Hello Gina:  I know this problem well.  We tackled this problem on a famous group of bone artifacts in Lithuania (they were not human).  

You will have, of course, encountered some literature on differences in microanatomy between human bone and the bones of other animals found in archaeological context.  The subcontext of your inquiry is that destructive analysis is something that will not be considered.  Yet there are at least two methods for evaluating the same microanatomy on an intact artifact.  1) good reflection microscopy, especially if you image in reflected circularly polarized light (which we have), can often discriminate some of the relevant microanatomy.  2) We also have a white light confocal microscope, and we use it to image below the surface of an intact bone and detect an "optical section" that is equivalent to a histological thin section.  We have done same on many early human fossils, including Lucy.

Tim

Hi Tim,

Many thanks for your suggestions. I tried looking at some surface impressions of the bone under SEM in case I could distinguish osteons or plexiform bone but nothing was visible - I assume either because the impression material didn't allow the level of detail and/or because the surface was not able to be prepared first.... I will see if an end can be polished and try your suggestion using a reflected light/polarising microscope. I'm not sure if I can access a confocal but will ask around. Again many thanks - I didn't think past the SEM!

Cheers, Gina

Gina:  SEM replicas have sufficient resolution, but you need something more.  Best is that you examine the original by environmental SEM, and to do so by backscattered electron (BSE-SEM) detection, not secondary detection.  This will provide you with useful density-dependent information to help you visualize the microanatomy.  

Hi Tim, that is really great to know - thanks so much for your advice.

Cheers, Gina

The suggestions Tim has made with the use of microscopes and SEM. I will see if I can find out if anything else possible that is non destructive that may help.

Hi Jelena, I will be really interesting to know if there are other possibilities - in addition to Tim's suggestions. Many thanks for looking onto this!

Cheers, Gina

An additional possibility is microCT.  Vasculature patterns can be used to indicate human versus, say, artiodactyl bone.  If you have nanoCT, and can visualize the distribution and number of osteocyte lacunae, this is also a very effective way of determining the probability that the bone was from a human or not.

Hi Tim, That sounds really interesting as well - I will look into that as well. 

Many thanks, Gina