Researchers say the ongoing dig at the historic James Fort has revealed a large and important footprint of a 17th century church.
The lost 1608 church is where Pocahontas and John Rolfe were married. It also is where the first permanent English settlers in the New World worshipped.
Unlike many of the discoveries made by the Jamestown Rediscovery archaeological team since 1994, officials say this one is rewriting long-held views about the Virginia colonists.
Few patches of ground looked less promising when student archaeologists began probing the center of historic James Fort toward the end of their 2010 summer field school.
Scoured out by slaves for the construction of a Confederate earthwork, the wedge of land located near an early 20th-century statue of Capt. John Smith had lost as much as 5 feet of elevation compared to the original 1607 surface. Previous tests in this part of the site suggested the remaining soil was largely barren.
Within days, however, the students uncovered the deeply buried evidence of two postholes so large they were initially mistaken as cellars. Four other related postholes cropped up in the following weeks, partially revealing the lost 1608 church.
But not until the archaeologists returned for the 2012 season did they finally unearth the complete footprint of the place where the first permanent English settlers in the New World worshiped.
So substantial was the structure and its impact on the surrounding landscape that -- like many other discoveries made by the Jamestown Rediscovery team since 1994 -- it's rewriting long-held views about the Virginia colonists and life in their pioneering outpost.
"This was an enormous building -- just off the scale compared to anything else here. That's why it survived all the scouring that took place during the Civil War," says project director William M. Kelso, who will present a talk on the dig at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday at Colonial Williamsburg's DeWitt Wallace Decorative Arts Museum.
"And what that size tells us is how important religion was to a group of people who have traditionally been depicted as lazy, get-rich-quick ne'er-do-wells. This place was huge -- bigger than the church that replaced it -- and it would have taken a lot of resources to build it."
Though described by colonist William Strachey as "a pretty little chapel," the sprawling 1608 church -- at 24-by-64-feet in size -- clearly dominated the bustling village constructed inside the walls of the triangular 1.1-acre fort.
Supported by 14 unusually large and deeply buried posts, its tall gable roof reached high above the surrounding structures, Kelso says -- and helps explain why a James Fort map secretly sent to the King of Spain depicted the church as a landmark.
"Everyone has speculated that the big `X' in the middle of the fort marked the spot of the church," Kelso says.
"But not until now could we be certain that it did."
The settlement's armory and guardhouse 7/8 known as the "corps du garde" -- are among the other parts of the early fort landscape Kelso will explore in his talk.
Though relatively small in size, this recently completed excavation has uncovered the best-preserved building from the fort's earliest period, including rare surviving evidence of mud-and-stud walls and a metalworker's bellows as well as the signatures of every supporting post, an interior partition and three exterior doors.
Equally well-preserved is a bombproof structure constructed on top of the colonial outpost in 1861.
Excavated to mark the 150th anniversary of the Civil War, the squat subterranean earthwork incorporated robust supporting timbers and protective layers of sandbags as well as a wooden-plank floor, Kelso says.
It also was the site of numerous buried artifacts, including a collection of artillery shell fragments that may be linked to a September 1861 test of the armor designed for the famous ironclad warship CSS Virginia -- also known as the Merrimack.
Along with such objects as rifle platform spikes, uniform buttons and a piece of James Fort armor recovered by enslaved laborers during the Civil War, the fragments are being prepared for a new Jamestown Archaearium exhibit exploring the links between the English bastion and the Confederate earthwork built over its buried remains 254 years later.
"Fort Pocahontas saved James Fort," curator Bly Straube says, "and these objects help tie the two forts together."
Source: Associated Press [October 24, 2011]
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| The Jamestown excavation in front of the 1639 Church Tower [Credit: heritageedu] |
Unlike many of the discoveries made by the Jamestown Rediscovery archaeological team since 1994, officials say this one is rewriting long-held views about the Virginia colonists.
Few patches of ground looked less promising when student archaeologists began probing the center of historic James Fort toward the end of their 2010 summer field school.
Scoured out by slaves for the construction of a Confederate earthwork, the wedge of land located near an early 20th-century statue of Capt. John Smith had lost as much as 5 feet of elevation compared to the original 1607 surface. Previous tests in this part of the site suggested the remaining soil was largely barren.
Within days, however, the students uncovered the deeply buried evidence of two postholes so large they were initially mistaken as cellars. Four other related postholes cropped up in the following weeks, partially revealing the lost 1608 church.
But not until the archaeologists returned for the 2012 season did they finally unearth the complete footprint of the place where the first permanent English settlers in the New World worshiped.
So substantial was the structure and its impact on the surrounding landscape that -- like many other discoveries made by the Jamestown Rediscovery team since 1994 -- it's rewriting long-held views about the Virginia colonists and life in their pioneering outpost.
"This was an enormous building -- just off the scale compared to anything else here. That's why it survived all the scouring that took place during the Civil War," says project director William M. Kelso, who will present a talk on the dig at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday at Colonial Williamsburg's DeWitt Wallace Decorative Arts Museum.
"And what that size tells us is how important religion was to a group of people who have traditionally been depicted as lazy, get-rich-quick ne'er-do-wells. This place was huge -- bigger than the church that replaced it -- and it would have taken a lot of resources to build it."
Though described by colonist William Strachey as "a pretty little chapel," the sprawling 1608 church -- at 24-by-64-feet in size -- clearly dominated the bustling village constructed inside the walls of the triangular 1.1-acre fort.
Supported by 14 unusually large and deeply buried posts, its tall gable roof reached high above the surrounding structures, Kelso says -- and helps explain why a James Fort map secretly sent to the King of Spain depicted the church as a landmark.
"Everyone has speculated that the big `X' in the middle of the fort marked the spot of the church," Kelso says.
"But not until now could we be certain that it did."
The settlement's armory and guardhouse 7/8 known as the "corps du garde" -- are among the other parts of the early fort landscape Kelso will explore in his talk.
Though relatively small in size, this recently completed excavation has uncovered the best-preserved building from the fort's earliest period, including rare surviving evidence of mud-and-stud walls and a metalworker's bellows as well as the signatures of every supporting post, an interior partition and three exterior doors.
Equally well-preserved is a bombproof structure constructed on top of the colonial outpost in 1861.
Excavated to mark the 150th anniversary of the Civil War, the squat subterranean earthwork incorporated robust supporting timbers and protective layers of sandbags as well as a wooden-plank floor, Kelso says.
It also was the site of numerous buried artifacts, including a collection of artillery shell fragments that may be linked to a September 1861 test of the armor designed for the famous ironclad warship CSS Virginia -- also known as the Merrimack.
Along with such objects as rifle platform spikes, uniform buttons and a piece of James Fort armor recovered by enslaved laborers during the Civil War, the fragments are being prepared for a new Jamestown Archaearium exhibit exploring the links between the English bastion and the Confederate earthwork built over its buried remains 254 years later.
"Fort Pocahontas saved James Fort," curator Bly Straube says, "and these objects help tie the two forts together."
Source: Associated Press [October 24, 2011]