108 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL. 185 
fully retouched edge. It may be a blade fragment or a simple flake 
tool. 
Thirteen unpatinated flakes came from the site. Four of these have 
an uneven use-retouch on one or more edges. 
Other stone objects.—T wo slabs of micaceous schist came from Fea- 
ture 8. The largest measures 18.2 cm. in length, 9.0 cm. in width 
and 3.1 cm. in maximum thickness. The smaller specimen has a 
length of 17.6 cm., is 7.0 cm. wide, with a maximum thickness of 
3.1 cm. These slabs have been split from the parent bed in such 
manner as to produce a wedge-shaped cross section, and the thin edge 
of each is somewhat worn and polished. It is impossible to determine 
definitely whether this appearance is due to weathering or to the use 
of the objects as tools. Conceivably they could have served as 
scrapers in the preparation of large skins for tanning, and I suspect 
that they were so used. Analogous objects were found in the course of 
very limited tests which were made in the site of the winter village 
from which the Arikara moved to Star Village. If these objects 
functioned as scrapers they furnish an interesting parallel to the large, 
roughly fashioned quartzite side-scrapers used by the Pawnee until 
the very end of the buffalo hunting period. 
In addition to the foregoing material, 21 stones or stone fragments 
were found in the excavations at the site, but there is little or no sign 
that they were used in any way. Two large pebbles are highly 
polished and may have served as pottery smoothers. There is much 
more indication that a piece of fine-grained sandstone had functioned 
asa whetstone. Three rough fragments of granite possibly represent 
the raw material from which pottery tempering was prepared by 
burning and pounding. A hemispherical iron concretion came from 
Feature 8. The rounding face is well polished, but there is no reason 
to suppose that the polish is due to other than natural causes. 
WORKED BONE 
Very little bone, either as food scrap or worked into tools, came from 
the site. Only one piece was altered otherwise than by the cutting or 
breaking incident to butchering and food preparation. 
Hide tanner or grainer—F rom Feature 3 came an object made by 
cutting or breaking the proximal end from a bison femur (pl. 13, @). 
The outer shell of bone has been trimmed away on the sides in order 
that the cancellous inner portion thus exposed could be used as an 
abrader in the preparation of robes. These objects have a wide dis- 
tribution on the Plains at the historic and early contact levels but are 
rare or absent in the earlier levels. Wedel has reported them from 
historic Pawnee sites and suggested that they were used for working 
brains and other substances into the fresh skins (Wedel, 1936, p. 83). 
They were also found at the excavation of Like-a-Fishhook Village 
