Thanks to everyone for your suggestions. For those who are curious, the final verdicts are lion humerus for the first bone, and fragment of the pubis portion of the acetabulum of probably Bos or Cervus elaphus, most likely the former.

Katelyn Bishop

On Mon, Jun 18, 2012 at 3:24 PM, Katelyn Bishop <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

Hi all-
A little brain exercise.
We are looking at two bones we just can't seem to figure out. They are both from Iran. The first (here), is troubling us because most mammals who have entepicondylar foramen on their humeri are much smaller than this, so we are looking for a larger animal with an entepicondylar foramen on the distal humerus.

The second has stumped everyone in the lab thus far. It is of Bos size but the way in which it is broken is troubling us all. We took a video since photographs couldn't really capture its facets well. See it here (excuse the cough of my coworker in the background!)

Neither are of extreme, pressing importance, we are just insatiably curious.

Many thanks,
Katelyn Bishop

--
Katelyn J. Bishop

Zooarchaeological Contractor
Laboratory of Archaeobiology
Smithsonian Institution
301-238-1022

Research Assistant
Chaco Research Archive