STANTON, N.D. (AP) -- Researchers say they have found what might be the only pottery firing pit ever discovered along the Missouri River.
Tests must confirm what archaeologists suspect after investigating the remains of a 500-year-old fire pit that was revealed by flooding on the Knife River last year.
Archaeologists and students from the University of North Dakota and the Midwest Archaeological Center in Nebraska looked into the site. They say that rather than a simple ancient fire hearth, the blackened layer could be where women dug out an area to build a hot fire to be used to harden pottery.
Kacy Hollenback, a doctoral degree student from the University of Arizona who came to the site, says further analysis will be done on the pottery and fire remains to see if the researchers' theory is correct.
