u/Bedroom_Bellamy

I was digging in the garden of my new house today and found a small memorial plaque of a gentleman that passed in 82, and in the same area, I found this.

It's about 3 inches long, 1.5 inches wide. Very light. Curved and totally smooth on one side. It was one piece but I whacked it with a brick because I wasn't thinking and wanted to know if it was a rock or a piece of wood or something. It looks darker than it is because I tried washing it off. Extremely porous on the entire inside, and clearly broken off from something bigger.

I am leery because I found it right near a memorial plaque. But also the sellers told me their parents buried "at least 20" pet cats in the yard over the 50+ years they lived here. It was in a garden so maybe it's limestone or something. I'm just very much hoping it isn't the gentleman whose memorial plaque I found. I still have the contact info for the sellers, I am already going to be contacting them regarding the plaque and I will ask them about what they want done with this as well. I didn't find anything else like this in the rest of the garden.

UPDATE: I brought this over to r/bonecollecting and they identified it as coming from an ungulate, like a pig or a sheep. This was most likely butcher/food scraps, or maybe some animal pulled it out of the trash. I am feeling far, far better knowing this.

Gosh I hope not.

I was out digging in my garden today, just bought this house recently and have never tended to the garden before. I unearthed a small dead stump (like from a small dead bush) and underneath it I found a small memorial plaque of a gentleman that passed in 1982. Underneath that, I found *something.*

It's right about 3 inches long, 1.5 inches wide, and clearly broken off from something. It's fairly light, which is what immediately made me think it wasn't a rock. It was in one piece, but I was trying to figure out if it was a wood or not so I hit it with a brick. I wish I hadn't.

It's completely smooth and rounded on one side. It's very light in color, it just looks darker because I tried washing off half of it. Extremely porous on the inside. Hard enough where it took a couple good whacks with a brick to break it (sorry, I wasn't thinking.)

It's my understanding that funeral homes started pulverizing cremains in the 70s or so, and if he passed in 82, I'm guessing he would have been pulverized. But I want to be sure so I can dispose of it properly (if it's cremains, I will rebury. If it's a rock or something, I'm going to huck it over the fence into the woods.)

Located in southern MN if it helps at all, maybe this is some kind of weird root we have here or something. Here's a whole pile of pictures to hopefully help.