Hello everyone,

Some colleagues working in southern Taiwan have puzzled me with this type of “bones”. There are a few of them from different sites (3,800 – 1,400 B.P., late Neolithic and early Iron Age). First I suspected it is tooth of some sort of marine mammals, but other than the “three roots”, nothing about this bone is tooth-like. That is, there is no enamel or dentin, and it is very light in weight. Not only that, from the breakage, you can see that it is not spondgy structure inside. Instead, it is solid with one layer of “something” over another.

http://zooarchaeology.ning.com/photo/albums/unid-bone-from-taiwan

I think it’s less likely to be a man-made object, because although all these “bones” have three “roots”, the shape and direction of roots are somewhat different.

I would appreciate if anyone could shed some light on this thing.

Cheers,

Richard Chuang