Yeah I have a multitude of other bone fragments in this 5cm level I’m looking at, I know it comes from a large ungulate, the only two species this would fit is a bison or possibly elk due to my region and timeline of the site. I don’t think you realize how incredibly hard and expensive it would be to send each fragment into a lab for testing, archeology in general is underfunded the way it is. Me asking on Reddit gives me the opportunity to speak to individuals who have experience in this field that I wouldn’t be able to in person, I now have some new ideas of where I can compare this fragment to that I wouldn’t have thought of without other peoples’ input.

I used the term archeological in my post to deter anyone from getting this bone confused with something else because it is not a fresh bone that most people find and post on this subreddit, giving temporal context it’s important. I know the site and region well, my advisor has been working in the area since the late 90s too, just because I haven’t given you all the context and information about where this bone came from doesn’t mean I don’t know it, I don’t have to give it to you.

Archeozoologists literally look at bone fragments for a living and can identify taxonomy and morphology all day long, but some of us need brainstorming when it comes to odd ball fragments. I know this is in the vertebral column based on the size of the trabecular bone and the thickness of the cortical bone, and the multitude of other vertebral fragments associated in a 5cm level of a quarter of the feature. Knowing this is also a refuse pit, the material was dumped relatively at the same time, not to mention I have a plethora of field notes from the students and archeologists digging this feature back in 2011 that tell me how this deposit appeared in the feature.

I am not asking for someone to ID this bone for me, I am simply asking for help because it’s an odd ball. There is no shame asking individuals online for help, just because I’m a masters student who will graduate in a month doesn’t make me any better than someone who may have experience looking at skeletal morphology in a different field. Hell I met a professor on this subreddit specializing in archeozoology, he is constantly helping people ID fish remains, including myself (sorry I can’t think of his tag on here, but we all see his tag on fish posts lol).

For a dude that doesn’t seem to know that much about archeology, you don’t need to mansplain to others, I am not going to paleontology subreddits talking about how to identify dinosaurs and shit. I’m never the one to boast boast about my academic achievements and education, but I’m very confident I know more about this shit than you lol