Red Deer antler and bone collagen complexes, recent and 11 ka BP old, were solubilized in anhydrous formic acid, cleaving the [alpha]-chains to give arrays of large stable peptides. Calf-skin collagen was also compared. The antler and bone [alpha]-chains have survived substantially through this time-span as molecular entities, under bog conditions. These arrays reveal small but meaningful differences between the main collagen components of bone and antler and skin, which could be of post-translational origin. We report here an exploratory study of some problems of molecular survival in ancient collagenous material through 11 ka and also of antler growth as compared with bone growth in vivo.