NO. lO NEBRASKA ARCHEOLOGY STRONG 26l 



The latter artifact may formerly have occurred in other Nebraska 

 sites, but the material is very perishable. A few handles for stone 

 artifacts have been found. Sterns obtaining a semilunar piece of bone 

 with a slit at one end of the base, just the size of a flint knife blade, 

 and a hole, possibly for a thong, near the other end ; also a piece of 

 perforated large mammal bone that might have been a small ax handle. 

 In the Omaha Public Library collection are three sections of cut 

 antler, each having a socket hole in one end and. in one example, a 

 small perforation at the other. According to Dr. Gilder, who found 

 them, one of these had an end scraper in place, one a small flint knife, 

 whereas the one with a socket and perforation was without any at- 

 tached stone artifact. If handles were commonly employed on Ne- 

 braska culture stone artifacts, the majority appear to have been of 

 perishable materials. Bone awls were rare in the sites worked by the 

 Survey, but many have been recovered by Gilder and Sterns. Ex- 

 amples from known Nebraska culture sites collected by Gilder and 

 now in the Nebraska State Museum collections are illustrated here 

 (pi. i8, fig. i). Needles, i. e., awls with eyes, are rather rare in these 

 sites. None were found by the Survey, and Sterns states that less 

 than lo percent of his awls had eyes. A few large picks of bison ulna 

 have been found (pi. i8, fig. i, a). Shaft straighteners of antler, with 

 one perforation, are characteristic of the culture, one obtained by 

 Gilder and one by the Survey being illustrated (pi. i8, fig. i, b, c). 

 Sterns found many of this type besides one made from deer bone and 

 one from a section of bison rib. Cylindrical tapping tools or punches 

 of smoothed and unsmoothed antler, antler gouges, conical antler 

 knapping tools, a few combs of antler, and grooved deer jaws (sinew 

 stretchers?) are all found in Nebraska culture sites. Bone and antler 

 fishhooks are rather common, the smaller of these resembling bone 

 fishhooks from Upper Republican culture sites, but many of them 

 are very large and marked by notches at the bend of the shank. ^"^ The 

 Survey parties obtained none of these from Nebraska culture sites, 

 but both Gilder and Sterns found a number of them. Another unusual 

 antler artifact is a small toggle-head harpoon, of which at least three 

 have been recovered from Nebraska culture sites by Gilder."" The 



^'*' Gilder, 1926, p. 8, illustrates five of these rather remarkable fishhooks. 

 Similar but less elaborate forms occur on the Upper Missouri, Will and Spinden, 

 IQ06, pi. 36, s, f; in Kentucky, Moore, 1916, fig. 8; in Tennessee, Harrington, 

 1922, pi. 75, /; in Iroquois sites in New York, Parker, 1922, p. 119, fig. 14, and 

 elsewhere in the east and southeast. 



'" 1926, p. 26 ; also pi. 9, fig. 2, e, present paper, shows one of these found 

 by Gilder, now in the Nebraska State Museum. The fact that they were toggle- 

 head harpoons and not weaving or other implements was brought out by 

 Wintemberg, 191 2, p. 27. 



