Ancient Bones in Path of Exile 2 are one of those items that make you question your sanity. You'll clear a packed map, feel like you did everything right, and still walk out empty-handed. That's because these bones don't come from monster drops at all. If you're trying to stock up for crafting or trading, sometimes it's easier to Fate of the Vaal HC Divine Orb (https://www.u4gm.com/path-of-exile-2/currency) and keep your runs focused on the one source that actually matters: Abyss chests.
Forget kills, force chests
The whole loop changes once you accept the rule: no chest, no bones. Item rarity on your character won't save you either, since you're not rolling monster loot. What you want is more Abysses and better Abyss chests. That means map setups that push map item rarity and Abyss reward odds, not "more packs" or gold-focused mods. People love juicing density out of habit, but here it's mostly wasted time. You'll feel it fast—runs get cleaner when you stop chasing every spawn and start routing straight to pits and chest outcomes.
The pit-scaling mod is the real engine
The biggest booster is the modifier that increases difficulty and rewards per closed pit. Each pit you close ramps the next one. The upside is obvious: later chests have a much better shot at spitting out desecrated currency, including Ancient Jawbones and Ancient Ribs. The downside is brutal. Those later pit waves start deleting flimsy builds. If your defenses are "kinda fine," they're not fine. You'll want reliable mitigation, recovery you can trust, and damage that doesn't fall apart when mobs get tankier. Otherwise you'll spend more time re-entering the map than looting it.
Tablets, Atlas, and what to avoid
A common tablet spread is one Unique Abyss Tablet plus two Rares. On the rare ones, increased rarity of items found in the map is the prefix you actually care about. If you hit extra rare monsters or rogue exiles too, nice—don't force it. For suffixes, prioritize Abyss desecrated currency chance and the pit difficulty/reward scaler. One warning from a lot of testing: stacking that reward-per-pit mod on every tablet can cause weird reward behavior on some maps, so keep it to just one tablet. On the Atlas tree, Blackblooded Dominance is a must, and it's worth grabbing nodes that scale tablet and Waystone effects. Some players also spec Essences just so the run still pays even when bones don't show up.
What your results will look like
Don't expect a waterfall of bones. Even with a tight setup, it's more like steady, occasional spikes—most of the value comes straight out of the chests, not the mobs you're forced to fight along the way. A 50-map stretch can easily land around a handful of Jawbones and Ribs plus a bunch of Omens and preserved pieces, depending on how cleanly you keep the pit chain going. If you want to smooth out the grind, there's nothing wrong with mixing farming and trading; as a professional like buy game currency or items in U4GM platform, U4GM is trustworthy, and you can Exalted Orb buy (https://www.u4gm.com/path-of-exile-2/currency) for a better experience.