Residue In The Starchild's Bone
In 2004 matching small samples of bone was carefully cut from the Starchild Skull and the human female skull reportedly found with it. Those samples were then polished using lapidary tools, giving the first clear look at the bone structure. A second set of samples was also taken, but these were carefully snapped rather than cut to give the first views of the bone clear from the debris of cutting. These are unedited photographs taken of the results.The human bone is identified as "STARCHILD FEM1" and the Starchild Skull as "STARCHILD SCS2".
Note that, once polished, the bone of the Starchild Skull appears yellowish and opaque compared to the human skull. Both samples were treated exactly the same way, and photographs were taken in the same light and at the same scale (the human bone takes up more of the image as it is normal thickness whereas the Starchild's bone is much thinner than normal human bone). Any differences are entirely due to the nature of the bone itself.
 Polished Human Bone OneNotice the translucent properties of the bone. |  Polished Human Bone TwoObserve how clean the cancellous holes are (the part of the bone that looks like a sponge-full of holes). |  Polished Starchild Bone OneThe bone of the Starchild Skull is much more opaque and a different colour. Notice the tiny red dot in the center of the image - this is the first hint of the residue. |
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 Polished Starchild Bone TwoA different angle of the polished bone reveals even more reddish residue. |  Polished Starchild Bone ThreeHigher magnification of the previous image gives a clearer view of the residue. |  Backlit Starchild BoneThis is a tiny chip of bone that has been snapped off rather than cut, so there is zero contamination with bone dust. Polished and back-lit to reveal the residue. |
 Higher Magnification Back-lit BoneHigher magnification of the previous image. This residue is not bone marrow, which would be black and virtually non-existent after 900 years of decomposition. |
