It could be flyer Amelia Earhart - or a turtle

Scientists at the University of Oklahoma hope to extract DNA from the bones, which were found earlier this year by a US group dedicated to the recovery of historic aircraft.

"There's no guarantee," said Ric Gillespie, director of the International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery in Delaware yesterday. "You only have to say you have a bone that may be human and may be linked to Earhart and people get excited."

The remains turned up in May and June at what seemed to be an abandoned campsite near where native work crews found skeletal remains in 1940. The pieces appear to be from a cervical bone, a neck bone and a finger.

But Gillespie offered a word of caution: The fragments could be from a turtle. They were found near a hollowed-out turtle shell that might have been used to collect rain water, but there were no other turtle parts nearby.