THE BEGINNINGS OF AMERICA

The Beginnings The Beginnings

OF AMERICA OF AMERICA

Archaeologists Luke Pecoraro (left) and Danny Schmidt work on a recently discovered well surrounded by a protective wooden barrier.

The investigation of Jamestown is attempting to tell the story not only of the first permanent English settlement in America, but ofthe genesis ofthe nation itself.

By Michael Bawaya

They’ve just discovered a feature,and the crew of seven is huddling over it,trying to identify it.“I don’t know what it is,” Bill Kelso said with mock exasperation,his hands thrown up in the air.He surmises that it could be a gun emplacement, a legacy of the Civil War;or it could be a well,a possible legacy of, and a critical piece of information about,the Jamestown settlement.

Jamestown is a famous,though often vaguely remembered place,a staple of history, but not archaeology, texts. But Kelso and his crew are changing that.He called Jamestown “America’s first gated community.” James Fort, its gate,as it were,was thought by most people to have washed away into the adjacent James River. It was the fort that lured archaeologist and historian Kelso to Jamestown.

The Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities (APVA),which owns 221/2 acres of the original site, conducted excavations at Jamestown around 1893.The National Park Service (NPS),which owns most of the island the site is on, excavated in the 1930s and 1950s.The NPS archaeologists uncovered features and artifacts that suggested evidence of the fort still existed.Thus, Kelso and a few other scholars were skeptical enough of the conventional wisdom of James Fort’s disappearance to put it to the test.In honor of Jamestown’s upcoming 400th anniversary in 2007,the APVA decided to conduct an archaeological investigation of the site. Kelso,who lobbied hard to get the job,was chosen to head it.

He was a one-man crew when he began excavating in 1994.That year Kelso discovered a trench that appeared to have once held upright,side-by-side logs.Additional discoveries were made,more staff members were hired,and by 1996, Kelso and his team had enough evidence to announce that James Fort had been found.On a sultry day last July,Kelso’s crew, which was bolstered by a summer field school,numbered 29.Over the years,the dig has gained momentum,and it now seems an archaeological endeavor commensurate with Jamestown’s exceptional place in American history. It’s known as the Jamestown Rediscovery™ project,and a press release by the APVA,who administers the project,boasts that it’s “considered by many experts to be the premiere archaeological dig in America.”

Compared to many excavations, Jamestown is an impressive operation Kelso oversees a staff of 11 full-time workers.“We have 371,000 artifacts catalogued,”he stated. “We find 200 to 300 a day.”Its sundry amenities include an on-site curation facility,a golf cart that transports people around the site,and a public relations person who chronicles the excavation’s many discoveries and disseminates them to the curious media.As a result,the excavation has received a considerable amount of press coverage and Kelso,a highly experienced archaeologist,appears to be as comfortable in the limelight as he is in a trench.Affable and articulate,he is clearly immersed in his subject.He puts in long hours—50 to 60 a week—“because I want to.”

Approximately 400,000 people visit the site annually and,with the idea of raising Jamestown’s high profile higher still, the APVA and the NPS recently branded the site “Historic Jamestowne.” Replete with a new icon—a 1607 English sixpence—the site is being marketed as “America’s birthplace.”

The Jamestown settlement was a commercial venture sponsored by the Virginia Company, a group of London businessmen,and supported by King James I.Three ships thought to be carrying 108 men and boys landed at Jamestown in May of 1607. Their mission was to gain a foothold in the New World, as well as to find gold, a route to the Indies,and the survivors of the Lost Colony, a failed set-

Some 400,000 artifacts have been found at Jamestown. (Far left) This brass thimble was discovered in the bulwark trench of James Fort. (Left) A group of brass doublet buttons and an iron ring thimble were found joined together in one of the site’s excavation pits. (Right) This ornate silver ear picker is fashioned in the form of a sea creature. A versatile tool, it was also used to scrape teeth clean and remove dirt from fingernails. (Far right) Here are three of the more than 300 17th-century brass straight pins that have been found.

Conservator Michael Lavin holds a bill (a military weapon attached to a shaft) and a gridiron that are concreted together. A piece of pottery is also attached. These items were found in the well and are kept wet to preserve them.

Lavin holds the lateral and medial quarters of a man’s bovine leather shoe. The leather heel and insole are also shown. Though nearly 400 years old, the leather survived because it was in a waterlogged context in the well.

tlement led by Sir Walter Raleigh that landed on North Carolina in 1587.Many of the settlers perished due to starvation,disease,and battles with the Indians;still, Jamestown persisted,becoming Virginia’s first colonial capital.

Shortly after arriving,having engaged in altercations with the Powhatan Indians,the colonists erected James Fort, and,within the fort,a church and several other buildings.In the 1890s,historian Alexander Brown published a sketch map of James Fort that he found in the archives of Spain that shows the only known plan of the fort.Historical documents describe the shape of the fort as triangular, stating that two of the walls were 300 feet long,and the third wall 420 feet.But the exact size and shape of the fort were unknown, as the size of its bulwarks were not described in detail.Historical documents also refer to a well within the fort,and last summer students participating in a field school sponsored by Anheuser-Busch Corp.,discovered it.

Given the information in the historical record, Kelso originally estimated James Fort encompassed about two acres.But as it’s believed that the well would have been dug near the center of the fort, and it was discovered where he thought the west palisade wall might be, Kelso now thinks the size of James Fort may be twice his earlier estimate.

The well,which the archaeologists think may date between 1609 and 1620, was found inside a circular builder’s trench that is approximately 12 feet in diameter. The shaft of the well is about 2 1/2 feet across.“You can see where the well bucket wore into the bricks on one side, evidently causing it to collapse,”Kelso said.Upon abandoning their wells,the colonists often used them as trash pits and eventually filled them in.

In October,a large pewter vessel was found in the well. Kelso said it is extremely uncommon to find pewter objects on Colonial sites because the metal usually disinte-

grates quickly in the earth.In this case,however, the moisture in the well apparently preserved it.“It was almost as if it was dropped (in the well) the day before,”he observed.

The shape and design of the vessel strongly resembles that of an English baluster wine measure in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London that dates to the second half of the 16th century. Such measures were used to provide standardized quantities of beer or wine.

Various other artifacts have been uncovered in the well,including an intact iron breastplate and at least two other breastplates concreted together by rust,as well as other pieces of armor including a sword,two gorgets,and tasset lames (thigh protectors).Two other objects—one heavy and oblong, the other long and cylindrical— proved to be a wheelwright’s auger and a gun barrel.

Scrap copper, lead shot,and a crucible with copper residue suggest attempts at industry, while deer and fish bones and other food debris are indicative of the colonists’diet.The trench surrounding the well has yielded slag from blacksmithing,glass trade beads,lead shot,Indian pottery, case bottle glass,and English and locally made tobacco pipe pieces.

The well’s soil is being wet screened to isolate organic materials such as seeds and pollen.Analysis of these materials can provide information about the environment the colonists lived in,their diet, and even the diseases they may have been exposed to.

Around the time the well was discovered,the archaeologists discovered the remains of an approximately 36foot-by-16-foot building near the east palisade wall.This building resembles two others found in the southeast corner of the fort.Kelso called the find “very significant”because it reconfirms that they have identified the eastern triangular section of the fort. He added that “we’re beginning to see a pattern in the design and architecture of the interior of the fort.”

The Jamestown Rediscovery project has grand ambitions.It endeavors to gain insight into some of the processes by which American society began.It seeks to accomplish this by answering two questions:What defined the Old and New World material culture at the beginning of colonization? What does Jamestown’s archaeological record say about how these material cultures evolved into a distinctly American culture?

To answer the first question, research must be conducted in Old World documents and the artifacts and buildings of post-medieval Western Europe,early American documentary sources,the archaeological record of the late

Bill Kelso confers with archaeologist Tonia Deetz Rock (middle), and a field school student as they uncover evidence of a large fort period interior building parallel to James Fort’s east palisade wall. A similar building was found parallel to the south palisade wall. The two buildings suggest a pattern in the architecture of the fort.

This map shows the Jamestown Rediscovery site. The broken yellow line shows the projected outline of James Fort. Excavated areas and features include: 1. Site of early 17th-century well and Confederate magazine 2. Projected north bulwark area 3. Rectangular building parallel to the east palisade 4. Jamestown Memorial Church 5. Demilune trench outside the southeast bulwark 6. South palisade wall, pit one, the first pit excavated at the fort, and an interior building 7. Outbuilding Structure 165 with cellar room 8. John Smith statue 9. Confederate earthworks

Woodland Native American period,and the archaeology and history of Jamestown.The second question demands a complete archaeological picture of Jamestown,including its evolution throughout the 17th century, and an examination of the related archaeological and historical records in light of the archaeological discoveries at Jamestown.

Consequently, in addition to archaeologists, Kelso calls upon a variety of experts knowledgeable in the social, military, architectural,and economic activities of England, Spain, France,Germany, and the Netherlands in the 16th and 17th centuries.

During the oppressive heat of summer Bly Straube, Jamestown’s curator, has the good fortune of working in an air-conditioned building that houses the site’s artifacts—the various and sundry objects that rank as one of the largest early American Colonial collections in the world.While most of the crew wears jeans or shorts and tshirts,she is neatly turned out in a colorful sundress. Straube has more than 25 years of experience in historical archaeology;her knowledge of the Jamestown period is such that a crew member can bring her a just-discovered artifact and odds are she can identify it in a glance.If not, she can consult a number of people in Western Europe and the U.S.who are experts in the ceramics,coins,glassware,metals, even the buttons of that time.

There was a time,earlier in her career, when such comparative studies were much more difficult.“There weren’t many people to share the information with,” according to Straube,because the English yawned at the thought of post-medieval archaeology. But times have indeed changed.She now travels once a year to Europe to conduct research, and she is in frequent contact with various curators,particularly those at the Museum of London.

In assembly line-like fashion,artifacts are dug up, screened, cleaned, bagged,and delivered to Straube,who then catalogues them.“I’m in the fortunate position of having seen every artifact from this site,” she stated.That day she was supervising four field school students who were washing artifacts—at the rate of 300 to 400 a day— to prepare them for analysis.

The site’s myriad artifacts are stored in this building, which the crew calls the Vault.The Vault was built on high ground to avoid flooding, and its bulletproof glass windows come courtesy of best-selling crime novelist and Jamestown benefactress Patricia Cornwell. Metal artifacts, such as armor,are kept in a climate-controlled room in which the humidity is maintained at 20 percent to prevent rusting.

Prior to becoming the curator for Jamestown Rediscovery, Straube was hired by the NPS in 1990 to catalogue the artifacts that were recovered during their earlier excavations.She,concluded,due to characteristics she discerned,that a large number of artifacts excavated by the NPS in the 1950s were from the early 17th century and military in nature.Her analysis and a reassessment of the

field notes was one of the reasons that the APVA and Kelso were convinced that the fort might still exist.“I was able to identify pieces that were put down as miscellaneous or unidentifiable,” Straube said, referring to the earlier analysis of the artifacts. Numerous 17th-century sites have been excavated since the NPS investigations,and as a result experts are more knowledgeable about the types of artifacts that are often found at these sites.“We’re not looking at Jamestown in a vacuum,” she noted.“We’re looking at other 17th-century sites in the area.”

In fact,the archaeological data from Jamestown will eventually be compared with that from 23 other 17th-century sites in the Chesapeake Bay region in a comprehensive Geographical Identification System (GIS) under development by the APVA.It’s expected that this nascent program will be fully operational by 2006.Come that time,any and all Jamestown artifacts and features can be analyzed within the broader context of these related sites and historical documents through “Virtual Jamestown,”a joint Web venture of the APVA,the Colonial National Historical Park,Virginia Tech, and the University of Virginia’s Center for Digital History.

Dave Givens wears two hats:APVA archaeologist and digital archivist.“Everything about Jamestown is recorded and brought into this GIS program,” he explained.Givens was working at one of the site’s several excavation areas, but he was operating a laptop,not a shovel.“As Bill (Kelso) always says, we want to compare apples to apples.We want to compare wells to wells and ditches to ditches,”he remarked. Before too long,Givens and his colleagues will be able to do that very thing instantaneously.

Givens,who picked up his computer skills over the years, spends about 80 percent of his time maintaining the digital archives.“I could probably go to work for a computer firm and make $80,000 a year,” he said, “but that wouldn’t get me out of bed in he morning.”

Suffering and death marked the Jamestown experience.This was especially the case during the winter of 1609-1610,now referred to as the Starving Time.It’s believed that of the 215 people who resided at James Fort that winter, only 60 survived.During their 1950s’ excavation, the NPS archaeologists discovered a graveyard,under the foundation of the remains of the last statehouse at Jamestown.Kelso’s crew excavated 75 interments.The graves had no headstones,and they could have been dug anytime between 1607,when the colonists arrived,and 1662,when historical documents say the building was erected on the site. Few artifacts have been found in association with the graves,but those that have indicate the graveyard was in use between roughly 1610 and 1630.In addition to starvation brought on by a severe drought,it’s suspected that disease,saltwater poisoning,civil unrest, and Indian warfare contributed to the death toll,which was considerable even after the Starving Time.“I don’t think, in any case, we’re dealing with a simple famine,” said archaeologist Jamie May, who supervised the excavation.

Before too long the speculation could give way to scientific conclusions.Ashley McKeown,a forensic anthropologist hired by the APVA,is analyzing the skeletal remains from the excavated interments.She is working under the direction of Douglas Owsley, a well-known forensic osteologist with the Smithsonian Institution.If all goes well,the results of this and other forms of testing could recall,in amazing detail,life at Jamestown.

“We have a good representation of all age groups,”

(Top) Archaeologist Eric Deetz carefully excavates a complete 16th-century breastplate from a dry moat. The recovered breastplate is shown above.

Researchers work near Jamestown’s 17th-century church tower.

This German stoneware jug was made in the early 17th century. It was found in the first pit excavated in the fort. McKeown stated, ranging from infants to adults.Some of the burials were interred with care,others were not. “There are times of stress represented,and times that weren’t so stressful,” she said.In some cases heads and legs were bent because the grave shafts weren’t long enough.Some graves had several remains that were buried simultaneously. There were also instances in which the colonists dug graves through existing graves.

The skeletal analysis is revealing information such as sex, age,ancestry, and size as well as any trauma and pathology that afflicted the individual.This research, which has been taking place for almost a year,will be supplemented by DNA testing and stable isotope analysis.

Carbon 13 is the stable isotope that will be analyzed. “Carbon 13 can help us identify diet and what kind of plants were consumed by the individual,” said McKeown. If the individual showed evidence of Old World plants like oats, rye,and barley, the assumption is that he/she was not long at Jamestown before dying.Evidence of New World foods such as maize suggests the opposite.“The (results) we get from the skeleton reflect the last 10 or 15 years of their lives,”McKeown added.That’s because bones are constantly being regenerated as old cells are replaced by new ones.

The DNA testing is something of a gamble.If successful,it could reveal bubonic plague,tuberculosis,and malaria—all possible causes of death at that time and place—and thereby explain why Jamestown’s mortality rates were so high. If unsuccessful,it will yield little,if any, information. Reasonably well-preserved bone samples are crucial to obtaining valid results,and the deteriorated condition of the remains could present a problem.

This exhibit, called Puzzling The Pieces, features a resin casting of the skeleton of a man who was murdered or accidentally shot at the fort. Through an interactive video exhibit, visitors can find out who he was, where he came from, his age, and how he died. Other hands-on exhibits about the archaeological discoveries and historical research are planned for the future.

“We’re coming up with a story of great hardship. We’re coming up with a story of hard work,” said Kelso.He sat at an oval conference table in his large, handsome office in the Rediscovery Center,a renovated 1907 building. A picture of Captain John Smith,the leader of the colonists, rests on the mantle of the fireplace. A rifle from the Jamestown era,called a matchlock, hangs over the fireplace.“Pretty scary to shoot,” he remarked.

“Most historians say the colony failed because the Virginia Company failed and the Crown had to take it over,” Kelso explained.“It’s not a fair account.” History has it that the British “sent the worst people over here and they didn’t try.” Consequently, the colony failed and America was born in 1620 when the pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock in Massachusetts.But the archaeological evidence has shown that some of the colonists were anything but indolent.“Metallurgy, glass making,trade,”Kelso ticked off a few of their enterprises.They also felled trees to ship timber back to England,where it was desperately needed, and they grew tobacco,thereby making some, though not enough,money for the Virginia Company.“The magnitude of the artifact collection,some 400,000 objects,tells you the magnitude of the effort of the colonists,” said Kelso.

“It was successful in that the institutions that were begun here live on today,”he said,referring to free enterprise and representative government. Jamestown also endured to become the first permanent English settlement in America.”

The Jamestown Rediscovery Project may continue for years to come.There is still plenty of work to be done.The archaeologists are searching for evidence of the west wall of the fort as well as Jamestown’s original church. (There’s a 17-century church tower on the site,but it’s not part of the original church.) There is also the issue of getting the site ready for Jamestown’s 400th anniversary in 2007, which will be commemorated with various festivities. Though several years off, the anniversary is clearly on the minds of Kelso and his crew.“There’s pressure to make sure we don’t have too much opened and unexplored,” Kelso admitted.Raising money to fund the project is another challenge,and he pitches in by making speeches and giving tours to donors.

Kelso recalled that,as he was about to begin the excavations back in 1994,one of his heroes,the NPS archaeologist John Cotter,gave a lecture on Jamestown.Cotter, who conducted the 1950s’dig,informed Kelso that he was wasting his time looking for the fort.There are other skeptics who believe that the archaeology of this period is an exercise in dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s of history. Kelso adamantly disagreed.“I don’t think it’s presumptuous or grandiose to say we’re trying to understand what it means to become American.”