These drills were recovered from the Albert Bell site during an excavation in 1990 by Kansas Historical Society Archeologists and volunteers at the Kansas Archeological Training Program field school. Drills were used to bore holes in softer materials than the drill itself, such as hides, shell, wood, or soft stone. The site, in Sheridan County, is an Upper Republican phase Middle Ceramic period house site with a radiocarbon date of 710 +/- 60 years CE.