. Around 1983 the hammer was acquired by creationist Carl E. Baugh, an active advocate of Paluxy River "man tracks" and other alleged geologic anomalies, who began to call it the "London Artifact." In 1986 I was allowed to examine and photograph the hammer while Baugh displayed it at the 1986 creation conference in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and again in 2006 after a talk by Baugh at his "Creation Evidence Museum" in Texas. From the start Baugh and other creationists seemed to presume without clear evidence that the nodule in question was once a natural part of the nearby rocks. They also seemed to have trouble deciding to what mainstream geologic period the nearby rocks belonged. For years Baugh claimed that it came from an Ordovician formation (Baugh, 1983, 1986, 1987), whereas Walter Lang (1983) and Bartz (1984) reported that the hammer was found in Silurian rock. A report in Creation Ex Nihilo (Mackay, 1983) stated the hammer was "in limestone dated at 300 million years old" (which would make it Pennsylvanian). A subsequent CEN article (Mackay, 1984) stated that the hammer was in "Ordovician rock, supposedly some 400 million years old" (although that age would make it Devonian, not Ordovician). In yet another CEN report (Mackay, 1985) stated, "the rocks associated with the hammer are supposedly some 400-500 million years old" (which would include part of the lower Devonian, all of the Silurian, and most of the Ordovician Period). Baugh and others (Wilson and Baugh, 199...

The London Hammer: An Alleged Out of Place Artifact