SCORED BONE ARTIFACTS—WEDEL AND HILL 97 
pottery marked with “grooved or thong-wrapped paddles” is attributed 
by Strong (1940, p. 374) to the Arikara, Mandan, Hidatsa, and 
Cheyenne, evidently of the protohistoric and historic periods. In the 
same paper, bone “rasps” are reported only from the Leavenworth 
(Arikara) Site near Mobridge, S. Dak. (2bid., p. 370), but considerable 
quantities of bone artifacts are mentioned from several other locations. 
When full reports appear on these excavations, there will doubtless 
be a number of additional occurrences for the “rasp.” It may be 
significant that the preliminary account of work at the prehistoric 
Mitchell Site, in Davison County, S. Dak., makes no mention of 
corrugated-paddle pottery or of scored bone artifacts (Meleen, 1938). 
Willoughby (Hooton and Willoughby, 1920, p. 62) describes a num- 
ber of scored animal ribs from the Madisonville, Ohio, Site. He, and 
later Griffin (1935), have termed these musical rasps—with good 
reason, so far as one may judge from the illustrated material. From 
the available sources it is not clear whether paddle-marked pottery 
comparable to that made by the historic plains tribes is also found at 
Fort Ancient sites. 
The association in the Nebraska-Kansas region of scored ribs with 
pottery bearing impressions from a parallel-ridged paddle seems too 
close to be accidental. Moreover, the apparent absence of any men- 
tion of sounding rasps among the historic aboriginal groups here makes 
some other explanation necessary for the rasplike objects. If they 
were indeed used as pottery stamps it is a little curious that so few 
implements of the kind, relatively speaking, have turned up. Perhaps 
some perishable substance, such as wood, was employed more commonly 
than bone. The suggestion by Smith and Strong of a thong wrapped 
about a stick or bone is also in order, for after a few years underground 
such a tool would leave no traces readily identified by the archeologist. 
Since several kinds of devices could have been used, it would probably 
be oversimplifying the problem to limit the technique to the use of a 
carved bone. Readily conceding this point, we venture only to suggest 
that the scored ribs, scapulae, and neural spines repeatedly found in 
protohistoric and historic sites in the central Great Plains may offer a 
partial explanation for the ridged or corrugated surfaces on pottery 
in the associated archeological horizons. 
