[JumpCrisscross]

> those surely fossilize (preserve over eons) much more rarely than many civilizational artifacts

I don't think they would fossilise. It's a process specific to the porosity of organic tissue. They might be preserved, but the Cambridge paper explains why it’s unlikely they would last for a hundred millennia or more.

[cubefox]

But surely it is much more unlikely that animal bones would last for a hundred millennia.

[JumpCrisscross]

> surely it is much more unlikely that animal bones would last for a hundred millennia

Why? The Cambridge paper gives a scientist’s reasons for that not being the case being supposition.

[cubefox]

Because processed stones are much more massive than bones, which mostly rot away quite quickly.

[rini17]

Mass does not matter. Tungsten metal is heftier that the stone and it rots regardless.

[cubefox]

Let's say durable then.