Clue 2: A very old friendship ring

"Look! Look!," shouted an excited field worker, leaping around like a gazelle at the Little Elk site and pointing to a ring on her finger. At first, archaeologist Doug Birk thought that the young woman, Blythe Williams, was showing off a new engagement ring. "Congratulations," he said. But the ring wasn't hers, and it was very old. Someone at the fur-trade fort some 250 years ago had dropped it or tossed it. Williams found it a few inches underground while excavating the site in 1984.

The ring shows two hands, a heart and a crown. It was a symbol of love and friendship. Blythe Williams is now a Duke University professor studying fossils, and she still says the ring is one of the neatest things she's ever found.

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