text: What was known as Double Ditch Village was located on the east bank of the Missouri River, north of where present-day Bismarck developed. It was occupied by the Rupture Mandan for nearly 300 years. Today the site has depressions that are evidence of their lodges and smaller ones where they created cache pits to store dehydrated corn. The name comes from two defensive trenches built outside the area of the lodges. Construction of the fortifications here and at other locations along the Missouri has been found to have correlated to periods of drought, when peoples would have raided each other for food.
  At some point during this time, the Hidatsa people also moved into the region. They also spoke a Siouan language. Mandan tradition states that the Hidatsa were a nomadic tribe until their encounter with the Mandan, who taught them to build stationary villages and cultivate agriculture. The Hidatsa continued to maintain amicable relations with the Mandan and constructed villages north of them on the Knife River.
  Later the Pawnee and Arikara moved from the Republican River north along the Missouri River. They were Caddoan language speakers, and the Arikara were often early competitors with the Mandan, although both were horticulturalists. They built a settlement known as Crow Creek village on a bluff above the Missouri. The modern town of Chamberlain, South Dakota developed about eleven miles south of here.