Found bones in an old church porch, should I report it?

[IsitaHatOrACat]

On a walk at the weekend I explored an old (unused) church and graveyard. These bones were sitting in the church porch. Any advice? It seems a bit off to just ignore them. Has this ever happened to anyone else and did you do anything about it?

Are you always this abrupt?

5 times actually, but I was responding to the advice to contact the church whilst filling in the 101 form

I wanted to be an Archaeologist when I was very small. If you ever get the time, please could you do an AMA 😊

Just to clarify in case of any confusion - I didn't touch the bones and nor have I brought them home 😂

Friend lives adjoining a grave yard. They have two acres. There's a good chance that a few were buried back in the day on the other side of the stone wall long before their house was built. In our town there's a church with stone walls. Bones have been found over the wall. Tiny ones as well as adults. They were moved and reblessed.

A customer once reported a bone they had spotted just outside the perimeter of my dog park… a specialist police team arrived within a few hours to confirm it was a cow bone.

Photo evidence attached

just mind boggled that you don't know what to do.

Call 101. If human and from the graveyard, they will need to be re-interred by clergy.

Well done for knowing what to do.

I hope you continue to excel at life

Did you genuinely not think to call the non emergency police number though?

Could be the start of a Midsomer Murders episode!

(Agree with those saying call 101 and that it’s most likely animals disturbing old bones)

Edited for typos

There seems to be at least one femur there but I'm not seeing the 'ball' part of the ball-and-socket joint that makes up the hip joint in a human.
It could be because it's seen from behind.or it could be a pig femur seen from behind.

The smaller one looks like a (human) tibia, and the splintered one could be part of another (human) femur.

Please keep us in the loop OP I'd be interested in what you can find out about these bones.

Old churchyards are thick with bones so it’s not surprising that burrowing animals would bring some up. Odd of someone to have moved them to the porch.

If you can work out who’s in charge of the church then that’s probably a better route than the police. Maybe contact vicar of the nearest active church?

Ex copper.

Please call the police. This is not an unusual call, they have access to the right people to ID the bones whether animal or human.

DS1's first piano teacher was a touch eccentric. I went to collect him from his lesson once to find him looking at a box of human skeletal remains. Apparently these bones (a fairly complete skeleton) had been discovered in her garden when she was having a drain dug. Police were called, the bones were quickly identified as ancient so they were sent to the archaeology department at Oxford University. A year later they arrived back in a box. Skeleton was about 1000 years old, of a young man aged in his late teens/early 20s, with a major tooth abscess which was probably what killed him.
Piano teacher named him Harold.
DS1 thought this was brilliant 😁

Yes this is possible. Friend has been doing work at an old graveyard and there were skulls and other bones exposed by badgers. Strange they were in the porch though ! They do need to be reported to the police .

Police officer here. In my area we would come out and seize them, then send photos to experts to ascertain if they are human. If able to date them and they are indeed old, they would be sent to our local heritage department who then catalogue and deal with them suitably and respectfully.

Why are you filling out the online form? Just call 101, it’s about a million times quicker.

My colleague, who was American totally bonkers, was trawling around the banks of the Thames in front of our very spronzy City office one lunchtime. She returned knee deep with Thames sludge and a dripping Tesco bag of muddy bones. She then hot-footed, despite advice from everyone who said they will be cow bones, to the local nick where she was kindly told they were cow bones.

I did. And also wasn't sure. Hope that answers your question

Twas quick.
Calling 101 the other week about a car related matter was much slower!

😆

Yes, email them to the police non emergency... Some kind of measurement would be useful.

Daughter and I were digging to make a little pond one year and kept finding bones... It started getting a bit eerie as one of the longer bones was sawn in half.
Police originally said they wanted to take a closer look (aaargh!) and then got back with confirmation that they weren't human. It's still a mystery.

We get bones come to the surface fairly regularly in our church yard - animal activity related, if it’s obvious which grave they are from we rebury them straight away, if they are in a more random location we collect them up until we have a few and about once a year we bury them under the oak tree (documenting this of course)

Contacting the police was definitely the right thing to do.
Bones in churchyards are odd anomalies.
We have had to contact the police before when we have discovered bones in new areas of graveyards where we wouldn't expect them. They come and investigate. Usually they are blessed and buried again. But given they do come and check there must be times when they keep them.

Why be so critical?!