# How old are the oldest bones **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 12, 2024, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-are-the-oldest-bones/996008 "2024-01-12T17:06:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Lucas\_Jackson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lucas_jackson/32/303_2.png) [@Lucas\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lucas_Jackson)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2024, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-are-the-oldest-bones/996008/1 "2024-01-12T17:06:09Z")
For example, dinosaur ‘bones’, as I understand it, are fossils which are formed by sediment covering the organism quickly after death, forming a cavity which is later filled with minerals of some sort. And I take it there are other forms of fossilization as well. But what are the oldest actual bones we have? ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2024, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-are-the-oldest-bones/996008/2 "2024-01-12T17:21:19Z")
Replacement of bone by fossilized minerals is usually not complete. The bones of Sue the Tyrannosaur, for instance, were found to still contain soft marrow tissue, from which some of her DNA was extracted (just badly-degraded fragments, not nearly enough to go full Jurassic Park, but still definitely her actual DNA). I’d say that that’s enough to qualify those fossils as “actual bone”, though I don’t expect that’s the oldest such specimen. ---
**Author:** ![md-2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9d8465/32.png) [@md-2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md-2000)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2024, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-are-the-oldest-bones/996008/3 "2024-01-12T17:48:46Z")
There are impressions of very odd creatures in the Burgess Shale from British Columbia, about 500M years ago. Some are softbodied and some are apparently arthropods - though not (as I understand) bones. It’s unclear how much is impressions in the rock and how much is original material. I would assume a precise answer depends on how old animals with internal bones are, as opposed to external shell creatures. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2024, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-are-the-oldest-bones/996008/4 "2024-01-12T20:00:38Z")
> [@md-2000](#): > > Some are softbodied and some are apparently arthropods - though not (as I understand) bones. Arthropod bones are very rare in the fossil record. As for the OP’s question, I can’t find much (searches want to tell me about oldest _human_ bones but the oldest unfossilized bones .ight be around 3 million years. [https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/zydijg/how\_old\_is\_the\_oldest\_bone\_that\_isnt\_a\_fossil\_is/](https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/zydijg/how_old_is_the_oldest_bone_that_isnt_a_fossil_is/) ---
**Author:** ![Lucas\_Jackson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lucas_jackson/32/303_2.png) [@Lucas\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lucas_Jackson)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2024, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-are-the-oldest-bones/996008/5 "2024-01-12T20:57:07Z")
Thanks for the link. Interestingly, the first reply under that answer (at the time of this writing) was a link to a ~~Hitler~~ [History Channel](https://www.history.com/news/scientists-find-soft-tissue-in-75-million-year-old-dinosaur-bones) article that starts out, _“Unlike bones and teeth, which can survive for **hundreds of millions of years** , soft tissues are among the first materials to disappear during the fossilization process.”_ ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2024, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-are-the-oldest-bones/996008/6 "2024-01-12T21:21:36Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > Arthropod bones are very rare in the fossil record. Well, yeah, as arthropods dont have bones. ---
**Author:** ![Banksiaman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/banksiaman/32/3334_2.png) [@Banksiaman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banksiaman)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2024, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-are-the-oldest-bones/996008/7 "2024-01-12T21:26:22Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > Arthropod bones are very rare in the fossil record. Rare as hen’s teeth they are. Just as rare are vertebrates trapped in amber. [This little critter](https://www.syfy.com/syfy-wire/110-million-year-old-lizard-rhetinosaurus-found-in-amber#:~:text=110%2Dmillion%2Dyear%2Dold,found%20in%20amber%20%7C%20SYFY%20WIRE) - with unfossilised bone - is 110 million years old. ---
**Author:** ![md-2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9d8465/32.png) [@md-2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md-2000)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2024, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-are-the-oldest-bones/996008/8 "2024-01-12T21:36:39Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > > [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > > > Arthropod bones are very rare in the fossil record. > > Well, yeah, as arthropods dont have bones. I was alluding to the hard shell - chitin? I assume that unlike bones or shells, which are calcium to start with, chitin is less likely to survive for eons. However, it does actually not decay the way flesh does, and is less soluable than calcium. A quick Google suggests it is still detectable in some fossils. ---
**Author:** ![burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/burpo_the_wonder_mutt/32/365_2.png) [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/burpo_the_wonder_mutt)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2024, 12:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-are-the-oldest-bones/996008/9 "2024-01-13T00:22:40Z")
As of this morning, the oldest bones are roughly 5,000,064 years old; that was me getting out of bed. 🤪 ---
**Author:** ![Ruken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f475e1/32.png) [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2024, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-are-the-oldest-bones/996008/10 "2024-01-13T15:37:03Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > The bones of Sue the Tyrannosaur, for instance, were found to still contain soft marrow tissue, from which some of her DNA was extracted (just badly-degraded fragments, not nearly enough to go full Jurassic Park, but still definitely her actual DNA). I’d like to read this paper if you have it (or better search terms — mine came up dry.) ---
**Author:** ![Retzbu\_Tox](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/retzbu_tox/32/11829_2.png) [@Retzbu\_Tox](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Retzbu_Tox)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2024, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-are-the-oldest-bones/996008/11 "2024-01-13T16:34:06Z")
My guess would be that the earliest bones that existed were likely from the point where cartilaginous fishes started developing sturdier skeletons. The oldest bony fish fossil is about 410 million years old (according to the Imperial College London website), and ‘life moved from the sea to the land’ about 390 million years ago. For non-fossilized bones, there are 42,000-year-old frozen mummified animals being found in the Arctic. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2024, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-are-the-oldest-bones/996008/12 "2024-01-13T17:43:19Z")
> [@Ruken](#): > > I’d like to read this paper if you have it (or better search terms — mine came up dry.) Here’s an article from _Discover_ magazine back in 2006. Don’t know if that’s what @Chronos was referring to? > **[Schweitzer's Dangerous Discovery](https://www.discovermagazine.com/the-sciences/schweitzers-dangerous-discovery)** > > When this shy paleontologist found soft, fresh-looking tissue inside a T. rex femur, she erased a line between past and present. Then all hell broke loose. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2024, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-are-the-oldest-bones/996008/13 "2024-01-13T17:55:09Z")
> [@Retzbu\_Tox](#): > > My guess would be that the earliest bones that existed were likely from the point where cartilaginous fishes started developing sturdier skeletons. I thought so, too, but an earlier SDMB thread steered me straight. It turns out that hard bones actually evolved before cartilage. ---
**Author:** ![Retzbu\_Tox](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/retzbu_tox/32/11829_2.png) [@Retzbu\_Tox](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Retzbu_Tox)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2024, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-are-the-oldest-bones/996008/14 "2024-01-13T18:07:34Z")
The article from 2020 linked below talks about the ‘recent’ discovery of a 410-million-year-old bony fish skull. It mentions sharks with cartilaginous skeletons evolved from fishes that were bony, but those had in turn evolved from earlier cartilaginous fishes. It sounds like they keep revising their theories as they find more fossils. (As they should.) > **[Ancient bony fish forces rethink of how sharks evolved | Imperial News |...](https://www.imperial.ac.uk/news/203413/ancient-bony-fish-forces-rethink-sharks/)** > > Sharks’ non-bony skeletons were thought to be the template before bony internal skeletons evolved, but a new fossil discovery suggests otherwise. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2024, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-are-the-oldest-bones/996008/15 "2024-01-13T18:16:35Z")
Meant to include this quotation from the article I linked: > Once, when she was working with a T. rex skeleton harvested from Hell Creek, she noticed that the fossil exuded a distinctly organic odor. “It smelled just like one of the cadavers we had in the lab who had been treated with chemotherapy before he died,” she says. Given the conventional wisdom that such fossils were made up entirely of minerals, Schweitzer was anxious when mentioning this to Horner. “But he said, ‘Oh, yeah, all Hell Creek bones smell,’” she says. To most old-line paleontologists, the smell of death didn’t even register. To Schweitzer, it meant that traces of life might still cling to those bones. She had already seen signs of exceptional preservation in the early 1990s, while she was studying the technical aspects of adhering fossil slices to microscope slides. One day a collaborator brought a T. rex slide to a conference and showed it to a pathologist, who examined it under a microscope. "The guy looked at it and said, ‘Do you realize you’ve got red blood cells in that bone?’ " Schweitzer remembers. “My colleague brought it back and showed me, and I just got goose bumps, because everyone knows these things don’t last for 65 million years.” ---
**Author:** ![Al128](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/al128/32/16541_2.png) [@Al128](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Al128)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2024, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-are-the-oldest-bones/996008/16 "2024-01-13T19:13:26Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > Here’s an article from _Discover_ magazine back in 2006. Don’t know if that’s what @Chronos was referring to? whatever the numbers are in the article, make sure to add 18 years … 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2024, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-are-the-oldest-bones/996008/17 "2024-01-14T15:03:16Z")
> [@Lucas\_Jackson](#): > > For example, dinosaur ‘bones’, as I understand it, are fossils which are formed by sediment covering the organism quickly after death, forming a cavity which is later filled with minerals of some sort. Is this accurate? I thought that the organic materials were gradually replaced by the fossilization process, not that the fossils are a cast? ---
**Author:** ![Pardel-Lux](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pardel-lux/32/20182_2.png) [@Pardel-Lux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pardel-Lux)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2024, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-are-the-oldest-bones/996008/18 "2024-01-14T15:21:25Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > Is this accurate? I believe you are both right, but you are righter than him (from [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fossil)): > There are many processes that lead to **fossilization** , including [permineralization](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permineralization), casts and molds, [authigenic mineralization](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authigenesis), replacement and recrystallization, adpression, [carbonization](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbonization), and bioimmuration. ---
**Author:** ![Lucas\_Jackson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lucas_jackson/32/303_2.png) [@Lucas\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lucas_Jackson)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2024, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-are-the-oldest-bones/996008/19 "2024-01-14T16:00:45Z")
> [@Pardel-Lux](#): > > you are righter than him That article lists several methods, why is one more right? ---
**Author:** ![Pardel-Lux](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pardel-lux/32/20182_2.png) [@Pardel-Lux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pardel-Lux)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2024, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-are-the-oldest-bones/996008/20 "2024-01-14T16:02:54Z")
I understand it is more frequent. There are many biases here (more frequently found, more frequently exposed in a museum, more frequently reviewed in an article…). [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-are-the-oldest-bones/996008.md?page=2)