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Tusk/horn Fragments Or Bone Fragments?


Rocks_in_my_Socks

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My son found these various pieces also near a creek in Southwest Ohio. They don't have "marrow holes" like many of the bones we find so we are wondering if they might be fragments from mastodon tusks or bison horns.

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They are probably bone shards, where the concavity is the edge of the 'marrow cavity'.

"There has been an alarming increase in the number of things I know nothing about." - Ashleigh Ellwood Brilliant

“Try to learn something about everything and everything about something.” - Thomas Henry Huxley

>Paleontology is an evolving science.

>May your wonders never cease!

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If you do a TFF forum search for "Tusk", you will see a lot of examples. Pieces of mammoth tusk (Ivory) tend to have patterns of lines called Schreger that are diagnostic. Like these.

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The White Queen  ".... in her youth she could believe "six impossible things before breakfast"

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Looks like a typical weathered bone fragment. Remember tusks have growth rings like trees. That's the best way to tell bone from tusk. Bone will not have growth rings. See the above example from Shellseeker.

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