Unknown Bones...

[Andreas_H]

Hello all,

my name is andy and i come from germany. i'm a user of the Steinkern.de community and i hope you can help me.

I have found some bone parts last week in a gravel pit in lower saxony. can you help me with the determination of this bones ?

I would like to know from which animal this bones could be...

sorry for my bad english

thank you

Andy

[sjaak]

Difficult with such a fragment. My guess is piece from a long bone from a big animal, for instance mammoth.

[Andreas_H]

Thank you Niels,

may be some pictures from the side can help ?

Greets Andy

[sjaak]

I still think this was part of a big longbone, but its just a guess bases on similar pieces found by me. These fragments are not very characterstic and therefore difficult to ID.

[Andreas_H]

Thank you a second time Niels,

i hope i will find Bones which are better to determine like this in the future

Greets Andy

[PachyWhatnotOdon]

Hi Andreas,

Though Niels definitely has the greater experience with this kind of material and is therefore probably more likely to be right than me, but these seem rather thin pieces of bone. I also seem to observe some curvature that doesn't seem particularly natural for a long bone. That, and the fact that there's a natural break in a rather clean zigzag line, to me suggest skull fragments, broken along a suture line. Like Niels suggested, any of the great herbivores of the Pleistocene would be a good guess as to species...

Kind regards,
Alexander.

[hubertus68]

Well, first of all it's questionable if this piece of bone is old. If I am not mistaking this piece comes from a gravel quarry. It is thus not found in situ but maybe being deposited there by man or a river.
The questionable age can only be answered by Andreas.
To me it does not look very old. Can't it be a piece of shoulder bone from one or another bigger domestizised animal (horse, cow etc.)?

Best wishes,
Oliver

[sjaak]

Its difficult to judge from a picture. Skull fragments have a smooth inner surface. I dont see that here and I dont spot a suture. Piece of shoulder bone could be possible.

[Andreas_H]

thank you all for the further information

the bones are definitely not recent.

they are certainly from the Pleistocene.

Greets Andy

[sjaak]

They are probably sticky when touched with a wet finger?


And something else: a German collector told me about a gravel pit in Germany where they search in the night with special light and glasses. The bones then light up in the dark and can be easily collected. He said this was not a joke. Do you know this story?

[Bewerkt door sjaak op 24-09-2018 om 19:54 NL]