What does it mean when a bone is black?

Question

I found a black bone-looking thing on the ground by a creek. Its really smooth, and looks kinda old. Somebody told me that it means that the bone is from the ice age. Does anybody know anything about this type of thing?

Answer 1

The answer to your question, "Does anybody know anything about what it means when a bone turns black?" is yes, and they are called, "paleontologists". Many of them work at museums, so Steve C.'s answer is accurate.
But I would like to add that many bones have been found in stream beds and along shorelines from South Carolina to Florida. Most of those that are "black", or dark brown, have had their calcium "replaced" by minerals called "phosphates". This replacement process takes a long time. Paleontologists have determined that many of these dark-colored bones are from animals that lived during the "ice age". That is why many people assume that when a bone is black it is from the "ice age".
But in the western U.S. paleontologists have found bones that are many times older than the "ice age". When these bones are found in light-colored rock, the bones are typically light-colored, too. That's because the bone has been "replaced" by the light-colored minerals in that rock.
So, the color of a fossil bone has more to do with the kind of minerals where it was found, than how old it is.

Answer 2

It does sound like a fossilized bone, but there's no telling how old it is without having an expert look at it. If there's a university or natural history museum nearby let them take a look at it.

Answer 3

Do retards like "catfishalomar" have any brains? "catfishterrischiavo" could be a extra apt identify for him. For others studying this (and no longer the moron who published it), blacks have a layer of pigment below the higher dermis. Scientists found out that if the higher layer of dermis is eliminated and the pigment washed off, that black individuals's dermis appears precisely the equal as caucasian dermis. (This used to be found out from cadavers, no longer dwelling individuals. The pigment is simply too deep to take away from dwelling tissue.) Clearly, the pigment *loss* in caucasians is a outcome of evolution, no longer wanting it for the reason that of the European local weather and solar. Unless you are an ignorant godnazi and deny that whites descended from blacks, that are supposed to come as no shock. .