A bowed dulcimer? Hmmm... There are more likely contenders in the Icelandic bowed zithers like the Fidla and Langspil - especially the latter which is a more obvious member of the family of European zithers from which the dulcimer derives (hummel, citera, langeliek, Epinete des Vogues etc.).

Otto Anderson's study of The Bowed Harp (more strictly lyre) is still worth a look, taking in the crwth, talharps and jouhikkos that are currently enjoying revival, but there's nothing here that prefigures the BP which is a modern invention derived from the Germanic violin-zither, itself an adaptation of the concert-zither ultimately (I suppose) derived from the hummel / Schiethold family of instruments from which we get the Appalachian dulcimer, early pre-folk examples of which are more hummel-like in appearance.   

There's no bowing of open strings in the west until recent times so I'd say the Ajaeng belongs to a very different & ancient evolutionary trajectory though it is interesting to note that iconographical evidence suggests that the first bowed instruments in the west were lyres rather than lutes, one theory being that the bow evolves from the increasing long wooden plectra that lyre players were using to strum their instruments from ancient times such as can be seen on the famous Semitic Lyre painted on the tomb of Khnumhotpe III (12th Dynasty) which bears an uncanny if entirely coincidental resemblance to a crwth. Nice to see latter-day lyre revivalists getting more into strumming than plucking!

What's the Schneeman's quote? I seem to have unwittingly paraphrased something.