PROCEEDINGS OF THE UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 
SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION 
U. S. NATIONAL MUSEUM 
Vol. 92 Washington: 1942 No. 3141 
SCORED BONE ARTIFACTS OF THE CENTRAL GREAT 
PLAINS 
By W. R. Wepen and A. T. Ho 
Tux known pottery wares of the central Great Plains fall into two 
main groups on the basis of the techniques employed in finishing vessel 
surfaces. These are (a) the paddle-marked wares, in which vessel 
exteriors bear impressions from a carved or wrapped instrument; and 
(6) the smoothed, polished, or slipped wares, which may or may not 
carry incised or trailed body ornamentation. Occasional smoothed 
or imperfectly polished sherds and vessels are likely to occur at almost 
any site where extended excavations are carried on. As the prevalent 
and characteristic type, however, pottery without paddle impressions 
is found principally along the Missouri River and in the lower drain- 
ages of its westerly tributaries. Several archeological horizons are 
concerned. They include the predominantly shell-tempered proto- 
historic Oneota and Oneotalike remains of eastern Nebraska and north- 
eastern Kansas (Hill and Wedel, 1936) ; the grit-tempered prehistoric 
Nebraska Aspect materials, confined mostly to a narrow strip along the 
Missouri River bluffs (Strong, 1935, pp. 251-252; Bell and Gilmore, 
1936, pp. 319, 326; Hill and Cooper, 1938) ; and the prehistoric shell- 
tempered wares with apparent Middle Mississippi affinities occurring 
in northwestern Missouri (Wedel, 1939) and in some of the Nebraska 
Aspect sites northward to the mouth of the Platte River near Omaha 
(Strong, 1935, p. 255). Plain ware also appears to constitute a con- 
siderable proportion of the pottery from protohistoric Dismal River 
sites in western Nebraska and Kansas (Hill and Metcalf, 1942, p. 181). 
438208—42 91 
