pS.'r^.'Iff' HOSTERMAN SITE — MILLER 215 



the opposite side. The cancellous tissue is still in evidence. Lengths 

 of these four flakers are 72 mm., 64 mm., 50 mm., and 32 mm. 



Needlelike tool. — A very thin sliver of bone was converted into what 

 appears to have been a needle. It is incomplete in that the butt, or 

 eye, portion is missing. This object is 75.5 mm. in length and at the 

 broken base it measures less than 2 mm. in diameter. Needles of this 

 sort have not been described from sites in the Plains of South Dakota. 

 Whether this is an intrusive tool from North Dakota or out of Minne- 

 sota cannot be determined. 



Shaft wrenches. — Shaft wrenches of various lengths were made from 

 sections of bison rib bones. Most of them have but a single hole, and 

 these tend to be oval in shape with the sides beveled from use. Ap- 

 parently the wrench was held at a slight angle to the shaft in the 

 straightening process. In one the hole is beveled in three directions. 

 This is not the rule but an exception. Some of the rib bones are 

 highly polished. Very few were complete, for most of them had been 

 broken and apparently discarded by their owners. This fracture 

 tendency is at right angles across the hole dividing it in half. 



An incomplete wrench was attempted. On one flat surface of a 

 rib fragment there appears a conical pit 3 mm. in depth and 8 mm. 

 across the top that had penetrated the cortical bone and started into 

 the cancellous portion of the core. Drilling was attempted only on 

 one side. There was no evidence that any attempt was made to drill 

 from the opposite side to meet this section of the perforation. 



Knife handles. — Knife handles were made from segments of bison 

 ribs. These were grooved along one edge sufficiently deep to allow 

 for the insertion of a stone knife blade. A complete knife was re- 

 covered from a shallow cache pit beneath the floor of Feature 22, a 

 circular house (pi. 36, B). Other handles and blades were found 

 unjoined. 



Hide grainers. — Sections of bison humeri and femurs were sectioned 

 so that a wide expanse of cancellous tissue was exposed. Four speci- 

 mens were recovered from the Hosterman site. These were used 

 during the process of dressing down hides into usable pelts. 



Notched ribs. — Two fragmentary ribs have opposing notches at the 

 ends at right angles to the long axis. These were meant to receive 

 either string or gut attachments. Not having heard that any of the 

 Plains Indians ever made use of a bullroarer, it is suggested that 

 these two objects could easily have functioned along this line. This 

 could have been some boy's toy. 



Out ribs. — Numerous sections of ribs were recovered that were un- 

 doubtedly either unfinished and broken artifacts or rejects. Some 

 had acquired a high polish. 



Punches. — In Lehmer's definition (1954, p. 66) he describes his 

 Group 1 type as : "Irregular plates split from bison or elk ribs, can- 



