#human bone

Some recent pieces I’m very proud of! All handmade from water buffalo, raccoon, and retired medical model human bones and teeth.

Lil Pumpkin is visiting the Museum of Witchcraft and Magic!

In Boscastle, in Cornwall, England.

(these are collected under the KyidylBones tag bc I have the sense of humor of a 13 year old boy.) 

I decided to do this today since the other part was basically like boring intro stuff and that’s not really what you showed up for.  So today’s topic is: 

Human vs. Animal

Anthropology and archaeology departments the world over are often brought random bones people find to ID whether they’re human or animal, so you might be wondering how do we know the difference? Well...it takes practice.  And, honestly, if the pieces are too small we can’t tell without microscopic analysis of the bone structure, but most of the time we can tell.  

Human bone is very unique.  Our anatomy is unique because we’re the only living members of our genus Homo and the anatomical adaptations of Homo are unique among animals.  The weird combination of big brain, walks upright, fine motor control, and used to live in trees is just...weird.  Our internal microscopic structure is different than that of any other animal. We grow differently than any other animal because our young take so long to mature and are born so helpless.  So anatomically...we’re unique if you know what to look for, but fragmentary remains are super common so you can’t do it by anatomy alone.

One piece of info that’s important.  Bone is made of two components: collagen and minerals.  Squishy bits and crunchy bits respectively.  And, yes, if you’re wondering...scientists DO sometimes remove these bits for Reasons (TM).  

Context! 

Where did you find this thing? Was it a single bone in a patch of woods in your backyard? Probably animal, but not always.  In a pit at a dig with burned animal bones? Probably not a human because people don’t toss the remains of their friends and families in with dinner.  Across cultures people treat their own dead differently than their animal dead or their food.  So if you find it with the food? 99% chance it’s animal, even at a disturbed site (tho it’s not *impossible* to find people in with animal, especially in caves, very disturbed sites, or very old sites.  With very old sites you have to get comfortable with the idea that sometimes people were food and it wasn’t even that uncommon.)

Texture! 

I’m doing this one first bc I can’t give you pictures of texture so it can go outside the cut.  That microscopic structure I mentioned and differences in bone growth all lead to a different texture in human bone.  Now, I want to preface this by saying: this varies with the age of the bone and the age of the individual and the environment in which you found it.  But human bone tends to be a bit less....greasy than animal bone.  I don’t know how else to describe this, because understanding the difference in texture is literally something you can only do by handling them, but I’ll do my best.  

See, animal bone found in association with humans is normally put through some kind of alteration process.  Cooking, smoking, etc.  Human bone sometimes is - after all, people cremate their dead or dry them out or mummify them or eat them all the time - but buried bone tends to be drier in texture than animal bone.  Animal bone won’t leave greasy stains or residue, but it will feel smoother - less porous.  As humans (and animals) decay, the collagen goes first and leaves behind the minerals.  This happens at different rates for different organisms in different conditions, but human bone that has been buried will have a different texture than animal bone, and it will be slightly less smooth or greasy (listen bone grease isn’t GREASE grease it’s just like a way of talking about how dried out it is. Older = less grease.  New things will leave like food grease on your fingers.). But after you’ve felt it a few times - buried human bone has a different texture than animal bone.  

Color! 

Human bone is a different color from other kinds of bone.  It’s similar, but not the same.  And! Unless it has been bleached by the sun (something I’ll touch on more when I do the damage post.), it’s not white.  Not when it has been defleshed naturally.  So halloween decorations? Yeah, all the wrong color.  Anyway, this is where we start to get into images, so I’m going to start putting things behind the cut.  

took some family photos today

“MINE!” shrieked the the creature. It was surely some kind of faerie beast. Covered from head to toe in greyish fur streaked with black, claws, a twitching tail, and a muzzle filled with sharp teeth. It did not strike you as very impressive, given that it was only the size of a very small child. This is why you felt safe enough to stand before it as you tried to discern what it resembled most (Not too close, you have long since learned that appearance is not a good measurement of danger in Faerie). Perhaps at first glance it might be somewhat like a cat or a dog, but upon closer inspection it could easily be a fox. Then again, what fox had that many appendages on its paws? What cat had eyes that looked so very human? What dog had quite that many teeth? No, however this thing appeared at first glance, it was nothing at all like any creature you knew. Staring at it was making you uncomfortable. There was also the fact that it was gnawing at what was very clearly a human femur. “MINE!” the creature snarled at you again, almost barking but not quite as the sound mingled with its words. You really don’t like the look of its teeth. Well, you say to yourself. It’s not as if the owner of that bone is going to want it back anytime soon. And you continued on your way, listening to the creature rant and rail at you for daring come and try to steal its precious bones. If the encounter hadn’t been so...unsettling...you might have laughed.

I believe the pink one is just dyed clear quartz. The Skull one is made out of genuine human bone found at an abandoned aslyum. It was a gift from my good friend and coworker. It hasn't done anything spooky as of yet.

I plan on making jewelry, but the string I had was bad. All og my bracelets kept breaking T-T.

We found these humerus and you can too!

These are real human humerus (upper arm) bones! Sourced from old medical collections and broken articulated skeletons, these bones would make for great anatomical or art reference.

We can ship these to respectful homes worldwide, anywhere human osteology is legal. We are asking $85CAD (~66USD) per bone.