This reconstructed bone grassing needle was used in the construction of a grass lodge. It was recovered from a archeological site in Rice County during the 1981 Kansas Archeology Training Program field school. Bundles of long prairie grass were connected with strong cordage using these needles that were blunt on one end and with a drilled hole at the other end. A small trace of the drilled hole remains on this needle. The site was a small Great Bend aspect, Little River focus grass-covered pit house that included an entryway, storage pits, post molds and a hearth. The people that inhabited Great Bend aspect sites are ancestral to the Wichita and Affiliated Tribes.

Date: 1450-1700 CE