Definitely a Long Bone - Pretty Sure it's Old

[Deborah S.]

I found this bone today in a stream bed known to be cretaceous. At first I thought it was modern, but it felt too heavy to just be bone, so I took it home. I bleached it for a couple of hours to make it safe to touch because I couldn't imagine it wasn't modern. Then I cleaned it with dish soap and a toothbrush. It rings when tapped against a counter or when tapped with a rock. No dull thud. We held a butane lighter to it for several seconds. It made a black scorch mark, but there was no odor, so I think the collagen is gone. Does it look old to you? Any ideas about what it might be?

 

Sorry about the picture quality. I might be able to do better in daylight tomorrow.

[Fossildude19]

Tried to brighten the darker ones:

 

 

 

 

Some more recent (Pleistocene) mammal bones have been found in the Jersey streams. 

Not a bone guy, so I cannot help with ID, however.

 

[Deborah S.]

32 minutes ago, Fossildude19 said:

Tried to brighten the darker ones:

 

 

Some more recent (Pleistocene) mammal bones have been found in the Jersey streams. 

Not a bone guy, so I cannot help with ID, however.

 

Thank you for brightening the pics and for your response.

[Rockwood]

I think it looks like a radius, but I can't actually find anything that I think is a good match.

[Deborah S.]

3 hours ago, Rockwood said:

I think it looks like a radius, but I can't actually find anything that I think is a good match.

Thank you for searching. I haven't been able to find a match either. 

[caldigger]

11 hours ago, Deborah S. said:

I took it home. I bleached it for a couple of hours to make it safe to touch because I couldn't imagine it wasn't modern.

Even if it were modern, what is dangerous about it that you would need to bleach it to make safe?

[Deborah S.]

15 minutes ago, caldigger said:

Even if it were modern, what is dangerous about it that you would need to bleach it to make safe?

Bacteria of decay. I had the fossil finds of the day in my kitchen; I was making dinner, and my 4 year old was touching everything. I was imagining him eating food with hands that touched a dead animal or putting his fingers in his mouth and getting sick. The stream water doesn't smell great, and there was a slimy film on the bone. Usually I use vinegar and dish soap. I also didn't know until after the fact how bad bleach is for bones. I should have just stuck it in a bag out of reach until food and clean dishes were gone and I had the sink to myself for a more gentle cleaning. But I felt silly even bringing what I assumed was a filthy bone from a recently dead deer home. Previously I've found a bunch of skulls, a jaw with teeth, and a rib bone, but was certain they were modern (jaw and rib bone were lightweight plus the skulls were white) and didn't bother with them. I thought this was more of the same. I took it home only because it felt heavy, but when I finally got the time to deal with it, I was extremely surprised to find it was mineralized. 

[Plax]

didn't know that bleach damages bone. All of my skeletal material has been bleached. Perhaps it's the extent of the bleaching that is damaging??

[Fossildude19]

@Harry Pristis

 

 

[Rockwood]

Cave Lion radius ?

[ynot]

9 minutes ago, Rockwood said:

Cave Lion radius ?

In America?

[Rockwood]

20 minutes ago, ynot said:

In America?

If I drop a couple gears, do you suppose I can catch it at felid ?

[Deborah S.]

3 hours ago, Plax said:

didn't know that bleach damages bone. All of my skeletal material has been bleached. Perhaps it's the extent of the bleaching that is damaging??

I sure hope so.

[jpevahouse]

I have a modest collection of modern animal bones found in NJ streams along with Cretaceous fossils. Not unusual since people dumped along the stream banks,  local animals died and left bones as well. Appears to be a radius bone from the front leg of a white tail deer. I have only one Pleistocene era deer bone and it was dredged up by fishermen off shore of the NJ coast.

It doesn't take long for bones to look old once they are washed around in a stream.

[Harry Pristis]

 

Certainly a radius.  Deer seems like a good guess, but I don't have one here to confirm.

 

 

[abyssunder]

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

[Deborah S.]

11 minutes ago, abyssunder said:

 

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

Thank you very much! I've been trying to find diagrams like this onllne and have not been having much success.

[Deborah S.]

1 hour ago, jpevahouse said:

I have a modest collection of modern animal bones found in NJ streams along with Cretaceous fossils. Not unusual since people dumped along the stream banks,  local animals died and left bones as well. Appears to be a radius bone from the front leg of a white tail deer. I have only one Pleistocene era deer bone and it was dredged up by fishermen off shore of the NJ coast.

It doesn't take long for bones to look old once they are washed around in a stream.

 

1 hour ago, Harry Pristis said:

 

Certainly a radius.  Deer seems like a good guess, but I don't have one here to confirm.

 

 

Thank you @abyssunder!

 

Based on the comparative diagrams abyssunder posted, I do see the similarity, especially distally, to Cervus. If the distal surface in Ungulatae is divided by sharp ridges, which in all Arteriodactylae are oblique to the median line, and in all other species more or less concave, then I suppose it must be Arteriodactylae of some kind. The distal surface of my radius is not concave (so it can't be anything other than Ungulatae); it is made up of sharp, oblique ridges (so it must be Arteriodactylae). However, I seem to have one more of these oblique, sharp ridges than the Cervus pictured. My proximal end differs quite a bit as well.

 

Now we just need a comparative anatomy guide of Arteriodactylae or a radius bone that matches.

 

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/320592042_Osteological_Distinctions_between_White-tailed_Deer_and_Caribou_Implications_for_Environmental_Archaeology_in_the_Northern_Great_Lakes_Region

 

http://www.boneid.net/product/white-tailed-deer-odocoileus-virginianus-left-radius-and-ulna-medial-view/

http://www.boneid.net/product/white-tailed-deer-odocoileus-virginianus-left-radius-and-ulna-view-2/

 

I don't think my radius matches white-tailed deer.

[Deborah S.]

3 hours ago, Rockwood said:

Cave Lion radius ?

That would be really neat, but it seems from the above that the distal end might rule that out.

[abyssunder]

49 minutes ago, Deborah S. said:

Thank you very much! I've been trying to find diagrams like this onllne and have not been having much success.

You are welcome!
It is still reachable here .

[Rockwood]

13 minutes ago, Deborah S. said:

However, I seem to have one more of these oblique, sharp ridges than the Cervus pictured. My proximal end differs quite a bit as well.

I agree that there would considerable differences compared to a modern deer. All I have in hand is a moose radius, but it seems to scale well compared to these drawings.

[Deborah S.]

16 minutes ago, abyssunder said:

You are welcome!
It is still reachable here .

Oh wow! Thank you!!!

[Deborah S.]

Definitely a white-tailed deer radius. Thank you for your help!

@abyssunder

@jpevahouse

@Harry Pristis

@Rockwood

 

Rumph, P. F. (1975). An osteology of the white-tailed deer Odocoileus virginianus (Unpublished master's thesis). doi:https://etd.auburn.edu/handle/10415/5251

[Rockwood]

I'll have to check the coyote baiting area up around the point from camp next spring (probably in use now). Looks like I need one of these.