96 PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL MUSEUM VOL. 92 
rasps (cf. pl. 11, ¢). It is difficult, moreover, to see how pieces with 
so few markings as some of those shown (pl. 7, b, ¢) could have been 
effectively used as musical instruments or to produce rhythmic accom- 
paniments for vocal music. Another alternative, that these objects 
served as tallies or records, is not very satisfying. 
Edge-notched specimens are much less common, but we are able to 
illustrate several (pl. 12). A broken piece from Rice County, Kans., 
has 50 notches, some of which have been prolonged part way across 
one surface of the bone (pl. 12, a). The teeth are somewhat worn but 
not markedly so. The specimens shown in plate 12, 6 and c, have 
coarser notches, which exhibit some wear. In all these examples, the 
notches are very much closer together than they are on the wooden 
sounding rasps from the Western United States in the Division of 
Ethnology, U. S. National Museum. We are inclined to suspect that 
the Kansas and Nebraska specimens may have been used to comb 
the surfaces of pottery vessels. Laboratory attempts to produce ridges 
on plasticine proved only moderately successful, possibly because of 
the gummy character of the clay. 
In view of the generally late occurrence in the Nebraska-Kansas 
region of pottery with carved paddle impressions, the known facts of 
distribution concerning scored rib artifacts are of considerable in- 
terest. We have found no record of their presence in prehistoric sites 
identified with the Woodland, Upper Republican, Nebraska Aspect, or 
Middle Mississippi horizons, and it appears now that they could not 
be considered a part of the material culture inventory of the peoples 
responsible for these manifestations. They are also absent from such 
western Oneota sites as Leary and Fanning. On the other hand, they 
have been found at Dismal River sites in Scott County, Kans., and 
Frontier County, Nebr. ;* at several historic and protohistoric Pawnee 
villages in Nebraska; and at every protohistoric Wichita (?) site in 
Rice, McPherson, and Cowley Counties, Kans., where the results of 
excavation are known to us. In other words, scored ribs occur in 
just those central Great Plains horizons where pottery with carved 
or ribbed paddle impressions is also present; the two elements appear 
to have a coterminous occurrence spatially as well as temporally.* 
Whether a parallel association holds for other areas, such as the 
northern Great Plains, we are not able to say. On the upper Missouri, 
*Not figured in this paper is a specimen from the Dick Site, Frontier County, Nebr. 
(Wedel, 1935, p. 180), which differs in having the scorings on the concave inner surface 
instead of on the convex outer face of the rib. 
«Apart from the possible relationship suggested herein between scored ribs and paddle- 
marked pottery, it is of interest to note that three rib sounding rasps recovered by Kidder 
(1932, p. 252) at Pecos came from Glaze III-—V levels, i. e., 1475-1700. It seems very 
unlikely that any of the scored ribs so far recorded from the central Great Plains antedate 
Glaze III or IV horizons, as dated by Kidder (Kidder and Shepard, 1936, p. 610). 
