OK, BOYS AND GIRLS.....What do you think this is???? It's authentic and came from the Tennessee River Valley in North Alabama.......I personally took this picture Friday afternoon........  

Is it a human bone or animal?

QuoteOriginally posted by DW:
OK, BOYS AND GIRLS.....What do you think this is???? It's authentic and came from the Tennessee River Valley in North Alabama.......I personally took this picture Friday afternoon........    

Simple answer is: it's an arrow/spear head in a piece of bone. How about a reference for size in the picture.  By the way, an awesome find.

must have been effective. What size is it?

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Sorry about no reference in the pic....I was just amazed to be holding it....Bone is 2.5" tall and the point is protruding about 2.5 ".....What type of bone do you think it is? Don

WOW what an Awesome Find!!

I don't know but if it had been a single bevel head it would have broken that bone and passed through.  :D

QuoteOriginally posted by Talondale:
I don't know but if it had been a single bevel head it would have broken that bone and passed through.   :D  

What a find!!! To me it looks like a vertebra. Thanks for sharing DW.

CS

I would say "the aim was low" - very low! Looks like the first digit of a buffalo to me.

Pics from different angles would allow for a better recognition. Are you familiar with doing 3D-pictures from two shots take side by side (distance as about in human eyes)?

I'm with Falk on the bone, though I would not commit to buffalo (calf) or elk. It does look like a toebone from a cloven hoof.

Killdeer  

I would say vertebre, maybe neck. That is one awesome find.

That is an awesome find!  Either Gene or Barry Wensel had an article in TBM a couple of years ago that had a picture of something very similiar.  I believe the one he had was a bison vertebrea(sp?) and was dated as pre-historic.

I don't know what bone it is, but I doubt if it is hoof material.  Hoof material is keratin, not bone and most likely would not stand the test of time and the elements as this artifact appears to have done.  Way cool find and photo though!

I thought it was a turd thru a leaf. Cool pic for sure.

Kevin,
horn material is Keratin. But it is not growing in thin air and needs something to adhere to - this is where the bones (more or less Calcium-Phosphate) come in handy    Try to cut through your fingernail sometime and look what is underneeth?
Every claw, nail, hoof or horn (headgear) for that matter will have a bone inside - except in Rhinos, which don't grow horn per se. The horn is growing as a sheat, as an outer layer on bone and soft tissue. It will quite easily decompose (spelling) and in fact is gone in the pic above.

If I assume it is what I think, then you could also make some adjucated guess as far as it's age is concerned and what had happened after all:
From the angle the point or shaft has entered we can assume it was shot by an indian from horseback as he had already passed the buffalo. If we could determine if it is right or left and front or rear, we could also tell at which side the Indian rode along. To me it looks like a left phalange, from left rear foot. So, I assume he undershot the belly of the buff as he passed on the right and hit the hind hoof with his arrow.
So, we need a right handed Indian on a horse and a buffalo to shot at. I have no idea about when horses where available to Indians in greater numbers nor when Buffalo Bill Cody shot the last, but IMO a timeframe between maybe 1600 and 1865 sounds plausible.

[A ballistic head on attac on a buffalo seems unlikely to have been tried. Shooting from a cliff or elevated stand would be an other, less romantic possibility to explain direction and angle the shaft had entered.]

Small remains can tell big stories, not?!  

Falk

too cool

Cool Theory Falk.....but was found in the South Eastern U.S. and I don't think the Cherokee's, which were common in this area, hunted the woodland buffalo from horseback.....Could be wrong.......Hopefully one of our TG brothers, who is very knowledgable about relics from this area, will speak up soon....I sent him an e-mail a few minutes ago.......A side note....we're only a few miles from Russell Cave national monument and one of the resident professionals there told us his take on this....GOOGLE Russell Cave and check out some of the cool links and threads.......THX FOR LOOKING, Don

very cool find!

DW,  Very cool!  THanks for sharing.