Bone identification please

[Ringtail]

I found this bone buried in the sand of an east Texas creek that borders my property. Not sure if it is semi modern or much older. Very heavy and hard like stone. I have found petrified teeth in the creek as well as pottery and arrowheads. My land is literally surrounded by National Forest so no cows nearby but it could still be a cow I guess.

[Fat]

Its so nice it looks modern? but Im just learning bone.
I would like to see that pottery and arrowheads plz.

[Lindenmeier-Man]

Me too !

[painshill]

Welcome to arrowheads.com

It’s a bovid femur… either Bos (cow) or Bison. They’re difficult to distinguish unless the sheer size of the bone is outside the range for cows, or the known antiquity predates the introduction of cows to America in the 15^th Century (varies by region).

There are two out of fifteen characteristics of bovid femurs which distinguish between them with 90% confidence [Finsley, 1992]. One is that, in Bison, the ‘ball’ at the proximal end (known as the ‘femoral head’) has a slight but pronounced lip running round its edge and slightly overhanging the area below and this is not usually seen in cattle; the other is that the part of the bone leading to that ball (known as the ‘femoral neck’) is very broad and stout in Bison (often as wide as the ball itself) whereas it’s narrower in cattle.

Then, in addition, the curved projection to the side of the ball (known as the ‘trochanter major’) tends to be relatively narrow in Bison, whereas it tends to be broad and massive in cattle. The features I’m referring to are labelled in this drawing of a Bison femur:



I would say your bone ticks those three boxes for Bison, although the size suggests it hasn’t reached its full mature size.

[Fat]

I picked this up this morning for reference. I’m sure this is from a modern young heifer

[Ringtail]

Thank yall very much for all the trouble yall went to with the illustrations and examples. I will certainly use them as a reference in the future. I downloaded some examples of the pottery and points my son and I have found either in the smaller of our two creeks (where the bone was also found) or at an apparent campsite up above the creeks. This is in Houston County, Texas about 6 miles from the Neches River. Have also found more poorly made petrified wood points and I included one. A lot of petrified wood found also and various other stuff.

[Fat]

Really nice stuff you have there. If you have the time please, 1 or2 at a time or groups of alike.
Your pottery is going to be a hit for sure too. Really good examples

[Planko]

+1 on the first bone for bison. Second large bone is modern as you guessed.

Nice collection!

[utilized flake]

That red San Patrice point is killer!!!

[Ringtail]

Yes, my son found that one, I think it was the third or fourth point we found digging on a small hill near the larger creek. Seems like many points we found were of different types.

[Sergeir]

Nice find! It looks bison bison to me. Here is a bison femur for comparison. It is 48cm or about 19 inches in length. Here's a handy link also: https://archive.org/details/postcran...ge/54/mode/2up