Animate dead spell, "mostly intact" question

[into the aether]

animate dead says, "A skeleton can be created only from a mostly intact corpse or skeleton."

How long does a corpse remain "mostly intact"? If a human skeleton were butchered for meat, can the pile of bones be animated as a skeleton? How about a dozen or so human corpses each butchered, then transported for several days to a city to buy the onyx needed to animate them?

[Fuzzy-Wuzzy]

A single pile of bones should be animate-able as long as you didn't break and/or lose a bunch of the bones. A heap of many people's bones all jumbled together is not going to work because you won't be able to target an individual skeleton.

And bones last a very long time, absent vandalism. You could take years to get the material component and still be in good shape, as long as each pile of bones is separate and reasonably complete.

[Starglim]

Considering that we have mostly intact skeletons of dinosaurs, I'd say there is no definite time unless they are subject to an effect that damages or scatters the bones.

Butchering for meat would usually involve cutting off extremities and cutting up the edible parts, but if deliberately done with the aim of leaving the skeleton intact, that should allow animation.

[RDM42]

Could you make undead from fossilized bone which is no longer truly bone?

[Starglim]

"The corpse must have bones." It probably wouldn't work, but might be a nice variant effect.

[RDM42]

A 'fossilized skeleton undead' would be interesting. Increased damage resistance et al.

[Ashram]

To be fair, I think once you've crossed the threshold from bone to fossil, as in bone to stone, you've crossed from making an undead creature to crafting a bone golem...

[andygal]

Shades of Harry Dresden anyone?