Jul 28, 2023

211: A little more on the long human femur

The most any of you have seen of this bone, is the picture below. Few have seen it themselves except the digging team, a few supporters and those we took it to for analysis. Yes, its human, and yes it equates to a 7'11" male or an 8'2" female. The femoral ends were not with it when it was discovered and were not anywhere in the fill these fragments were in.

This bone chart is exactly what the cross sections looked like before it was assembled temporarily with a substance that enables it to be dismantled easily later on for further analysis.

As this bone is now inconsequential, we have posted below a few pictures of the pieces as they were found, noting we were more interested at the time in assembly than individual photos.

Now I'm trying to find the few cross section photos we took before it was fully assembled and I'm loathe to pull it apart again. It's clear the above is not a bird bone from a number of factors, not the least this one is not pneumatized. Oh, but a big non flying bird would be different with adaptation wouldn't it? No, check out below. And the moa also has a ‘pneumatic structure’ but the centre is filled with marrow like that of a land animal.