What came first to the scientists -- the "appearance" of the bone, or the "dating"? Dating is pretty subjective. I imagine the "appearance" affected the scientists' dating....
I doubt it. Assuming a radiometrically derived date, the people in the labs are not paleontologists and don't know the implications of the shape of the fossil. They may in fact be dating the sedimentary layer in which the fossil is imbedded and not the bone itself.