Thursday 13 September 2012

burned bones

Last weekend, my dad and I went to Lime Kiln trail in search for bones.We walked for about fifteen minutes, finding nothing. Eventually we got to ruins of this old building (there are a lot on this trail) and we started walking off trail. After a while we saw a meadow and decided to check it out.  We were rewarded with nice deer leg bones; a femur (thigh bone), a patella (kneecap) and possibly a tibia (shin bone). We started to look around to find the rest of the body. My guess as to why the leg was separated is because carnivores often carry the limbs away. After  a couple of minutes, my dad found mandibles. I'm pretty sure they are deer, because of the lack of teeth in the front of the jaw and  the teeth are from a herbivore. Unfortunately they were green, probably from the moisture in the spot that we found them... I was worried it wouldn't come off, but we took them home anyway. He also found a couple of thoratic (mid back) deer vertebrae ( presumably the same animal) around the same area.

We didn't  find anything else, so we decided to head back towards where we found the deer leg bones, and started looking on the opposite side. I found about 4-5 more deer bones and antlers (probably moose, because of the shape and size) but we did not take it because of the extensive damage.

As soon as I got home, I put the jaws, a couple small bones and one of the patellas in peroxide.After a day or two I checked on them and the jaws where still very green, I waited one more day and they had not changed. So, I  decided it would be best if I didn't keep the green bones, but instead kept only the teeth. After I took the rest of the bones out of the peroxide,I  noticed something; they had some brown and black marks on them. I thought it was just dirt, so I tried to rub it off, but with no success. After they dried I realized that these bones had been through a fire: they were burnt. Last month here was  a forest fire in this area, and that is why the bones are burnt.
some old cans and other metal objects found in the forest

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