Ground-Truthing History at Jamestown.
The article is devoted to the author’s dialogue with the scientist Kelso about the interesting finds found at the altar of the ancient church. But his legacy is already over. As they talked, they were surrounded by evidence of the first permanent British colony in America, up to the partial reconstruction of the remains of the first church building built on the site where Pocahontas and John Rolfe exchanged marriage vows in 1614. Since Kelso began excavations, more than two million artifacts have accumulated. Most of them are closed to the public, but over 4,000 of them can be seen at the Archeryum Museum, just a few steps from where we stood. Speak.
Cotter, John L., and Edward B. Jelks. “Historic Site Archaeology at Jamestown.” American Antiquity, vol. 22, no. 4, 1957, pp. 387–389., doi:10.2307/276138.
Jamestown, the first permanent British settlement in the New World, provides an interesting example of the use of archaeological methods to infuse abstract and theoretical bones with actual flesh. land holdings and buildings. Clues to settlers and daily habits demonstrated by tools and implements.
A Jamestown Skeleton is Unearthed, but Only Time—and Science—Will Reveal His True Identity.
Archaeologists at Jamestown Rediscovery have used new technology to uncover the bones of one of the first British settlers. Rediscovery scientists have found new evidence in the ruins of a church in Jamestown, Virginia, including a skeletal skull and teeth that may belong to Sir George Yeardley. Colonial Governor Yeardley, who presided over the first convention of delegates in the Western Hemisphere, was also one of America’s first slave owners. The Congress, which met in 1619, was an important step in the beginning of a new era of colonial rule, but it took decades for modern democracy to be established in the region. However, many scholars praise Yeardley for his role in advocating citizen participation in their own government.
Yardley died at Jamestown in 1627 at the age of 39, and his death may have been marked by a grand memorial service. Scientists have been excavating Jamestown since 1994. Jamestown was the first permanent English settlement in North America, where three ships docked for the first time in April 1607. The Jamestown Rediscovery Project, pioneered by archaeologist Bill Kelso, has already unearthed two million artifacts. This is an increasingly complex portrait of this cornerstone of American history, but this early American discovery may be its most groundbreaking.
Archaeologists have found the remains of one of Jamestown’s early settlers. Now they have to prove he is who they think he is.
A team of archaeologists from Jamestown Rediscovery, with the help of experts from the Smithsonian Institution, are gradually discovering skeletons that were buried in a prominent place in one of the local churches. Excavations are ongoing in the stuffy interior of a much later church on the same site. Archaeologists work in special isolation tents built around the tombs, dressed from head to toe in laboratory clothes. Working in shifts using dental tools, small trowels and brushes, the last few inches of soil on the skeleton were removed on Saturday and mostly covered by Monday. Located 150 miles from the James River, this ghostly site was the first British settlement in the US and contains underground graves of hundreds of early settlers.
King, Julia A. “Ruins of Jamestown.” Buildings & Landscapes: Journal of the Vernacular Architecture Forum, vol. 26 no. 1, 2019, p. 11-31. Project MUSE.
The ruins and relics of Jamestown, the original settlement (1607) and capital of the Virginia colony, were a key element in the redevelopment of Old Town as a historic landscape beginning in the early 19th century. Visitors headed to Jamestown to see, touch, and sometimes even steal the ruins, telling the story of Jamestown as the birthplace of the United States. This article explores this story, or founding myth, and the role that the landscape of Jamestown played in creating this story. Race is at the heart of Jamestown’s mythology, from the first encounters of settlers in the home territory to the arrival of the first enslaved Africans in 1619, and how these events are celebrated. Of the many ruins, relics, and artefacts associated with Jamestown, four in particular (the church tower, the 1608 fort, the gunpowder store, and the ruins of the State Capitol) either appear in the memorial report or are mentioned most consistently. These features are signs and symbols of the colonial project, the material reality of which confirms the veracity of the history of the founding of Jamestown.