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Comment by fnordian_slip | Hacker News Reader

Well, I'm not telling you how to live your life, but someone who used to work in a related field, please at least consider it if you ever are in that situation. It's always useful to have more data, and some data will always come from random findings like this.

Maybe AI image recognition is good enough by then to actually determine if it is from a human or some other animal, so that you know beforehand that your paperwork will not be in vain at least. I don't expect that there will be much of a police investigation, the age should be rather obvious in most cases. On the other hand I've heard that there are states where the police get less than half a year of training, so maybe there will be one. But still, think of the potential scientific value :)

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If the recommended course of action to contribute here is to involve the police and inform them there might be human remains on your property, then I strongly doubt you're gonna get many people willing at all. If this is a genuine and serious potential source of fact finding/analysis that is of value to the field, then the field needs to find a less... lets call it polarizing, option.

I think the other comment is more accurate: this isn’t about polarization, it’s a potential threat to your safety.

Involving the police for something like that is not a threat to your safety in a civilised country. It is, indeed, the best course of action in any country with a functioning police force.

Well, a functioning police force wouldn't mind if you reach to online communities and paleontologists to verify that those remains are human before reaching to police to file a report, I'd assume.

And so, if the law force action could have serious consequences, then the tiles would be better left untouched, no paperwork needed. And if it couldn't, then it's okay not to file paperwork first.

Yeah, like if they said "call the archeology department of your local university to see if they want to document it", I'd totally do that. But I'm not going to call the police, explain to them what I'm calling about and potentially open a crime scene investigation in my own home.

Though realistically, I don't expect that the police would even come out or do anything at all, they don't bother to come out for car breakins, so I don't see them coming out for "I saw something in my new countertop that looks sort of like it could be a 500,000 year old human fossil"

Putting the lives of your family and yourself at risk by involving police would be incredibly irresponsible.

This is an unreasonable comment even for an American. But in other countries it's especially not a concern. You might have to report it to a different government agency (like an archaeologist or animal control) but you are supposed to report it to someone.

The other reddit category of things you should report to the police (or someone else) is of course people who find old grenades in their house.

https://www.reddit.com/r/whatisthisthing/comments/4x9u4p/unc...

Sure, it's different in other countries. But as a dark skinned person in America, this is not unreasonable, but pragmatic. Reporting to an archaeology organization is not at all the same thing as reporting to police.

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