Bison or Bov.?

[Learning Curve]

[Coco]

Can we expect a minimum of information? Finding conditions, location: country, big city next door...

 

Coco

[CDiggs]

Definitely a humerus instead of a tibia or fibula*, but as Coco points out we can't say much without  more information.

 

For  comparison:

https://archive.org/details/postcranialskele00olse/page/38/mode/2up

but I should add that with the damage to the epiphyses (ends of the bone) identification might be difficult if not impossible.

 

*for the first and last photo's, the second and third appear to be from a different element.

Edited June 11 by CDiggs
Clarificaation

[Jaybot]

I agree with @CDiggs, the first and last photos are of a humerus.  The second and third are of a radius from what I can tell. 

As for the Humerus, unfortunately too much is gone to make a definitive decision (at least for me). 

Similar case for the radius- it's just too far gone.

 

  Just an fyi, next time you post an ID request, please give us some more info such as: measurements, state/co of discovery, etc.  It helps the ID'ing

process quite a bit

Have a great day!

[Learning Curve]

Coco and CDiggs, 

 

This Humerus Bone was found half buried in the sand next to the creek here in Tennessee after heavy rains. It appears several large trees fell into the creek and were pushed down river. Two large root balls were also dislodged during the storms and floated several hundred feet before getting wedged against the creek bank. The roots of the old trees disrupted the soil down as much as 10 feet deep. Several other leg bones and Caudel bone were also found within a few hundred feet up river.

[CDiggs]

6 hours ago, Learning Curve said:

Coco and CDiggs, 

 

This Humerus Bone was found half buried in the sand next to the creek here in Tennessee after heavy rains. It appears several large trees fell into the creek and were pushed down river. Two large root balls were also dislodged during the storms and floated several hundred feet before getting wedged against the creek bank. The roots of the old trees disrupted the soil down as much as 10 feet deep. Several other leg bones and Caudel bone were also found within a few hundred feet up river.

 

 

Thanks for the additional information on the find locality. Very often we're interested in where something is found at least at a county level as it gives us an idea of the local geology which can narrow down the age and types of animals present in an area. Tennessee doesn't narrow it down much, but you may be able to get more information on your local geology from maps like those found on this website; http://tennesseefossils.com/Geology04.php

 

That being said, as you noted in your most recent post, creeks and river systems are very active areas of erosion so things of many different ages can get jumbled up together. I can't tell you the age of these bones from photographs, however they do look more recent to me based on the weathering. If you want to try holding a flame from something like a lighter to an inconspicuous place on the bones a smell like burning hair or obvious charring would suggest they still have collagen and are then fairly recent.

 

I can also say pretty confidently that you've got bones from multiple different animals here. The bottom most photo shows a femur and a badly worn vertebra that definitely don't go with the humerus and radius (on closer look I agree with @Jaybot, looks like it might be a radius) from your first post. Same goes for the proximal ulna in the other photos as well, they all look to be coming from much smaller animals.

[Learning Curve]

Thank you to both Coco and CDDiggs. One question regarding the burning of the bone....what if it smells like steak?!!! THEN WHAT?

[Jaybot]

3 hours ago, Learning Curve said:

Thank you to both Coco and CDDiggs. One question regarding the burning of the bone....what if it smells like steak?!!! THEN WHAT?

Did you first scrub and clean a section (then let completely dry)?  River/creek algae can affect this test.

[automech]

"what if it smells like steak?!!! THEN WHAT?"

Then cook some potatoes to go with it! 

[Learning Curve]

The burn method seemed to reveal the Humerus is fossilized ....the bone did not smell like anything and I was able to rub the burn mark off with a wet rag after the experiment. Thanks for the tip!

[BobWill]

I think this is Bos. The The missing lateral tuberosity and worn rollers only leave us the mid-shaft protrusion as a clue and it looks more pronounced than with Bison. It appears most clearly along the top of the forth image.

[Harry Pristis]

[fossilus]

@Harry Pristis, I don't want to hijack this thread, but based on your diagram this humerus below looks like bos.  It weighs over 5 lbs (heavily mineralized), has crystals inside the bone and has to be bison.  I've seen your diagram before and wondered if it is correct. 

[Harry Pristis]

47 minutes ago, fossilus said:

has to be bison

It is what it is, even if it defies your conception of what it should be.  The line drawing is professional, part of a suite of diagnostic drawings to disambiguate bison from cow post-cranials.  Here's another (distal/lateral) to test:

 

[BobWill]

2 hours ago, fossilus said:

@Harry Pristis, I don't want to hijack this thread, but based on your diagram this humerus below looks like bos.  It weighs over 5 lbs (heavily mineralized), has crystals inside the bone and has to be bison.  I've seen your diagram before and wondered if it is correct. 

 

 

The diagram is correct. Unlike many, rather unreliable bos/bison comparison points this character was found in 100% of specimens examined in a Canadian study. You can't just go by state of mineralization. The mid-shaft protrusion I mentioned above is also very reliable.

 

Balkwill, Darlene and Stephen L. Cumbia. A Guide to the Identification of Postcranial Bones of Bos taurus and Bison bison. Ottawa: Canadian Museum of Nature, 1992.

Edited June 14 by BobWill

[fossilus]

I do have to admit that I don't believe that my specimen is bison bison.  Bison latifrons has been found at this site (horn core), or it might be bison antiquus.  

Edited June 14 by fossilus
Spelling

[BobWill]

9 minutes ago, fossilus said:

I do have to admit that I don't believe that my specimen is bison bison.  Bison latifrons has been found at this site (horn core), or it might be bison antiques.  

I'm not convinced you are looking at the feature correctly. Yours may be Bison.  It looks like you are showing a hooked feature looking from the proximal end rather than from the side. Is the lateral tuberosity intact and can you show that from the side aligned like it is in the drawing?

[Harry Pristis]

1 hour ago, fossilus said:

I do have to admit that I don't believe that my specimen is bison bison.  Bison latifrons has been found at this site (horn core), or it might be bison antiques.  

Umm.  I don't have an opinion about your finds, fossilus . . . I am only presenting information.  For example, a study of Florida bison found that "only the horn cores were found to be reliable for species determination."

That's from Jesse S. Robertson, FOSSIL BISON OF FLORIDA in PLEISTOCENE MAMMALS OF FLORIDA edited by S. David Webb.

 

[fossilus]

9 hours ago, BobWill said:

I'm not convinced you are looking at the feature correctly. Yours may be Bison.  It looks like you are showing a hooked feature looking from the proximal end rather than from the side. Is the lateral tuberosity intact and can you show that from the side aligned like it is in the drawing?

You are correct on the photo angle, I may try to get a better photo. I do have a question on lateral tuberosity. Have I labeled it correctly below?

[BobWill]

4 hours ago, fossilus said:

You are correct on the photo angle, I may try to get a better photo. I do have a question on lateral tuberosity. Have I labeled it correctly below?

I am not certain from the photo. It may be missing. You can tell by comparing it with the drawing.

[Learning Curve]

Does darker color bone generally mean that is older? Or does it just give us clues where it comes from? I have come to learn that bones also darken as they dry out...but, does dark automatically mean old? See an example of what I mean below. 

[ynot]

4 minutes ago, Learning Curve said:

..but, does dark automatically mean old?

No, color is from the environment it has been in. Boone can be stained dark color quite fast.

[Learning Curve]

One more interesting thought regarding the heads  of some of these bones being removed...we have confirmed Native American Tribes activity in this area. If the animal was killed by the Copena or Cherokee people, they would often times eat the bone marrow using a process called "marrowing". I think I see claw or teeth marks in the soft tissue. Or, could it be a stone tool? Still  a mystery  

[Harry Pristis]

21 minutes ago, Learning Curve said:

One more interesting thought regarding the heads  of some of these bones being removed...we have confirmed Native American Tribes activity in this area. If the animal was killed by the Copena or Cherokee people, they would often times eat the bone marrow using a process called "marrowing". I think I see claw or teeth marks in the soft tissue. Or, could it be a stone tool? Still  a mystery  

I've read about "marrowing," but I don't know the details.  Can you please describe the process of marrowing from your source.  If a NA killed a bison (or a cow), why would he bother to recover the relatively difficult-to-access bone marrow?  That's a mystery that might be explained.

[CDiggs]

I've noticed rodent gnaw marks on various places along this humerus which may be what you're seeing. When it comes to removing marrow what's typically eaten by people is the yellow marrow along the diaphysis (shaft) of the bone which can be split open and scooped out easily, rather than the red marrow or what's sometimes called "bone grease" in the epiphyses (ends) of the bone which is typically exploited by pounding the ends of the bone into small fragments and then boiling the bone frags and skimming the fat from the surface of the pot.

 

"the process of extracting bone fats remains relatively clear. First, selected bone elements (likely long bones) from animals that had recently been killed were likely broken open using a simple hammerstone-and-anvil approach. Bone marrow from within those bones was removed mechanically, probably using simple wooden or bone tools. This bone marrow could be consumed immediately or reserved for later use. The epiphyses of the bones were likely subjected to intensive fragmentation using any of a variety of methods involving hammerstones and anvils. The difficulty implicit in fracturing and fragmenting the epiphyses of long bones (especially fresh bones as large as those of bison) is significant, and likely required carefully cleaning the epiphyses, followed by repeated episodes of hammering, battering and pounding in order to fracture these bone element parts. Once broken into small pieces, these bone grease bearing epiphyseal bone fragments were simmered in water until the bone grease was liberated from the matrix of epiphyseal cancellous bone. This fat could then be skimmed from the surface of the water, and preserved in ceramics vessels, hide bags or other suitable waterproof containers (Outram 1998, 2001; Karr et al. 2010)."

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/276248203_A_bone_grease_processing_station_at_the_Mitchell_Prehistoric_Indian_Village_Archaeological_evidence_for_the_exploitation_of_bone_fats

 

Edited June 14 by CDiggs