A salvage excavation was conducted at the Shrope site in Cowley County by Kansas Historical Society archeologists and crew in 1995. The shell bead shown here, and numerous artifacts, were recovered from deep within a bell-shaped pit. The mussel shell is delicate and great care must have been taken to create the oval hole and shape the bead. The bone bead was found at shallower depths in a different pit. Both ends of a bird bone have been scored, snapped and smoothed to create the bead. The Shrope site was a large Great Bend aspect (ancestral Wichita) village. Forty-one archeological features, such as storage pits, hearths, and post molds, were uncovered at the site.