That bone I thought was a tool turned out to be a lunch scrap

I spent 2 hours at a dig near Flagstaff cataloging a flint flake with cut marks as a deliberate butchering tool, then a retired professor walked over and said it was probably just a coyote chew toy. That tipped me off that I was forcing a story onto the evidence instead of letting the wear patterns speak for themselves. Anyone else ever find out they were over-reading the simplest explanation on a site?

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1 Comment

phoenixb3427d ago

Wait, coyote chew toy? Like the professor actually picked it up and said that with a straight face? That is wild, I can't even picture that scenario without laughing. I've had moments where I stared at a rock so long I convinced myself it was a hammerstone, but nobody ever came along and just dropped the truth bomb like that. The worst part is, coyotes do leave those spiral fracture marks on bones, and if you squint they look like deliberate cut work, so I get how you got there. Did you at least keep the flake for reference, or did you toss it back in the dirt out of embarrassment?