Mystery tooth and bone

[Salamander]

I'm an amateur collector from the east of England and for about 2 years I've been finding Neolithic flints and pottery, horse and cow teeth etc in a small area of woodland that was formerly a river bank near where I live. It's probably not that exciting to you guys as the local archaeology department dated the finds to between 4 and 10 thousand years ago and then lost interest, apparently Neolithic in my area is just too common.

 

But it's still exciting to me and in amongst my finds I have 2 things that I would really like to identify and understand better so I am hoping you experts will be able to help. The first is a tooth - when the archaeology people first saw it they immediately said it was human but it is not a molar and has 2 roots.  I'm thinking pig maybe...???

 

The second find came later, a small bone: is it human toe or finger bone?  It is not quite fossilised and was preserved in clay - if it IS human, would it fit in with the same people whose pottery and flint tools I keep finding or would it be more recent? 

 

My thanks in advance for any help you can give, S

 

 

 

[Fossildude19]

Welcome to the Forum.  

 

Can we see pictures of the other side of the tooth and bone?

 

My initial guesses (and they are total guesses) would be a pig p4 and a turtle limb bone.

 

Wait for some of the more experienced bone experts weigh in, while you get the other pics up.

Regards

 

@Harry Pristis   @calhounensis

[Harry Pristis]

I think pig is right.  Need more images of the bone.

 

 

[Salamander]

Thank you Fossildude and Harry Pristis, the comparison is clear and I agree - it does indeed look like a pig tooth and that would fit in with my early farmers, cow and horse teeth and butchered bone. 

 

As for the little bone, as you know it is quite tricky photographing something so small but I have done my best - see what you think. 

[Harry Pristis]

Just a guess, but the bone may be a lateral toe from a pig.  Check out the peccary foot in the line-drawing and search the web for pig foot bones.

 

 

 

[calhounensis]

I would agree with Harry. The bone is a new one to me. Not a position I am used to seeing with Sus.

[Salamander]

Thanks guys!  I've been looking at images of deer and pig toe bones all day, it seems slightly more deer than pig to me but either way it makes sense, my Neolithic people would have eaten anything they could catch. Other finds include rabbit, deer and squirrel jaws with teeth, these are the only intact bones apart from this little toe bone, all the rest have been cut or broken and I am guessing are unidentifiable..??

 

As you have been so kind, I would like to ask one more question if I may: I also have material which presumably pre-dates these people and seems to tell the story of the area before they arrived if only I could understand it. The finds include shark teeth, shells, fossil corals and sponges - by identifying and (roughly) dating them, would you be able to give any insights about what was going on here beyond 10,000 years ago? At this point all I know is that there was a river (shells, clay etc) but shark teeth really make me wonder. The site is about 2 miles from the sea and the river is now barely a stream, was it all sea or beach or river mouth? 

 

In the great scheme of things it really does not matter but I would just love to know!

[Harry Pristis]

I don't think the toe bone is from a deer.  Britain's deer bones would be a variation on these toes.

 

Post some images of your other finds. 

 

 

 

[abyssunder]

Here are some drawings of phalanges, if it helps:

 

excerpt from Atlas of Animal Bones. For Prehistorians, Archaeologists and Quaternary Geologists - Elisabeth Schmid; Elsevier, New York, 1972